London - Day 1

Ahh, London. Lovely to be back. If only the getting there had been a little easier.

J and I left St. Louis on Monday morning, 8/10. We drove to O'Hare, and arrived there to find out that our flight was delayed due to a mechanical problem. Then it was canceled. We immediately called Virgin Vacations (through which we booked the whole trip - flights and hotel) to inform them of the problem. The woman we spoke with said it was no problem, and that she'd just call the hotel and push the reservation back by one day. We also changed our return flight to be one day later.

The next day, we went back to the airport and successfully made it across the pond, only to arrive at the hotel and find out that the lady from Virgin had not, in fact, called. Our reservation had been canceled, but luckily they still had a room available they could put us in. However, because the hotel had not received notice that we were canceling our first night, our original reservation was reinstated. That meant we had a room until the 17th, but a ticket home for the 18th. We spent the rest of the trip, off and on, figuring that one out. Bottom line: don't book with Virgin. We had to pay for an extra night at the hotel, and now have to fight with them to try to get reimbursed because it was their screw-up.

We didn't let all that ruin our first day, though. We got ourselves some Tube passes and met up with my friend M, who just happened to be in London, and leaving on the day we arrived! We had lunch with her, then headed up to Edgeware, where J used to live. We saw his old flat and favorite pub (The Victory, in the first picture above), then walked the Oxford-Regent-Picadilly path that he took when going to school. We did a quick tour through my favorite rooms at the National Gallery. The second picture was taken standing on the steps of the National Gallery. You're looking at Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, and down Whitehall towards Big Ben and Westminster.

We rested our feet on the steps in the Square, then made the long walk down Whitehall ourselves, and got the second shot of a newly-shined Big Ben. Last but not least, we went to my old house in Chelsea, which is where I'm standing in the last picture.

That was the only day it rained on us, but boy did it. We were on our way back to the Tube from my old house, and ducked into a restaurant to avoid being drenched, where we decided to stay for dinner.