London with Oscar

I took Oscar to London last week for four days and three nights.  The trip report is divided into sections.  Most of the photos have captions over at Picasa (see links to Picasa albums at the bottom of the post).  Picasa also has some photos that don't appear below.

I. Planning the trip
The airplane tickets
I got cheap tickets on budget airline RyanAir.  RyanAir is cheap but there are lots of hassles -- they have lots of fees, they try to sell lots of "extras", they fly out of a small regional airport about an hour from our house (Frankfurt Hahn is a former US Air Force base that was converted into a commercial airport in 1993), checking even one bag costs money (the price varies based on how much it weighs and when you are traveling), and carry-on baggage is limited to one per passenger.  Carry-on bags must also weigh less than 10kg (22 pounds) and have maximum dimensions less than 55cm x 40cm x 20cm.  Finally, handbags, briefcases, laptops, shop purchases, and cameras must be carried within the permitted piece of cabin baggage.  I bought the tickets with a pre-paid Mastercard from Wirecard to avoid paying the ridiculous 6€ per-person, per-flight administration fee.

My first experience with RyanAir was not bad at all.  If you know the rules, are willing to travel light, and can deal with the hassle of flying in and out of smaller airports that can be up to an hour away from the places you want to visit, RyanAir can be a cheap way to travel throughout Europe.  When comparing costs, remember to factor in the cost of getting to and from Hahn airport, parking at the airport (3,50€ per day at Hahn's P4 lot; 5,50€ per day at P3 if P4 is full), and getting from the regional airport on the other end to the place you actually want to visit.  We parked for four days (14€) and spent 22£ on a bus service that drove the one-hour route from Stansted Airport to and from Liverpool Street Station in the center of London.

Books
I got Rick Steves' London 2011, Frommer's London with Kids and a few other London travel books from the library at the local army base.

II. Day One
Getting to the airport (we almost missed the flight!)
The flight to London left at 6:30AM so I got up at 3:00 and we were out the door at 3:30.  We would have arrived at the airport at 4:30 if the exit to get onto the A61 (Autobahn) had not been completely closed in both directions with no indication of what to do for a detour.  There were several other cars pulled over on the side of the road wondering how they were going to get to the airport.  The GPS was no help -- it kept telling me to make a U-turn.  I drove around for about 30 minutes wondering what to do and hoping the GPS would pick a different route.  That didn't work out so I called my co-worker Jamie and he sat on Google Maps for about 45 minutes at 4-something in the morning to help me navigate the smaller roads that led to the airport.  Along the way, we passed two other entrances for A61 and both of them were closed too.  Hopefully there were not any speed cameras on these small roads -- I was driving well in excess of the posted speed limits.

We finally got to the airport at 5:20.  We still had to park, wait for the shuttle bus to take us to the terminal, wait in line to get the passports examined, and wait in a different line to get through security.  We made it to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare and were one of the last people to board the plane.  In hindsight, putting the GPS in "Avoid Highways" mode probably would have saved Jamie from an early wake up call but I didn't think of that until somebody at the airport told me that this was how he made it there.  I found out later that a tractor trailer truck carrying dead pigs had jackknifed on the freeway and spilled its contents all over the road.  A local newspaper had a photo of the cleanup.

The hotel

The airport shuttle bus dropped us off just around the corner from the hotel a little after 9AM local time.  We stayed at the Andaz Liverpool Street; this relatively new brand of hotel from Hyatt describes its properties as "upscale [read: expensive], boutique-inspired lifestyle properties that distill the best of their locale."  We stayed for free because I paid with 54,000 Hyatt points.  The room was not ready when we arrived (I had not expected it to be) so we dropped our bags with the staff at the front desk and headed for the city.

The Underground

The London subway system was easy to navigate and very crowded at times.  The Liverpool Street Station (one of the stations targeted during the 2005 bombings) was a three minute walk from our hotel.  The price for a day pass is cheaper after 9:30 in the morning so we got to sleep in during our trip.

Science Museum

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we rode the train to the Science Museum.  We had lunch shortly after arriving and then spent several hours with the exhibits.

The Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum is next door to the Science Museum.  We stopped for a banana as we walked between buildings.  We stayed only briefly because the dinosaur exhibits were closed.

Hyde Park / Kensington Gardens

Next we walked from the Natural History Museum to Hyde Park.  We crossed into Kensington Gardens (contiguous with Hyde Park although technically separate) and Oscar played at the Diana, Princess of Wales' Memorial Playground.

Back at the hotel

It was late afternoon when we left Hyde Park.  We had been up since 3AM and were ready to call it a day.  We rode the train back to the hotel where the room was ready.  The staff said the bags had already been delivered to the room.  We got to the room but only one of the bags was there.  The missing bag was the one with the passports.  I called to explain the problem.  The staff spent 20 minutes looking for my bag and then brought up a bag that wasn't mine.  In the end, I had to go down to the hold baggage room to identify my bag.  They had tied it to somebody else's bag with a piece of string.  They offered a bottle of wine for the inconvenience; I declined.

III. Day Two

Walking Tour

Rick Steves' book says the Blue Badge walking tour is better than the more popular Royal London Free Tour (which is not really free) so Oscar and I spent the morning on the Blue Badge tour.  Oscar hated the tour and complained that it was just "walking and looking".  I liked it a lot.  The tour guide was engaging, interesting, and knowledgeable about the city.  We started at Piccadilly Circus (the Times Square of London) and ended at Buckingham Palace (where we saw the changing of the guard).

There was a large public worker strike on this day in London.  Thankfully this did not affect public transportation.  Demonstrations had been planned for public places so I wasn't sure how that would affect the tour.  It turned out to be not a big deal.  The protests were scheduled for later in the day so all we saw during the tour were lots and lots of police standing around doing not much of anything.

Saint James's Park

We had lunch in Saint James's Park and I took some photos of flowers.

Shopping at Piccadilly Circus

Next we walked back to Piccadilly Circus and bought some "I ♥ London" merchandise.

Chipotle

No trip to London is complete without some tasty burrito goodness.  My carnitas burrito did not disappoint.

British Museum

The British Museum could probably be more accurately called "The British Museum of stuff we stole from other countries".  Notwithstanding the dubious origins of some of the pieces on display, the museum is fantastic.  We didn't get to see much (most of the museum was closed because the public sector employees were striking) but what we did see left me wanting more.  Oscar hated the museum.  He said it was just "looking at rocks".  He was particularly unimpressed with the Rosetta Stone.

The Lion King

We finished the day with dinner at McDonald's and a performance of The Lion King at Lyceum Theatre.  The show was good but not great.  The costumes were fantastic.  The child actors were off tune at times (particularly during "I Just Can't Wait to Be King") and Young Simba stumbled on one of his lines.  After the intermission, the microphones stopped working so they had to stop the show for five minutes before they could continue again.  It was an embarrassing series of mistakes that I had not expected during a West End production.

IV. Day Three

Wimbledon

We spent the whole day at Wimbledon.  It took 45 minutes on the subway to get there and once we arrived I was not even sure if we were going to get in.  Choosing to make the trip was definitely a bit of a gamble but Oscar really wanted to go and I figured it was probably the only time I would ever have a chance to go to Wimbledon.  He had not really enjoyed the walking tour or the museums and I had not really planned anything else so I decided we would make the trip and hope for the best.

The gentlemen's semifinals were scheduled for this day and Andy Murray (the latest in a long line of British citizens to play well enough to get the locals excited but not well enough to win the whole thing) was playing in one of the matches so I expected ticket demand to be even higher than usual.  I had hoped that Murray would lose his quarterfinal match (with the expectation that it might be easier to get tickets for the semifinals) but he ended up winning in straight sets.

When Wimbledon opened at 10:30AM, 2500 people from The Queue were admitted to the park with tickets that were good for the whole day.  After that, somebody had to leave Wimbledon before the next person in line was admitted.  The people that had been admitted ahead of us had either spent the night in line or had arrived early in the morning so when I saw that our queue numbers were 3249 and 3250, I thought that our chances of getting in were pretty low.  Still we decided to wait and see how things would turn out -- at this point we had already invested about an hour in getting there so it didn't make much sense to turn around and immediately ride the train back to central London.  As it turned out, the line advanced pretty regularly.  There were definitely people ahead of us who got tired of waiting and went home but there was also a pretty steady stream of people ahead of us who were being admitted to the park.  So we continued to wait.  We had lunch in the line and after about an hour and a half we got in.

We bought general admission tickets -- these did not give admission to the show courts but they did allow access to the rest of Wimbledon.  Since most people were interested in the gentlemen's semifinals, the rest of the courts were pretty empty.  We saw ladies' doubles, boys singles, boys' doubles, mixed doubles, gentlemen's invitation doubles, ladies' wheelchair doubles (the ball is allowed to bounce twice) and a bit of each of the semifinal matches from Henman Hill. We sat on the front row for every match we watched; I caught one ball and Oscar got hit hard in the shoulder by another (it left a bruise).

The highlight was watching Goran Ivanisevic (who has been a crowd favorite ever since he famously won the 2001 Gentlemen's Singles title as a qualifier ranked #125 in the world) and Richard Krajicek (another former winner) team up in the invitation doubles. Both players were talking out loud, messing around, and generally putting on a show while  the crowd enjoyed the whole experience.  Ivanisevic was especially funny and he served 127 mph.  I was surprised that the speeds were not measured in metric units.

King's Cross Station

On the way home from Wimbledon, we went a bit out of our way to visit Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station.

V. Day Four

Walking around London

We only had a few hours on our last day in London before catching the bus back to Stansted Airport.  We walked from the hotel to see the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.  I took photos of things that I found interesting.

Returning home

The trip home was uneventful.  Once we were back at Hahn Airport, I didn't want to wait for the shuttle bus back to P4 so we walked.  It took about twenty minutes.  It would have taken less time if I had not been carrying two bags.  When we got back to the car, I discovered that the Yankee Candle car gel had leaked its contents onto the dash and the climate control module.  The dash is now permanently discolored and the climate control module is gummed up inside.  It is still functional but it is not in good condition.  Grrrrr...