Day 2 – Sunday, June 9 2013: London

When we landed at Heathrow I do recall that we, the lowly Economy folks, all jumped up and gathered our stuff…forcing those in the forward premium section to wait for us!  I recall thinking that if I had paid for premium seating and then didn’t get priority exit I would have been pretty annoyed.  Heh heh heh.

After stopping to pick up our baggage we made our way to the Heathrow Express station and started our journey to Paddington Station.  This was a pretty painless way to get into London, and since we were staying near Marble Arch the train station was a short walk away – about 0.7 miles or 15 minutes of time.

Once we arrived at Paddington our first order of business was to get 7-day Travelcards for the Underground.  When we got to the window there was some confusion here because we didn’t know we’d need to supply photos for Eileen and me.  The clerk directed us back into the station with instructions as to where we could find a photo booth, so we took pictures and then went back to get our cards.  It was our understanding that the best answer for the boys was to purchase something from a local newsagent that would cover their rides.  Getting them Travelcards wasn’t an option.

Once we had our cards, we grabbed our rolling bags and started our walk to Parkwood at Marble Arch.  I don’t have any recollection of how I ended up picking this place.  I’m sure there was a reason but it escapes me now.  I probably read somewhere that lodgings in Bayswater were cheaper while still being centrally located.  Whatever the reason it was a good choice for us.  It was an old Victorian townhouse with a nice size room on the upper floor.  It was actually a two room suite.  We entered into a queen bedroom with attached bathroom, and then there was another doorway into a small room with two twin beds.  Perfect!  Our local Underground station was about a two minute walk away.

One side note: on the way from Paddington to Parkwood we passed by St. Mary’s Hospital, which was being featured in the news pretty regularly.  Kate Middleton was about 45 days away from giving birth to her first baby (and hence, third in line to the crown) and was going to be delivering at St. Mary’s.  The media hadn’t quite gotten around to camping out at the hospital yet – that wouldn’t happen until July 1 – for what turned out to be a late-July birth.

Our flight had arrived around 2PM, so by the time we got to the hotel it was about 4PM.  In an effort to stave off jet lag we put on our jackets and walked across the street to Hyde Park and walked over to Speaker’s Corner.   I did have a DIY walking tour, but this was much too ambitious for our first few hours on the ground.  There were a few guys out there pontificating about one thing or another, but we didn’t linger.  We were really just trying to kill 30 minutes or so before heading to dinner.  We exited at Marble Arch (meaning that we just barely saw a tiny part of Hyde Park).

Our first night dinner was strategically planned at Giraffe, which met two criteria:  1) It was within walking distance of our hotel, being only about 15 minutes away, and 2) their menu looked like it would be something that both boys would like.  With the boys still being young we were aware that we couldn’t get too exotic on the menus.  They both were, thankfully, more adventurous than just always having chicken fingers or burgers so we could still branch out on occasion – but for our first night in the UK we wanted to keep it simple.  Giraffe had multiple locations – as it happens, the Blandford Street location we ate at in 2013 is no longer there, although other outlets are still open.  u  We had a very nice meal that evening.  Andrew’s meal came out with a small (about 4” tall) green plastic giraffe figurine on it.  We still have that sitting by our TV at home as a reminder of our trip!

On our walk back to the hotel we came across a newsagent that had a sign saying they sold transit passes for buses and the Underground.  We knew that Andrew could ride for free with us since he was only eight, but we were pretty sure – but not 100% positive – that we needed some kind of youth pass for Robert.  We went in and asked the newsagent what we needed to do.  Due to language issues it wasn’t clear that we understood things correctly…but the agent told us that Robert could also ride for free and we didn’t need to buy anything - which would, eventually, be shown to be INCORRECT.   But based on that we were told at that time we left and went back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep under our belts before starting our touring in earnest the following day.