The kids and Ruben arrived today, but more about that in a moment.
We started the day the usual way: waking up. We did actually get dressed for running AND find the footpath in question. We started to run down the path only to find...
THE PATH WAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
That's right. Not 1/4 mile down the path, across the next main street, the path was closed for probably 100 feet, and under construction with no way around it.
So we decided to run down the road to Dover and back. It was a busy noisy road, but I managed to get in almost 3 miles of running.
After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and did two more loads of laundry. We were on the road at 11am with delicious warm scones from the Mermaid Tea House. I also bought a flapjack which is like a thick, slightly sweet oatmeal bar. It was very tastey.
| We had an uneventful drive back (a small bit of traffic) and Michelle managed to return the car completely unharmed. During the drive I kept wondering where Ruben and the kids were. I even got a phone call from my mother who was up in the middle of the night wondering the same thing. I tried calling Ruben's phone a number of times, but it wouldn't connect (It turns out his "international dialing" option had somehow been turned off, a later phone call to Cingular rectified the situation). Matthew finally called from the hotel when we were trying to find the rental car return place at Heathrow. It turns out that their flight from Seattle to Amsterdam had almost run out of fuel - Hot weather and less tail winds than they expected and they had to land in Scotland for about an hour. They did make their connecting flight to Heathrow, but just barely, so their bags didn't make it on the plane. That was nice for them - they didn't have to lug their bags to the hotel! (Click on the picture to the left to see more from their travels) |
We, on the other hand, had to lug our bags onto the Enterprise rental shuttle, TO the airport terminal, through the terminal to the Heathrow Express. We took that directly to Paddington Station, which was maybe 1/2 a mile from the Hotel Averard.. Unfortunately we got a little lost trying to find the hotel.
Our first impression of the hotel wasn't so great. All of the other buildings around it look like they have a fresh coat of paint, and the paint on this hotel is peeling. The interior is a weird mess of twisty windy stairs, elevators, and fire doors - and it took me until that evening to figure out the best way to get from our room to the kids' room (the kids were in a different room downstairs, but it was easy enought to call between the rooms). The decor is a old and gaudy, but it was fairly clean and the people there were courteous. The other plusses are that the hotel is located just on the north end of Hyde Park, close to a tube station (the Lancaster Station, which was unfortunately closed while we were there), the neighborhood feels pretty safe and it's relatively inexpensive. All in all the place grew on me, but I wouldn't stay there again.
Once we all had checked in and cleaned up, we took a walk through Hyde Park. Matthew was exhausted and had napped only an hour or two in the hotel. He was groggy until after dinner. Elias was full of energy and with no fear climbed to the top of the Peter Pan sculpture! We also saw the Princess Diana memorial, which I thought was perfectly fitting for her. Elias loved it, although the water was cold.We walked clear across the park, and saw the Albert Memorial from afar. Kate and Michelle shopped at Harrods while the rest of us found a tiny downstairs (not very good) Italian restaurant and had some supper. Elias ordered and didn't eat. I chalked it up to jet lag. Little did I know.
After dinner we took the tube (including a change) to St. Pauls and the Courts. Michelle wanted some pictures by the Old Bailey. Elias wasn't feeling too good, so Ruben took him back to the hotel early. Kate left with him to meet up with her Keane friends. Michelle, Matthew and I poked around that section of town for a while, then took the tube back, getting off at Marble Arch instead of Queensway. Turns out Queensway is closer. We had a long walk back to the hotel. Ruben unfortunately had done the same thing but with Elias and his backpack on his back... Click on the picture below to see our photos from London
