Day Four of London, Amsterdam, Paris
Sunday
When you plan a trip you can't take into account what the weather will be, especially 6 or 8 months in advance. With Ciara battering England, the weather we woke up to this morning was absolute garbage. Temperatures in the 40s with gusts of wind and rain hammering the windows of the house. We got up, at a small breakfast, got dressed and prepared to head out into the storm.
Originally, Lola had planned to meet with an old college friend from college who lives in London. That plan had gotten cancelled because it wasn't exactly walking weather. The plan change had come late in the evening the night before so we didn't have a strong sense of how the day would shape up. So we picked several items off our list and figured we could play the rest of the day by ear.
First place we planned on hitting was the Natural History Museum. To get there, we had to ride a bus, which I was worried about. I've gotten more confident with the underground over the last two days and felt like I could hack it pretty well. Doing buses seemed more intense in my mind, so I was somewhat nervous. But the way to the Museum was a straight bus route without transfers, so onto the 74 bus we went.
Well, as you might have guessed by the now, the bus was fine. Clean, easy to understand for the most part, it was just like the rest of public transportation in the city: excellent. Our only miss was needing to wave the bus down as it approached the stop. We hadn't known we needed to indicate our desire to board and assumed the bus would stop without any indication from us. So the first 74 bus drove right past us. We didn't understand what happened, until the next bus on a different line came through and someone waved it down. We had a good chuckle at ourselves and waved the next 74 down.
When we arrived at the Natural History Museum, the rain was only lightly sprinkling, so walking onto the grounds was easy. The Museum itself is such a monument to Victorian public spending of the era it belongs. Beautiful, massive building, open to the public, spectacular grounds, just stunning. We made our way up the walk into the building and were blown away by the massive whale skeleton that hung from the ceiling. The scale of the thing is difficult to express with a photograph. It's SO big. The middle hallway, from which all the other rooms and halls split from, is stunning as the outside is, with engraved posts and columns, beautiful marble and terracotta everywhere. There was a giraffe skeleton by the entrance that made me think of Billie, who loves a good giraffe.
Sadly, the rest of the museum, though filled with plenty of beautiful skeletons and displays, is mainly geared towards kids. The displays are clearly built to excite kids about science and the natural world. Even the dinosaur exhibit, which I was very excited for, was definitely focused on the kids. I will also say that everything there was packed to the gills. Maybe because it was Sunday? I don't know but it was PACKED. The one display I did enjoy was there museum treasures, a small room with some of their most important items on display, including a first edition of Darwin's book, a Dodo skeleton, and many other rare items. That one was nice for someone my age, but the rest was definitely more in-line with Billie's taste. We probably spent about and hour and a half at the museum and were done.
We decided to visit the Wallace next. Formerly a private collection, it's housed in a massive old mansion, almost as stunning as the displayed items. On the way to the house, we rode another bus, but the rain had rachetted up and we were soaked while we waited at the stop. Then, the nearest stop still required a walk in the rain to get there. We weren't in the best of moods when got there. And it's a shame, the collection was impressive and would have been more entertaining if we were more receptive.
We wandered through 2-3 rooms of old paintings and furniture, before discovering the best part of the display. Room upon room of old armor, swords, daggers, chain mail, you name it. It was a MASSIVE collection, staggering in its size. It was enough on display to distract from the quality with the sheer quantity. I won't lie to you, we didn't go upstairs and I regret it a little, because there may have been something ridiculous up there, but we were both tired and wet and not feeling it. So we dipped.
One of the places I wanted to visit during this trip is a shop I follow online called Classic Football Shirts. The boutique has a large collection of soccer jerseys, some old some new, and posts pictures of them, also running an online shop. Without the desire to find a more educational destination, Lola encouraged me to go to the shirt shop. The shop was in a formerly industrial area that's been broken up into shops and restaurants. It's a very hip area and decidedly younger and edgy. The shop itself was small, but we bought a couple of kits and discussed American soccer with the shop owners. It was nice. As we exited Lola mentioned she was hungry and there was a taco place next door so we popped in.
The taco shop was a place called DF (short for Districto Federal - Mexico City). I ordered a pulled pork burrito and Lola had a crispy chicken sandwich. Both were solid, but decidedly not very Mexican to us. As we finished our meal, we debated heading back, but it was still early (around 3p) and I remembered Lola had mentioned a shop she had wanted to visit, Lazy Oaf. When I looked it up, it was only a 15 minute walk from where we were. So off we went.
Again the rain was coming on strong and we were soaked again as we walked to the shop. We saw a lot of graffiti and I managed to snap some pics of the good stuff for a friend in El Paso who likes that sort of thing. By the time we arrived at Lazy Oaf, we were wet from socks to hats. So much so that when we stepped in, the two girls noted how wet and cold we were. The shop was very cute and clean and the staff were super sweet. I encouraged Lola to get whatever she wanted and she browsed the racks. She eventually picked out a "Peanuts" themed sweater dress and we headed back out into the weather.
While I had waited in the shop, I had tried to sort out the best way back to Fulham. It seemed like a hop onto the Hammersmith line with a quick switch to Central would get us home quickly. We headed to Liverpool St Station, which is a massive building with all sorts of trains coming in and out, both underground and aboveground. We hopped on the Hammersmith line and got rolling west. When we arrived at our changeover, we walked to the Central platform and saw a sign saying the line was closed from this station on for the weekend. But a train was coming so we waited anyway. When it arrived, we hopped on, only to hear the announcement that this was the end of the line. We were stuck, close to 2 miles from our apartment.
Without the underground being available I began to search for nearby bus lines. We found one, walked to the stop and got on the 414 headed to Putney Bridge. Because of all the stops along the line, the trip would be around 50 minutes. Taking advantage of the extra time, we went into the upper section of the bus to really embrace the English bus experience. We both fell asleep.
When we got home, Lola fell asleep within 20 minutes and slept for 4 hours. My jet lagged brain still refuses to function correctly and I stayed awake. Eventually Lola woke up and we facetimed with her mom for a short time, Billie wasn't interested in talking to us because she wanted to watch her show. So ends day 4.
- Dan
When you plan a trip you can't take into account what the weather will be, especially 6 or 8 months in advance. With Ciara battering England, the weather we woke up to this morning was absolute garbage. Temperatures in the 40s with gusts of wind and rain hammering the windows of the house. We got up, at a small breakfast, got dressed and prepared to head out into the storm.
Originally, Lola had planned to meet with an old college friend from college who lives in London. That plan had gotten cancelled because it wasn't exactly walking weather. The plan change had come late in the evening the night before so we didn't have a strong sense of how the day would shape up. So we picked several items off our list and figured we could play the rest of the day by ear.
First place we planned on hitting was the Natural History Museum. To get there, we had to ride a bus, which I was worried about. I've gotten more confident with the underground over the last two days and felt like I could hack it pretty well. Doing buses seemed more intense in my mind, so I was somewhat nervous. But the way to the Museum was a straight bus route without transfers, so onto the 74 bus we went.
Well, as you might have guessed by the now, the bus was fine. Clean, easy to understand for the most part, it was just like the rest of public transportation in the city: excellent. Our only miss was needing to wave the bus down as it approached the stop. We hadn't known we needed to indicate our desire to board and assumed the bus would stop without any indication from us. So the first 74 bus drove right past us. We didn't understand what happened, until the next bus on a different line came through and someone waved it down. We had a good chuckle at ourselves and waved the next 74 down.
When we arrived at the Natural History Museum, the rain was only lightly sprinkling, so walking onto the grounds was easy. The Museum itself is such a monument to Victorian public spending of the era it belongs. Beautiful, massive building, open to the public, spectacular grounds, just stunning. We made our way up the walk into the building and were blown away by the massive whale skeleton that hung from the ceiling. The scale of the thing is difficult to express with a photograph. It's SO big. The middle hallway, from which all the other rooms and halls split from, is stunning as the outside is, with engraved posts and columns, beautiful marble and terracotta everywhere. There was a giraffe skeleton by the entrance that made me think of Billie, who loves a good giraffe.
Sadly, the rest of the museum, though filled with plenty of beautiful skeletons and displays, is mainly geared towards kids. The displays are clearly built to excite kids about science and the natural world. Even the dinosaur exhibit, which I was very excited for, was definitely focused on the kids. I will also say that everything there was packed to the gills. Maybe because it was Sunday? I don't know but it was PACKED. The one display I did enjoy was there museum treasures, a small room with some of their most important items on display, including a first edition of Darwin's book, a Dodo skeleton, and many other rare items. That one was nice for someone my age, but the rest was definitely more in-line with Billie's taste. We probably spent about and hour and a half at the museum and were done.
We decided to visit the Wallace next. Formerly a private collection, it's housed in a massive old mansion, almost as stunning as the displayed items. On the way to the house, we rode another bus, but the rain had rachetted up and we were soaked while we waited at the stop. Then, the nearest stop still required a walk in the rain to get there. We weren't in the best of moods when got there. And it's a shame, the collection was impressive and would have been more entertaining if we were more receptive.
We wandered through 2-3 rooms of old paintings and furniture, before discovering the best part of the display. Room upon room of old armor, swords, daggers, chain mail, you name it. It was a MASSIVE collection, staggering in its size. It was enough on display to distract from the quality with the sheer quantity. I won't lie to you, we didn't go upstairs and I regret it a little, because there may have been something ridiculous up there, but we were both tired and wet and not feeling it. So we dipped.
One of the places I wanted to visit during this trip is a shop I follow online called Classic Football Shirts. The boutique has a large collection of soccer jerseys, some old some new, and posts pictures of them, also running an online shop. Without the desire to find a more educational destination, Lola encouraged me to go to the shirt shop. The shop was in a formerly industrial area that's been broken up into shops and restaurants. It's a very hip area and decidedly younger and edgy. The shop itself was small, but we bought a couple of kits and discussed American soccer with the shop owners. It was nice. As we exited Lola mentioned she was hungry and there was a taco place next door so we popped in.The taco shop was a place called DF (short for Districto Federal - Mexico City). I ordered a pulled pork burrito and Lola had a crispy chicken sandwich. Both were solid, but decidedly not very Mexican to us. As we finished our meal, we debated heading back, but it was still early (around 3p) and I remembered Lola had mentioned a shop she had wanted to visit, Lazy Oaf. When I looked it up, it was only a 15 minute walk from where we were. So off we went.
Again the rain was coming on strong and we were soaked again as we walked to the shop. We saw a lot of graffiti and I managed to snap some pics of the good stuff for a friend in El Paso who likes that sort of thing. By the time we arrived at Lazy Oaf, we were wet from socks to hats. So much so that when we stepped in, the two girls noted how wet and cold we were. The shop was very cute and clean and the staff were super sweet. I encouraged Lola to get whatever she wanted and she browsed the racks. She eventually picked out a "Peanuts" themed sweater dress and we headed back out into the weather.
While I had waited in the shop, I had tried to sort out the best way back to Fulham. It seemed like a hop onto the Hammersmith line with a quick switch to Central would get us home quickly. We headed to Liverpool St Station, which is a massive building with all sorts of trains coming in and out, both underground and aboveground. We hopped on the Hammersmith line and got rolling west. When we arrived at our changeover, we walked to the Central platform and saw a sign saying the line was closed from this station on for the weekend. But a train was coming so we waited anyway. When it arrived, we hopped on, only to hear the announcement that this was the end of the line. We were stuck, close to 2 miles from our apartment.
Without the underground being available I began to search for nearby bus lines. We found one, walked to the stop and got on the 414 headed to Putney Bridge. Because of all the stops along the line, the trip would be around 50 minutes. Taking advantage of the extra time, we went into the upper section of the bus to really embrace the English bus experience. We both fell asleep.
When we got home, Lola fell asleep within 20 minutes and slept for 4 hours. My jet lagged brain still refuses to function correctly and I stayed awake. Eventually Lola woke up and we facetimed with her mom for a short time, Billie wasn't interested in talking to us because she wanted to watch her show. So ends day 4.
- Dan
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