Welcome to My World: Pouring Down in London Town....

We arrive via train in London at about 6:00 Thursday evening. Our seat mates have been a very nice couple, Allison and Mark from outside London, great to talk to during the hour plus trip. As we arrive at the station at St Pancras, she mentions that the hotel there will give you a 2 for 1 deal on a glass of champagne if you show your ticket stub. We find the bar at the lovely station hotel and start off our London visit with a nice glass of bubbly.

Ariana dressed to match
the train

Ginger Pudding at Workshop

Our hotel, the Jesmond Dene, is literally across the street from the station, one street back. As with the hotel in Paris, the place is spic and span, but tiny. The hotel has 23 rooms, the one in Paris had almost twice that number. Ariana had made an 8:00 resie a few days before for a place called The Workshop that she'd heard about through a friend. We walk about a mile and cannot find it. I am starving and tired and so is the kid, so we start grouching at one another. We can't figure out the street numbers, they don't work like in the US. After backtracking, we spot the neon sign and enter a neat, trendy coffee house. They have an inventive menu, very gastro-pub-y. Ariana has a delicious beer, I order wine. We start with eggplant dip and bread. They charge you for bread here in London - weird. The dip is delicious. We decide to share a burger and a bresaola salad as an entree. Both terrific. We have ginger pudding for dessert - ginger sponge cake with raspberry mascarpone and toffee. I promise we did not walk off the calories from just that mascarpone, but it was so worth it - absolutely delicious. Our server was very nice, as well, passionate about the food there.

After walking back to the hotel, Ariana realizes she is not wearing her flower ring. She made it while a student at LMU and never wears it, but wore it for the trip. It's very distinctive, beautiful, made of silver. She's really upset. We try to trace back the evening, a photo I took of her three hours earlier at the train station shows the ring on her finger. As a mom, I struggle with wanting to make everything better. This stresses me out during times like this and I have to tell myself to let it go, I cannot fix it, there's nothing I can do. I ask Ariana if we can pray about it, so we pray that we will find the ring since it has such personal, sentimental value. Ariana leaves a message at the restaurant and emails them as well. The room has these great flat radiators that make it toasty and the bed is super comfy. We've walked almost 11 miles that day so I sleep like a baby again. The next morning when I get up, I peek outside to see what the weather is like. Something under the window catches my eye and there lies Ariana's ring between the bed and the window! I am so happy to wake her up and tell her it was there all along.

We start Friday with a “full English breakfast” provided at the hotel served from 7:30 to 9:00 am. We get an egg, piece of sausage and two pieces of English bacon, which is really more like ham. It also includes baked beans, but we pass. I tried it once, not for me. They bring toast to the table in a little caddy and have marmalades and fruit jams on the table, all pre-packaged food service-type stuff. They also serve us juice and coffee. The staff works very hard here. I notice Darren from the front desk at least one morning washing dishes back in the tiny kitchen. Breakfast is not remarkable, but it’s included in our room charge, is hot and tasty and served by very pleasant young women each morning. We have to call when we’re ready for breakfast and the desk calls us when a table is available. There are only 6 tables in the little dining room in the basement directly below our room, seating 20 people. We learn to get up early so there’s no wait and notice that we can also have some Activia yogurt, which we ask for the last two mornings.

Oxford's Great Hall

Windsor Castle

We walk (in the pouring rain) about half a mile to the Royal International Hotel to be picked up by our Evan Evans Tour bus. The big gleaming red bus pulls in right on schedule and we hop on, after guzzling the Starbucks coffees we grabbed on the way, which we are not allowed to bring on board. We pick up passengers from 3 or 4 other hotels and head out in busy early morning London traffic. Trevor, our guide, is not exactly warm and fuzzy, but is knowledgeable about the area and keeps us amused and informed as we travel towards Windsor Castle, our first destination. It was at least an hour drive outside London, and we arrive there just as a train drops its passengers at Windsor Eton Central Station there, so it’s a bit hectic. We have about an hour and a half to tour the massive castle and grab lunch to bring back to the bus. The castle is lovely, lots of original art and the miniature dollhouse belonging to Queen Mary. I am most taken by the views from the castle; green, green and more green. Serene green. Lovely. The chapel is also wonderful. We scoot out after to a place called ‘Eat.’, a chain with good fast food and pick up sandwiches and fruit which we eat back on the bus. Now we’re on to Oxford. By the time we get there, it is raining hard. We have about an hour. Trevor takes us into the great hall where students eat their meals, which was used as a model for the dining hall at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. It’s great – really feels like Hogwarts, just smaller. We walk through the village at Oxford with Trevor narrating and enjoy the local flavor as the rain lightens up just enough for us not to get drenched. We booked this more expensive bus tour solely because it allows us to visit Stonehenge at sunset. At this point, it looks as though we won’t see any sun, so we’re a bit disappointed. As we near Stonehenge, Trevor tells us about the burial mounds surrounding the site, each of which was excavated and found to contain a single body. We notice many in the distance once we know what to look for. Happily, the weather clears and there is no rain at all for our visit. We are the only tourists at the monument, about 25 of us. They ask us not to climb onto or touch the rocks, otherwise, we are free to roam the grounds. There is a security guard on site, who I expect to be strict. Happily, he is extremely friendly, even regaling us with tales of strange lights, shadowy figures and the scent of roses that he’s witnessed while guarding the site. We spend about half an hour there. Words cannot express the emotions I feel at the site, I don’t want to leave. I read about this place as a kid, and here I am posing for photos among the stones. A tremendous experience – it's very peaceful, regal.