While in London for the first few days (Saturday thru Monday), we stayed at the Marriott near Heathrow Airport. It was, of course, a very nice hotel, although the bathroom sinks were a bit odd. There was a large basin with two faucets (a scalding hot water tap and a freezing cold water tap) so if you wanted warm water, you had to fill up the sink. The electric outlets are of course different than the U.S. We had an adapter for charging phones and kindle, but whenever we tried to charge the Kindle, it would start to overheat within a few minutes and smoke. If we sat and fanned the adapter, then we could stretch the charging time to 10 minutes before it started overheating. Every 10 minutes of charging gave us another 3% of battery life so it was somewhat tedious to charge the Kindle in order to use it. Jonny had left his laptop in Salisbury when he came to pick me up in London where we stayed for a few days. It acted as a good buffer for charging the Kindle and allowed us to check email daily throughout the week.
Finding free wi-fi anywhere in England was a very rare thing. There was also a cost for using public bathrooms so I just held it all day long just like the days when I worked 13 hour shifts at the hospital and there wasn't time. Much of tourist London is well-maintained and clean. We did venture out a little further looking for a mall of sorts in order to bypass the more expensive tourist shops for less expensive shops. We found ourselves in a much older part of town where there was a soup kitchen outside of a strip mall. Several likely homeless people. We were asked about our interest in buying drugs while we were there. We didn't stay long. While we were there, we did find a 1 pound store (like a dollar store) and bought Darren a new shirt for church and some British candy. We also found a store where we bought some soccer gear and t-shirts for the rest of the kids.
We visited the Imperial War Museum, ate British hot dogs from a street fair (mine was made of lamb, Jonny's was made of venison) on a large roll with bacon, pesto and I forget what else but they were delicious. We rode the train all over. Their rail system is extensive and very user-friendly. As we rode the train and looked out the window, the rooftops reminded us of Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke singing about the rooftops of London with their pipe-shaped chimney flues. I enjoyed listening to other's conversations (shameful I know!) but I tried not to stare. It amazed me how many women were wearing mini-skirts and nylons when it was so cold outside!
We also walked through the Victoria and Albert Museum and enjoyed looking at all of the clothing and items of daily living from over the centuries. We walked through Hyde Park. I was disappointed to not see any carriages but I guess you have to come during summer or tourist season for those. We walked over London Bridge and around the tower of London. We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. As the sun was setting in London around 4pm, we headed back to the Marriot on the bus, climbed into our BMW and Jonny drove us to Salisbury for the next few days.
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