First full day in London

Rain, not merely London drizzle. Real pouring down rain. Luckily for me, the Thanet has umbrellas in a stand in the front hallway for visitors to borrow (Himself, of course, brought his own, but I forgot mine. Actually, I didn’t forget it, I just decided not to bring it because last January it snowed while we were here.) Tomorrow snow is expected.

The Thanet is a very nice, little, family-run hotel at #8 Bedford Place in Bloomsbury. There are garden squares at each end of the block - Bloomsbury Square and Russell Square. The street is lined with tall, narrow row houses, most of which are private hotels like the Thanet. We’re on the 3rd floor, looking east over walled gardens toward the Bedford Hotel located on Southampton Row. The Thanet is billed as an economy hotel - and, by London standards I guess it is. But it’s very nice, and has all the essentials - private bathrooms, heat, hot water, comfortable beds; it’s clean, and it offers a cooked breakfast - not just the usual buffet with boiled eggs that might or might not be warm. Here the staff prepares a “typical” English breakfast of eggs - scrambled, fried, or boiled, with ham, sausage, or smoked salmon, with mushrooms, fried tomatoes, and baked beans, with toast, of course, is a charming little toast rack. You can also have fruit and juice. Plus, you could chose porridge, cold cereal, yoghurt. And, of course, coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. The staff is very pleasant, and have been here for years, making it seem very homelike. And, the Thanet is very convenient. The British Museum is a 3 minute walk away, and the British Library about 10 minutes in the opposite direction.

Today I had a very, very lazy day. Himself got up and out early, breakfasting when the dining room opened at 7:30. I managed to roll out of bed about 8:30, shower, and dress, and race down to breakfast with my wet hair confined in a bun about 9:03 (breakfast ends at 9:15). Himself went off to the BM while I was breakfasting, and I had planned to do a couple of errands and maybe go there myself later in the morning, but by the time I had finished doing my laundry and blogging, it was pouring down rain, so I hung out here and read a book. After lunch and a nap, the rain having abated considerably, I made an excursion to Southampton Row to the bank and to buy some hand cream. In the drug store (which is called, curiously, a pharmacy, rather than a chemist), I ran into a young woman who goes to Carlton College in Northfield Minnesota! Interesting how many times we run into people with Minnesota connections no matter where we go!

After that I walked a few blocks to 46 Gordon Square, the site of one of Virginia Woolf’s childhood homes, a house later occupied by John Maynard Keynes. Tomorrow I will go to see another of Woolf’s homes, on Tavistock Place. Tomorrow I plan to buy a couple of second hand copies of her books.

We were joined by one of Himself’s colleagues for dinner - which we enjoyed at a nearby Indian-Bangladeshi restaurant - the Nason Raja on Southampton Row. It was warm and inviting, and the food and service were very good.

The voyage and arrival

For once I was ready to leave on time, and Himself and I trooped off down the hill to the Metro bus that would take us to the Hiawatha Light Rail station at the stop formerly known as the Metrodome, to take the train to the airport. We arrived at the airport with about 3 hours to spare, and whizzed through security at the outer check station about 4 floors above the light rail station. Amazingly, there was absolutely no one ahead of us in the line!! The next amazing thing to happen was to learn that Delta had inexplicably “bumped” us up to First Class (actually called Business Elite) for the flight across the pond. I was delighted - I never flew first class until our return trip from NYC last week, and that was in 2 little shuttles. Although pleasantly spacious, it wasn’t really all that different from flying coach. It’s very ingenue of me to be excited, I’m sure, most other people probably would be very blase, but, honestly, I was excited, and pleased!

And it was really neat to get to board the plane in the very first group, and then to be offered orange juice or champagne by the flight attendant immediately upon boarding. (You’ll want to know that I chose orange juice, but Himself had a beer.) It was really special to have an entire overhead compartment to myself, and a seat that did everything from having a specially comfortable seatbelt (!) to giving a back massage (which was a challenge for Himself to stop after he had accidentally turned it on). Of course, during the flight you could almost completely flatten out the seat to become like a bed. And the pillows were real pillows with crisp white covers, and we each had a twin-sized quilt (though I didn’t even open mine, as it was pretty warm in the plane). Dinner was fun - and the appetizers were delicious - gravlax, beet salad, pickled artichokes, and a small green salad. My main course selection was tenderloin with shrimp - it actually was pretty okay, but at 11:30 pm, I didn’t really feel like eating very much. There was a wide array of wines, and the flight attendants were very attentive, refilling our glasses constantly (I actually had to say no to several offers of additional wine!) Himself chose pasta Alfredo with broccolini - heavy on the Alfredo and pretty light on the broccolini - you actually almost needed a magnifying glass to find it.

Finally, they offered desserts - one was cheese and fruit and another was an ice cream sundae, with your choice of toppings. Himself had the former, but I declined - realizing that I really didn’t need a big dose of sugar on top of all the food and wine at nearly midnight CST time - I was very glad for that decision in the “morning” when we landed at Heathrow at 6:30 am CST!

Now, about sleeping - the “bed” was pretty comfortable for me, but Himself found the little compartment a little confining. For those of you who haven’t tried this, the seats recline by moving forward and flattening out - it’s kind of like being in a little pod within which your seat moves. Interesting, in that what you do has no effect whatsoever on the person in front of or behind you. Of course, you have your own video screen, lights, table, and air control - you don’t have to connect with anyone else at all (except the flight attendants, who are there to “serve” you). I was reminded of flying in the “old” days, when if you watched the movie, you were watching it with everyone else - no more - everyone gets to choose her own movie, or HBO, or TV show, or nothing at all. First Class even gets its own PA system and doesn’t have to listen to the announcements made to the folks in coach - we only got the major announcements like the weather in London, when we would land, and so on.

In the “morning” - about 10:30 am Greenwich time (4:30 am ish) CST time, we were offered breakfast with a range of choices from bagels and cream cheese, muffins, fresh fruit, granola, and yoghurt to scrambled eggs on an English muffin with cheese and spinach and a side of Canadian bacon. Plus pretty good orange juice, coffee, tea, milk, etc. Himself actually ate the eggs, it was too early for me. I was content with some fresh fruit, yoghurt, coffee, and orange juice.

The final really cool thing, was that we were given a special “invitation” for the Fast Track at immigration - which was really nice, as our flight had come in with several other flights and the lines at immigration were pretty long. When we did get to the desk, the officer looked at Himself’s passport and commented on the number of entry stamps in it (it is pretty full). Then he asked how we were getting to our hotel - seemed impressed rattled off, “the Heathrow express to Paddington, then either the #7 bus or we’ll walk to Russell Square....” (We took the bus.)

We arrived at the Thanet about 2:30 or so, and were able to check into our room immediately (#9, which is right above #5, where we stayed last year, and where I think Chris or Nick stayed with Himself once). #9 has only a double bed, but it looks out into the back garden.

After freshening up, we headed out to get a bite of lunch and coffee, then we went to the National Gallery (on Trafalgar Square - the photo above is me in the square in front of St. Martins-in-the-fields) to see a special exhibit of work by Bridget Riley. She’s the British painter whose “op art” work explored the underpinings of classic techniques - from that period her works consist of precisely alligned black and white lines that create amazing visual illusions - of wave motions, contrasts, and other energized surfaces. It’s fascinating, but also a little hard to look at on 3 hours of sleep and a mind mixed-up from flying! I think I’ll go back tomorrow and be able to “see” it properly!! On the way home, we stopped at our favorite Tesco’s, just off Covent Garden, and picked up some comestibles and went “home” to the Thanet in the London drizzle, where we were again warmly greeted by Albert.

Off to England

This trip began rather inauspiciously, with an email early Monday morning from the woman who was to take care of our new puppy, Freya, during our 12-day absence - she had decided she couldn't take care of the dog! So, a good part of Monday was devoted by me to finding another home-away-from-home for her. Fortunately, Goldwood Kennel (or Goldbrick Kennel as it's known to many of us) was able to accommodate her. Goldwood is an excellent kennel - heated (or a/c in the summer) large indoor roomlets, with hammock-like beds in a separate "sleeping" room, at least 3 outdoor playtimes each day, and very pleasant, professional handlers. So, off we went to Mahtomedi, about 20 miles from our house, on Tuesday afternoon to drop Freya off. The hardest part was saying goodbye to her - she looked stricken, as if she had returned to the shelter where we got her and didn't have a clue what she had done to be kicked out of her warm home and abandoned by the people to whom she had bonded. (Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing here, but she did look sad when I said goodbye to her.) By the way, the above photo is Freya in her kennel at home, NOT at Goldwood.