CHAPTER 9: LONDON, ENGLAND
Saturday, September 18

Wednesday morning we left Cambridge and drove down to London. We didn't have much trouble until the divided highway ran out well inside the London beltway. Then we took virtually every wrong turn it was possible to take. (If you're familiar with Washington, DC, it would be like driving down from Pennsylvania, going round the DC beltway, heading into Alexandria, and then getting hopelessly lost).

We finally made it to the Glenthurston Guest House in Catford. Catford is about five miles southeast of the London city center. This will be our apartment for the next month and it's pretty nice. It has a bedroom, living room, bathroom, and fully equipped kitchen. The building is about eighty years old, but has been fixed up very well, so we're happy with it. Not all is perfect: no telephone, a tiny 15-inch TV, bad art on the walls, and the bedroom has twin beds. On the positive side, it has a small pool, sauna/steam room, and a laundry room with one washer and two dryers (we noticed that their sign says it has two washers and one dryer ... okay, so they're a bit mixed up). However, we discovered that British washers are SLOW. We had one small load of whites and one small load of darks, and it took SEVEN HOURS to do 'em! (It didn't help when Janis threw one load of clothes and soap into the washer, and another load of clothes and soap into the nearly identical machine next to it, and only then discovered that the second machine was actually a dryer!) We're looking for a good laundromat now.

Thursday was our first day to explore London. We took the rentacar in to the Hertz station near Victoria Station. It was much like returning a car in Manhattan or Tokyo, with heavy traffic and crazy drivers (one of 'em being me), but after many trials and tribulations, we just managed to get the car clocked in only minutes before they would have charged us for a extra day. I took Janis straight over to the Harrod's department store, which was only a short walk away. Some people might think this was a strategic error, but I wanted to give her a good introduction to London, and I wanted to get my pain over with as quickly as possible! I'll let Janis give you her impression of the store, but suffice it to say, Harrod's is a class act.

Today we took the train in to town and spent the day at the Tower of London. Now Americans tend to think of a "tower" as something like a skyscraper (or anything narrow and tall), but here the “Tower of London” is an old royal castle with a whole bunch of stumpy additions labeled “Towers”. Some are small and circular, some are large and rectangular, some have big windows, and others have only little slits for shooting crossbows out of. It's over 900 years old and has a helluva history. For both of us, our favorite thing was the exhibit of the British Crown Jewels. They have a bunch of crowns on view, several orbs, about eight or ten scepters, a couple of swords, all made out of silver and gold and all of them covered with jewels. One of the crowns has the biggest diamond in the world on it. Many of the items dated back to the 1600's or before. Impressive.

So after two full days in London, we feel like natives now. We have our passes for the trains, buses, and the "tube" (subway). We have found the local post office and local grocery stores ... an interesting experience in itself which we'll discuss later. We've gotten adjusted to London TV and it's just as bad as Edinburgh and Windermere: only five channels (and this is one of the greatest cities in the entire free world????). News shows are terrible, in-depth specials on the most boring items you can possibly imagine, and an occasional interesting program. The America contribution seems to be old movies, Ally McBeal, Sergeant Bilko, and Wrestlemania.

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