Liverpool to London (Olympic Day 7)

Today we are off to the Olympics by high speed train. But first, we've got to figure out how to give back the rental car. We manage to get the train station into the navigation system and off we go. But when we get to the train station, we see no sign of the Hertz drop off lot. It is only then that we read the contract and realize that the drop off is in another part of town. We allocated extra time so we are okay on time if it doesn't take too long. We go through a warren of little streets, half the time not knowing whether the streets are one way or not. After only a couple wrong turns, we manage to find the Hertz lot, get all our bags out of the car and hand over the keys - then find that Hertz doesn't have a shuttle bus and are going to take us to the train station in the same car we've just brought back. So, we shoe-horn the bags back into the car and off we go. We make it to the station with 25 minutes to spare and make our way to the correct platform. There, we see a sleek Virgin (is there any form of transport that Virgin doesn't own?) high speed train:

We paid for First Class so that we would have wireless access and I could work on this blog. We're sitting at a table for four with one other guy who is bent over his Apple Powerbook when we sit down. He doesn't say anything the whole time except to ask the Attendant for tea when she comes down the aisle. Beth spends here time reading her Kindle and Sean plays a marathon game of Peggle on his Kindle Fire while I work on the blog. The two hour journey flies by and in what seems like no time, we pull into Euston station.

We find our way to the taxi stand, but cause some problems in the queue when we don't get into the first taxi because it wasn't large enough to hold our three bags plus carry-ons plus the three of us. After two or three taxis, we see one that is large enough and climb in. While becoming a cab driver is one of the first occupations that new immigrants with no qualifications try in many cities, this is not how it works in London. We remember watching a TV show about how the brain works. One of the examples on memory was the test that a London cabbie needs to pass in order to get a taxi license. Imagine a city with a population of about 8.2 million. The cabbie test includes a random start location and finish location and requires the cabbie to list all of the turns from start to finish. Miss any of them and you fail. Once out on the streets, we see that the Olympics have added another level of difficulty by shutting down some of the streets to all but Olympic vehicles. We go through a bunch of what looks like alleys and I am thanking whatever deity that is listening that I don't have to drive through this mess. Before we know it, we arrive at the Novotel - London City South.

We check in and notice that Cartan Tours is based at the same hotel. This is funny to Beth and I because Cartan was the official ticket agent for the US until 2004. We went with Cartan to both Lillehammer and Nagano, but there prices are very high so for Sydney and Salt Lake City, we bought tickets from Cartan and then arranged out own housing. I'm very curious how much Cartan is charging their clients for the same rooms.

It is now mid-afternoon and we haven't eaten since breakfast so we go looking for something to eat. There is pizza bar just down the street so we try that. The concept is interesting. When you enter the shop, a server hands you a card the size of a credit card. Then there are a series of different areas where you can place an order: pizza, salad, pasta, drinks, etc. Each time you order something, you place your card up against a scanner. At the end of your mean, you take the card to the cashier who tells you how much you owe. Since we are all together, we only charge one of our three cards - and then manage to mix up which card has the charge. So we hand all three cards to the cashier and ask her to figure out which one has the charges. From her reaction we can tell this isn't the first time this has happened. I hand her one of my give-away Olympic pins for her trouble.

Feeling much better, we decide to explore our neighborhood. Walking back toward the hotel, the first thing we see is a building that the locals have taken to calling the Shard:

For the next few months, this building is the highest in Europe. There is another slightly taller one under construction (not sure where), but for now, it is the tallest.

We continue following the same street and find the London Bridge underground station that we will need to get to the Olympic Park tomorrow. Across the street is an open market that seems to be selling almost anything you'd want to eat. It has only been 20 minutes since we ate so Sean is not quite hungry yet and we head on.

On the other side of the Shard is London Bridge. We walk most of the way across so that we can get a good picture of Tower Bridge:

We had to wait a while because Tower Bridge is a drawbridge. When a ship with a tall mast comes by, they have to raise the Olympic rings and then the drawbridge.  While we are standing there, we see a police zodiac inflatable boat flying along the Thames with perhaps a half dozen police in full swat gear - a sign of the more than $1 billion being spent on Olympic security.

We turn around and head along the river toward our hotel. Here is a view along the Thames looking toward St. Paul's cathedral:

Shortly after that, we run into a statue of the Olympic mascot Wenlock:

The people in Atlanta must be feeling better about their computer-generated mascot Izzy that would have been my previous choice for the stupidest Olympic mascot. The only thing I like about Wenlock is his/her/it's name. Wenlock is the name of the village in England where Pierre du Cubertin came up with the idea for restarting the Olympics. It looks like they have these Wenlock statutes all over London (much like the Sharks in San Jose or the cows in Chicago) - all with unusual paint jobs. I'll see how many of them I can photograph while we are here.

Further down the river, we run across something that Beth really wants to see - the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe theatre:

I've been married long enough to know when Beth really wants to do something so Sean and I agree to go on the tour. Unfortunately, there are no tours in the afternoon as they get ready for the evening's performance (Henry V). So, we'll have to come back later in the week.

We have been walking for a while so we head back to the hotel for a rest before going out for dinner. I catch a brief nap while Beth and Sean watch Michael Phelps win two more gold medals (making 17 in his career so far). Just to give you an idea of how incredible this is, if Michael Phelps finishes with 18 gold medals as expected, he will be ahead of all but 31 countries in lifetime gold medals!

We decide that we'd like to eat either Indian or Thai for dinner and ask one of the hotel staff for a recommendation. She consults her computer (hmm - we could have done that) and recommends an Indian place near London Bridge station. We walk back toward the Shard and notice that there are a bunch of people standing in the street near the outdoor market. Apparently there are many more drinkers than there is space in the local bars so they just flow out into the surrounding area. The restaurant is down a flight from street level. The staff doesn't seem very smooth; indicating to us that this restaurant must be new. The food is good, but the ventilation in the restaurant must not be great because there is a vague smoke smell in the air that is off-putting.

We walk back to the hotel. I settle down to blog and Beth watches the Olympics. Instead of watching the Olympics, Sean notices that the view out our hotel includes the flight pattern for one of the local airports. He points out several Airbus 380s coming in for a landing. We've got an early event tomorrow so we go to sleep around 10pm.

Steps for the day: 14571