I took a choo choo to London!

Holy CRAP! I am not sure what I was expecting to see in London… But, that was so far beyond what I was expecting.

It’s beautiful! Just about every building is as old as the hills, and unique in it’s own way. I’ve never seen such an incredible amount of history in one go. It was remarkable.

We took the train from Fareham into London so that I could catch up with a client for lunch, (I felt I might as well get a little business in since I was out this way!) so we left early to be in town before my appointment at 12:30. The train ride was fairly unremarkable, but it was neat to see the little towns before we hit the interior part of London almost 2 hours later. That train station was huge! There must have been about 20 tracks coming and going out of the station, not to mention a bizilion tube stations going this way and that as well.

After getting off the train, we took a tube to Picadilly and found out approximately where I needed to be, and shared a Starbucks before Jeremy headed off to meet up with Margie and Dale (who, remarkably, just happened to be in London from Calgary at the same time!) while I went on to my business meeting.

The meeting went well, and I rushed off to meet up with Jeremy, Margie and Dale at the other side of London. (Near Hyde Park). I was supposed to meet them at 2:45pm and as I had made a slight error with one of the tubes that I took to get there, and then the tube delayed for almost 20 minutes for who knows what, I was late. I decided to grab a cab from the station, to where I was to meet up with them, and this is where I made a mistake. The asshole cab driver drove me to the other end of Hyde Park, charged me 3 pound and didn’t have change for a 5 pound note, and then, after I got out of the cab, I realized he’d taken me for a RIDE. I was at least a 20 minute walk from where I needed to be after asking a nice man on the street. My feet were aching in the heels by that point, and by the time I finally made it to meet up with Jeremy, Margie, and Dale, I was 50 minutes late. Only after about 5 sips of Guiness did I calm down from that harried mess… I was pretty mad.

That said, it all faded quickly and I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with everyone, as we did some walking around the area, and grabbed some dinner at a local Italian restaurant.

By the time Jeremy and I got back to where we were staying that night at close to 10:30pm, we were exhausted, but pleased with our adventures (and on my part mostly pleased) of the day.