England Days 7, 8 & 9

The next 3 days were big for the wife and Youngest-daughter; for me, not so much. Some of the wife's English relatives came to pick them up Monday morning and they went to Windsor Castle and several other places I can't remember. Of course I worked all day. They were nice enough to wait on my return that evening and we all went out to eat. Wife and I had another bland hamburger and chips and Youngest-daughter had chicken strips, all for a mere $65. Those people should be drawn and quartered for charging such outrageous prices for such tasteless food. And it wasn't like we went to some posh, multi-star foo-foo place; we were in a friggin pub!

Tuesday was a worrisome day for me. Wife rented a car early that morning and drove with Youngest-daughter to some other relative's homes about 2 1/2 hours away in Stoke-on-Trent. Another big day for them as they visited the house where my wife's mom grew up, saw the places she told the wife about when she was a kid, met more relatives and looked at pictures of her young mom and grandparents. The wife is not known as a good driver even in America so I had visions of her causing a mass pile-up trying to drive safely on the wrong side of the road. Evidently the concentration required resulted in her being cautious and she made it safely. She spent the night there so I had the bed to myself after another evening of uninspiring expensive food with a large group of people from work.

As I indicated before, we had lunch brought in by the client's food vendor each day so we could continue to work through. Unfortunately, they served the same exact thing every day - weird little dry finger sandwiches (pimento cheese on wheat was the best; little tiny shrimp on white the worst) with no mayo or mustard, hard, dry corn chips and mild "hot" sauce. The first day it wasn't so bad; the 2nd it was ok, but by the 3rd, we were getting pretty tired of them. The 1st day almost all were eaten; the 2nd day a few were left, and the 3rd, only about 1/2 were eaten. On the 4th day, people started verbally protesting and on the 5th, very few were eaten and a full revolt was imminent. Wednesday, our last work day, our host went down and requested they bring us something else. When we received those same sandwiches, we delivered them to a group of web developers (they'll eat anything if it's free!) and our host paid for us to eat in the cafeteria to avoid being beheaded by us peasants.

Wife and Youngest-daughter returned Wednesday evening, once again safe and without a scratch on the rental car. Yes, miracles still happen! It was raining hard and we had to pack for a 4:00 wake up to get to the airport the next morning so we decided to just get room service. Ham sandwich with a few potato chips and a salad with chicken strips wasn't bad - until I got the bill the next morning and found that in addition to the 17 Pounds for the food, they charged a 12.5% tip, a 3 Pound delivery charge and another 3 Pound charge for "tray pickup" - $40 for a room service ham sandwich and salad with chicken strips! Starting to get the picture? It was VERY expensive over there!

And so our trip was basically at an end. My team and I got a lot of work done and wife and Youngest-daughter enjoyed themselves immensely. Youngest-daughter can now go back to school having first hand knowledge in history and geography classes, plus the benefit of learning about a side of her family genealogy. I would judge the trip a success.
 

England Day 6

Sunday morning started with me hitting the snooze button when the alarm started buzzing at 6:00. A 2nd snooze assured we wouldn't make the 7:01 train into London. It did, however, assure time for a nice cup of coffee on the patio before heading out.

Outside the Sherlock Holmes Museum

After rousing the girls, we caught the 8:01 and a while later were standing outside the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Well done and pretty interesting place, even if it is for a fictional character. Wife and youngest daughter spent a long time in the souvenir shop next door. I found a bench outside and talked to a really nice family from New York for a while. Next stop was back to the Tower of London.

This turned out to be more of an adventure than intended. We had to take a tube across town and ended up getting lost and trapped underground. We kept following the signs saying "Way Out," but they all seemed to just lead to another station. It was very hot, we went up and down hundreds of stairs, and barely escaped before a death occurred in our family. Once above ground, polluted, but cooler air never felt so good.

Bloody Tower, built 1238 - 1272 in the Tower of
London complex. Numerous historical and
famous people were killed within these walls
which are rumored to be haunted.

The Tower of London was probably the most interesting site I visited during the whole trip. We spent about 2 1/2 hours there, exploring all of the towers, and just walking around taking pictures. It was very crowded and when we first got there, the line to see the crown jewels was about 2 hours long so we decided to skip that. However, just before we left, there was virtually no line so the girls got to see them while I decided to explore other areas on my own. Highly recommend if you ever make it to London.



Queen's House within the Tower of London where
Queen Anne Boleyn was held prisoner before she 
was beheaded. Guy Fawkes was also held prisoner
here before being hung, drawn and quartered. It is
reputed to be very haunted, especially by Boleyn
 who is said to walk around holding her severed 
head under her arm.

We really didn't get to see much else of note this day since we spent so much time lost underground and then spent a lot of time just walking and seeing different buildings and statues. We found another McDonalds so of course youngest daughter insisted on taking the opportunity for chicken nuggets. We wanted to see Windsor Castle, but ran out of time. It started raining, we were very tired, and I had to go to work the next day so we headed on back.

We arrived in Marlow on the 10:00 PM train and walked the 1/2 mile back to the hotel in heavy rain. London was interesting, crowded, and there was lots and lots of walking and standing in lines. I'm talking LOTS of walking! I was almost looking forward to going back to work just to be able to sit for a while - almost.