At Least They're Committed

Trapped! I tell you! Barricaded in a London Hilton with no means of escape without threat! Not by any humans or nefarious beasts, mind you, rather by the brutality of the rain.

Which you jolly well know I love. So, yeah, joking.

In fact, I hope to run into nefarious beasts — in the way of An American Werewolf in London T-shirt to purchase . . . from, um, London. It’s a 40-year-old movie so won’t be holding my bated breath.

It’s Tuesday, BTW.

I spent a joyful 1.5 hours walking around and adventuring in the downpour whilst (U.K. grammar) wearing my purchased-for-this-trip, spring, lightweight rain-repellant coat. It did great! But it can only take so much. Thus now it’s mostly dry on the inside and dripping on the tile, hanging over the hotel-room chair on the outside.

I’m delighting in all of this.

Since I pulled out £100 (who knows in U.S.) cash and I’ve found not near enough ‘stuff’ to spend it on since mostly they take cards, I am instead camped downstairs in the looooby (think Dracula Dead and Loving It) spending ‘cash’ on two spicy margaritas. They were good!

Perhaps I’ll have the time difference sorted out biologically tomorrow. Perhaps not.

I’ll wait a bit, have a Tylenol PM and then shall retire (try to sound very British in your brain as you read that) for the evening and wait for my alarm to go off before the real work begins.

I’m not adjusting well to time-travel.

On the upside, I’ve had more free time than I had planned on, but only for the first ‘spell.’

As westerners, we U.S. folks assumed there would be an urgency-of-setup and the addressing of the minutia such as banners, tables, chairs, business cards and flyers. It’s not like that in London. Their pacing is way slower . . . and good for them.

Thus it is that I had a LOT more time on my hands in London than I had planned on. At least at the start. And it seems I will at the end as well.

It’s now Wednesday

DS2 is often here for his work as of late, and we’d hoped he would be here now but they changed his sssshhedule at the last minute. I guess that’s OK because when I’m in new territory I am in survival mode until I get situated.

Thus, I just walk around. A . . . lot. I rather like the word ‘thus.’

And I finally found out that in the Angel section of London there is no nearby tourist train or trolly that will pick me up take me to the ‘city sites.’ Phew! I mean, it would have been awesome if there had been, but all my research seemed to point otherwise. Now I know.

Thus (again) I shall go ahead and spend money on an Uber to get me to Central London and then hop on the tourism trek from there.

Oh, the adventures I shall have!

‘Tis Thursday in jolly ol’ London and I’m up at 5:07 a.m. because, still, time travel isn’t agreeing with me and it only takes one invasive thought — this time that Trump could be president again — and I’m awake for good.

Equipped with the knowledge of what I must do for my Friday tour of the city, I have purchased my bus pass and scheduled my Uber. What a good girl am I!

Yet, it is with great horror that I notice this morning that my stats show nine — yes NINE — new hits on my podcast, all from this very city, meaning some of the wonderful people I’ve spoken with on this adventure tuned in. I’m so sorry, folks, because I’m certain you’re disappointed. I promise I’ll continue to try to do better.

Pip pip and tally ho! One more day and here we go! (Note, this has nothing to do with a fox hunt.)

Friday, yay! I’m simply here for one more day! We didn’t realize when Mac booked my flight that Friday wasn’t a break-down day, as in the show’s over, folks, pack up your shit and go home. No, we did that yesterday.

And so (I’m sure you’re getting tired of reading ‘thus’ so I said ‘so’) I hopped into my prearranged Uber this morning, which dropped me at an allotted hop-on location for the city tour I’d paid for. And I waited.

There was a delightful young gal there peddling another tourist attraction — I walked up to her after taking quick shots of some dudes with high hats and red coats perched upon black steeds guarding gates. I’ll have to figure out who or what that was . . . someday.

At any rate, I waited for the tour-bus to arrive. It was right there on the sign saying they stopped there. They come every 20 minutes, tops, the ad had claimed, but you have to board with the company you bought the ticket from. Makes sense.

Fort-five minutes later, waiting and becoming quite angry despite having the honor of talking to that young woman, I started walking.

Two City Seekers buses (with whom I’d booked) passed on the other side of the road, so I crossed over and followed them for more than a mile as a few continued to pass until I found a station that actually picked people up. It was over some bridge and there was a cool looking stone lion there.

Back up, as I was storming angrily across the bridge to the bus stop I thought to myself, “This is what I happens when you put yourself out of my comfort zone, TR! Screw it!” And, “How could it possibly be worse?” Then I quickly realized it absolutely would have been worse if I’d sat around the hotel and kicked myself for not adventuring. That was probably Gabriel talking to me.

Still, my limit had been reached. Despite being a hop-on, hop-off, hop-back-on tour, there was no effing way I was getting off that damn open air bus to risk starting the ritual all over again.

Another thing about London, when they say the high is 68 and the low is 50, that can be all in one hour, then the same in the next and the next throughout the day. I vacillated between comfort and cold.

This will surprise everyone, I know, but I loved seeing the churches and the angels more than anything else. Beautiful! Otherwise, I already had several pics DS2 had sent and it all looked pretty much the same. I did snap a pic on the Tower (I think) Bridge? But it didn’t capture it well.

That was the other problem. No wifi and running around a foreign country alone trying to find where I could board a particular, elusive bus was zapping my phone and there was no way to charge it. I determined since I already had photos from my son’s visit, why repeat? Off went the phone.

But, then I wasn’t sure he had taken any of that bridge.

As I frantically attempted to get my phone to turn on — it took an ungodly amount of time which raised more fear in me that perhaps the phone had died altogether and I would be lost forever — I missed the good views so I just got one little arch at the tail end. Pthththttt!

You see, I of course needed the phone to have some battery so I could find a location to step off (I chose Piccadilly Circus), enter a familiar restaurant (Hard Rock Cafe) that I knew would have wifi and eat what turned out to be a delicious fried chicken sandwich (well, half of one) and drink a beer to stave off the chill and calm my fears.

Indeed Hard Rock made it easy. The password was a rock star’s name, no caps. I ordered the Uber right after finishing up. It told me where to meet it, so I headed outside to find the cross streets. Sadly, it seems there are no street signs in London, at least none that you can read unless you’re standing on your tiptoes right upon them.

Frantic, I texted my driver saying I couldn’t find the street signs and wasn’t sure where to catch him . . . just as I recognized the license plate as he went past. He called me right away and, God bless him, even pulled onto the sidewalk a bit to pick me up. *Sniff!*

I will say the people in London are fantastic. The hotel I stayed in was excellent. The venue for the show was cheerful and we feel we represented ourselves and what we offer quite well.

Now, ’tis Friday evening (deep sigh) and I leave early, early tomorrow. I had tomato soup and a glass of wine for dinner and I’ll be taking a ‘Lemsip’ — whatever that is — nighttime cold med to help me crash before I meet my Uber at 6:50 a.m. and head to Heathrow and (longing sigh) home!

Despite the bad buses, no werewolf sightings or T-shirts, this has been a jolly good adventure . . . and I’m jolly well ready for it to come to an end . . . until next year?