Just Another Fifteen Minutes

Psalms 32:11:
Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.

After bidding farewell to Tony and Hannane, we went inside the Victoria Railway Station, which is a little like going into Grand Central Station (I said a little. I mean cuz it’s like a mall almost inside and food court.) We each bought a 7-day travel pass which is recommended on several Web sites as the best way to go. This way we can ride the tube and all the buses around London for “free” rather than paying for each individual trip. 

Then I saw an “Orange” Store, which is like their Verizon or T Mobile. I told the young man working in there that I wanted a really cheap phone that I would only use for one week, so he sold me one. And now I have cell service though I don’t even know why I wanted it so bad. But I can check that off my mental checklist!

 We sat down for a few moments to get our bearings and have a cup of coffee.

And we made a trip to the loo (not free), an adventure of its own.






Then we decided to check into the Big Bus Company which takes you for tours around London. It’s kind of like the Hop On Hop Off bus tours or the Duck Bus tours in other places. It took us a little exploring on the streets around Victoria Station, but we did end up finding Tony, an employee of the Big Bus Company, who sold us a 48-hour pass for the price of a 24-hour pass.  And we decided to go once around (2 and 1/4 hour trip) and then take the transit bus home, which would land us right at our front door. (It was about 4 p.m. at this time and already starting to get a little dark.)

Tony told us to go around the corner to the bus stop and meet up with his “brother” Ali, who would help us out. Tony, by the way, was extremely friendly, fun, kind, accommodating, energetic, all those good words. 

He said we couldn’t miss Ali cuz he looked just like him. When we got to the stop, we did see a representative of the Big Bus Company (they all wear the same jacket), but we couldn’t get his attention and he did not look anything like Tony. But his nametag said Ali. They were apparently brothers from another mother (and father and country of origin).

Ali tried to put us on a blue bus.  Let me explain. There are several “blue” buses which have audiotaped commentaries and are good for those who don’t speak English because they can listen in their own language, but we wanted the live English narration. Laura had done this type of tour in Boston with Ramona, and the live narrators are like comedians/actors/historians all rolled into one. 

Ali said the red bus had just left and it would be at least 15 minutes until another red bus came. Let me say Ali did not seem to be as in love with his job as Tony was. Eventually after the third blue bus arrived with no red bus in sight, Ali said that we should get on a blue bus, ride it for a few stops, and catch a red bus there. We did that and when we got to the stop he suggested and got off the bus, we  met that Big Bus Tour representative, and guess what he told us? We had just missed the red bus and it would be, you guessed it 15 more minutes. He seemed to have even less enthusiasm for his job than the previous guy. It was a little rainy and cold and he probably had to field a lot of questions, but gee, it’s OUR FIRST TIME IN LONDON!  

We kept being nice to him and when the red bus finally arrived, we got on.  As we were pulling off, he looked up, saw us sitting on the first level, gave us a big smile, and waved to us indicating we should go upstairs. The buses are double-decker and the front rows of seats on the top deck are covered. We just assumed the covered seats were occupied, and since it was raining we didn’t want to sit in uncovered seats. But we realized he was saying, “Go upstairs! It’s empty.” At least that’s how we took it. So we went upstairs and sat in the very first seat of the top deck. That’s really a primo seat. So he ended up blessing us by that little piece of encouragement.

Another Blue Bus!

The tour guide, Victoria, was sitting right by us and was really lively and fun. She told us lots of interesting things, many of them about London’s history of public execution which probably wouldn’t make good blog reading.

We saw Big Ben Tower and actually were driving by when it chimed at 6:00 p.m. That was cool. We saw London Tower, London Bridge, London Tower Bridge, Waterloo Bridge (also called the Ladies" Bridge because women built it while the men were at World War II). We learned about the plague and the great fire and Lady Astor and Winston Churchill. We saw the House of Lords and Parliament and Hyde Park and Green Park and Piccadilly Circus and St Paul’s Cathedral and much more. It was raining and it was night, but it was still magical.

 

We were delighted to find out that the city bus line (Route 170) that Laura had researched from New Knoxville actually existed when we arrived in London. When we were finished with our Big Bus Tour, the bus dropped us off 3 feet from the bus stop for the 170 line, which took us, no lie, to our front door. People are out all hours and it’s so easy to be out even at night. Our neighborhood is very posh, well lit, and wonderful. There is a Tesco Express, which is like a very high end 7-11, also just moments from our front door, so before settling in for the night, we went to Tesco to buy a few little items for noshing.