London Calling

I'm in a hotel room in London. This feels very surreal. Much like when I went to Russia earlier this year, day-to-day life kept me so busy leading up to this trip that I didn't have much time to mentally prepare. In fact, it didn't really hit me that I was going to be in the UK by myself for nine whole days until yesterday afternoon as I was packing. I've flown and taken long car trips by myself dozens of times before, but I've always been meeting up with friends or family at the end of the journey. Prior to a quick conference trip I went on a couple of weeks ago, I'd never stayed in a hotel room by myself. I think I'm actually going to enjoy being alone until Penn gets here, since I like making my own schedule and not having to wait around for other people. Still, it's a little unnerving to realize that if something goes wrong I'm going to have to figure out how to solve the problem myself without the help of a cell phone (to be honest, that's what made the nerves kick in more than anything else. I HATE being separated from the ability to easily look something up on Google or GPS my location for directions...I really wish it didn't cost a fortune to use my phone here).

So far so good, though. My flight here was uneventful. It took about three hours less to get to London than it took me to get to Seattle a couple of months ago. I note this just because on today's (yesterday's?) trip I was given dinner and breakfast on a six hour flight, but when I spent nine hours flying to Seattle I got absolutely no food other than peanuts. Domestic flights don't get meals anymore, I guess. But come on, airlines! Acknowledge that flying from the east coast to the west coast is more of a hassle than flying to Europe (especially with layovers). Anyway, when I got to London I cleared customs and caught the express train to Paddington and then got on the underground to Waterloo Station, and my nerves dissipated and everything about living in London came back to me. It's not like I'm completely clueless about this city, after all. I spent a large part of summer 2004 living here doing a study abroad program. I was able to do a lot of exploring that summer, and now that I'm starting to get my bearings back I'm feeling confident in my abilities to enjoy my solo week here. I'm going to see some shows, go to some museums, eat some Wagamama...I do have to do the pesky research work the department is paying me to do while I'm here, but I'll get that done, too.

My hotel for the first two nights I'm here is right across the street from Waterloo Station. And I mean RIGHT across the street. A train bridge runs right along the side of this building. There are complimentary earplugs sitting on my bedside table for later, although so far I haven't really noticed any noise other than typical city sounds so I think it will be okay. Of course, even though the hotel is right across the street from the station I came out the wrong exit and had to walk all the way around the city block in the rain to find the hotel. And then I was temporarily confused because I couldn't figure out where to get my room key. Turns out you had to check in at the bar on the ground floor of the hotel. There was a little sign over the cash register that said "Reception," which was the only clue I had that the space was something more than just a pub. That makes it sound like the place should be shady, but it's not at all. It's a tiny hotel room, because it's Europe, but it's comfortable and it has hot water and I finally figured out how to turn the radiators on (for a while I was just assuming I couldn't control my heat and I was wondering if the room was going to stay so dang cold all night).

Once I got settled I went out for a walk. This hotel is within very brief walking distance of the Old Vic, The Young Vic, and the Royal National Theatre, so I went to drool over show posters for a while. After I post this I'm off to google student rush tickets to see what I can get for while I'm in town. I walked down to the Thames and across one of the pedestrian bridges and took a few pictures of St. Paul's in the distance under an extremely gloomy sky. Then I stopped in a cafe and had a pizza and a Magners before walking back to my hotel. Tonight's plan is to make myself an itinerary for the rest of the time I'm here. I didn't do much planning before I left, but I'm realizing that I only have a certain amount of free hours every day and I don't want to waste them trying to decide what to do. I need a plan, even though the plan may change. I definitely want to go to the Tate and back to the British Museum because I love it there, and if I went to the National Gallery last time I was here I have no memory of it so I'd like to go there (I remember the portrait gallery, but not the rest of it). Other than that, I don't know what I'm going to do. I want to branch out from the usual tourist things, though, or at least hit tourist places I've never been before. I'll update on my adventures, I'm sure.
Also, let me state for the record that England is very enthusiastic about Christmas. On the TV show I have on in the background right now the hosts are discussing which artists' album will likely be #1 at Christmas (just like Love, Actually! Who knew the race to have the #1 Christmas hit was real?), all of the restaurants have "Christmas Menus" so that you can book your Christmas parties (we sort of do the company-Christmas-party-at-a-local-restaurant in the states, I guess, but it's not like there are special Christmas menus), and when I was walking earlier I saw a balcony decorated with Christmas lights. And trust me, they were definitely up specifically for Christmas because there was a blow up penguin wearing a Santa hat. Then again, there is no Thanksgiving here, so I can't really hold them to my No Celebrating Christmas Before Thanksgiving standards.