Welcome to London!

So you’ve moved to London, now what????

Hopefully, you’re phone is at the very least internationally unlocked. My advice, stop by the cell phone vending machine in the airport and grab a Pay As You Go (PAYG) Three (3) SIM card for around £20. Here’s the deal, you don’t know where you’re going to live, what carrier works where you live, or what carrier works where you work. I’m hoping you’re moving to London to take advantage of all the cheap travel around Europe. Three (3) offers free roaming in many European countries (even in the USA), so give them a try. If you plan to travel, they’re probably your best bet, so hopefully they’ll work well where you live and work. If you’re married or with a partner, have them grab a SIM from a different carrier so you can try two out at once. It’s often helpful when traveling to have multiple carriers to work with.

Pop your SIM into your phone and go download the CityMapper app. This single app made traveling around the city SO much easier. Then download the Uber app, as Black Taxis only accept cash and Uber is MUCH cheaper.

Next, grab an Oyster card. There’s a bunch of options for travel around London, but in most cases, you’ll need an Oyster card, so grab one at the airport. They’re used for London buses and the Tube. There’s no need to have obtained one before arriving in the UK.

Shopping:
Everyone will tell you to head to Oxford Street for everything. Well yeah, you can probably get everything there, but you don’t have to go there just to shop. While it is a fun adventure to be amongst the crowds, there’s shopping all over town, you just need to know where to find it. You’ll be amazed at how close some stores can be without even knowing they’re just around the corner, where as others are so very far away. Stores such as John Lewis and Harrods are the closest thing to a department store that you’re used to, with the price tags to match. BTW, TJ Maxx is called TK Maxx in the UK. I found that if you’re looking for home goods, be sure to verify the TK Maxx you’re heading to offers a home goods section (I used Google maps to do this), before showing up and finding that all they’ve got is clothing.

Groceries:
Londoners shop multiple times per week. If you’re accustomed to shopping weekly, this may come as a shock to your system. Most flats simply don’t have the space to store that much food and you won’t want to lug all those provisions home all at once. For those that want to simplify life a bit, stores such as Ocado offer home delivery. A good friend of ours when moving to the UK, made an order from one of these companies and they delivered a house full of groceries hours after they moved into their flat. Grocery stores come in all sizes, from little corner stores to full-sized grocers. Every store carries something a bit different, so I got in the habit of stopping in just to see what I could get at each store. You’d be amazed at the variability. BTW, most stores have at least one aisle devoted to grab-and-go sandwiches. In the US, I wouldn’t have dreamed of buying these, but in the UK, I found them quite tasty and reasonably priced. Give them a shot as I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Store names you might be looking for: Tesco, Aldi, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Partridges, Whole Foods plus your local corner shops.

I’ll edit this post to add some more tips shortly.

When John and I moved to London in 2015, we talked about the places that remained on our bucket list for the US. We both felt like we’d traveled to most places we wanted to see, but each had a few that remained. I hadn’t yet been to Chicago or San Francisco, and he wanted to see Boston and Philadelphia. We made Philly happen before we left, thanks to some work perks of mine, but the others remained.

Today, over a year later, we landed in San Francisco with a week to spare and great expectations. Day 1 wasn’t the best, as it rained heavily most of the day and we had no AC nor airflow in the hotel we chose, but the hotel was really kitchy with each room specially designed by a local artist, and we had the “peacock room”. Looks great, and it overlooks an inner atrium with some funky, colorful wall art & a face that stares in your room! O.O The hotel is a 2 star hotel called Hotel Des Arts, just across the street from the famous Chinatown gate. The staff was friendly, and when we let them know about the lack of airflow in the room, they brought us two fans which made our night. Before that it was, honestly, unbearable, which is why we’ve decided to only stay one night. Sunday we move to a 4 star hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf with a bay view for about $40 more per night – it has A/C!

 

For day 1, after checking in at 10am (we had a room already!) and dropping off our stuff, we were craving San Francisco’s famous clam chowder in a bread bowl, and Pier 39 had a lot of options for us for chowder and sightseeing, so we took off that direction. Uber is our main source of transportation in most cities, but we’re always on the lookout for the right method of transport for what we want to do. We already know on this trip we’ll take the cable cars, and we’ll rent a car later in the week to take south along the coast and then to Yosemite, so we’re open.

 

We saw a place online called Chowder’s which looked inexpensive, and we were interested in the outdoor seating, but since it was raining off and on, we opted for the classier Fog Harbor Fish House at the entrance to Pier 39. Their prices tended to be around $25-30 each for lunch, with a few items like the seafood tower for as high as $68, but they have an excellent, amazing chowder for $10 with the bread bowl! They offer excellent views of the bay including the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the resident sea lions at the end of the pier and the ever-exciting tourists milling about.

 

The rain began to subside as we finished our hearty lunches, and we ventured outside with no agenda in mind. We wandered along the pier, heading towards the end to see the sea lions who were causing a raucous with the tourists. As the rain subsided, the fog began to lift and I finally got my first glimpse of the world-famous Golden Gate Bridge. Views of Alcatraz were more clear now, and we could also see boats moving around the water & further lands beyond. Still no sun and still very cloudy, but that’s an excellent time for souvenir shopping! I picked up a shirt and a few other gifts for friends back home, and there was time for some creative photos in the shops as well. The sea lions at the end of the pier were a highlight, and I’ll include some of the photos and videos from watching them. They’re very loud! Fights and families and lots of huddled up time while they napped on the floating platforms. We began to freeze in the cold, moist air, and stayed as long as we could before we couldn’t stay any longer.

 

Walking back along the pier, we weren’t as cold anymore, so we grabbed Dreyer’s ice cream – a scoop of espresso chocolate chip and another of regular chocolate chip – and enjoyed the saxophonist who’d set up shop at the entrance of the pier. The skies took a turn for the worst, dumping more rain than previously, and we joined the mass of tourists in heading out and making our way home after a successful afternoon of doing whatever the hell we wanted. It was great, and we enjoyed the day.

This great dataviz shows us how many languages there are in the world and where they’re spoken. Wow! This feels like it would have taken a long time to collect, collate, and visualise! Great job Alberto!

 

 

Original post with a hi-res from Alberto Lucas Lopez here: http://www.lucasinfografia.com/Mother-tongues.

A friend of mine created this interactive walk through of London, and I thought it’d be great to share with you all here for a virtual tour of my fair city!

Click the link and explore – try clicking on the dots under the time slots, and plan your next trip. Reach out to us if you’d like ideas or suggestions on where to walk and where to visit if you’ve got a little free time in London!

Today was the last day of our two week “sampler” holiday of Europe, and we ended in Istanbul, Turkey, on the European side. We started the day very early, meeting our friends for our last breakfast at the amazing Hotel Anthemis before trotting out for what we expected to be our last “experience” of the trip – indulging in a Turkish Bath.

We’ve been collecting “experiences” all through the trip, doing things the locals would do or going out of the normal touristy areas to do something very different or adventuresome – riding the donkeys down the massive hill in Santorini, trying specialities in cuisine like the traditional Turkish clay pot testi delicacy, smoking a Turkish nargile, or hiking up a volcano in Sicily, Italy. These are the things that make our trip. These are the experiences we’ll remember when we’re 70 or even 90 with any luck. We don’t want to sit, washed up at some resort for the whole of our time where that said resort could be anywhere in the world and no one ever leaves its property because it’s “not safe outside”, if we can help it.

In Istanbul, we were certainly in a lot of instances where we didn’t know exactly where we were, no internet, with a Rick Steve’s guidebook in our hands looking up words for “How do we get to this hotel address?”, etc. I mean, what do you do when you have all your luggage, and you’re just off the cruise ship, and now also off the tram (thanks Rick Steves) and supposedly at the stop we need for our hotel but can’t find it? We walk back and forth, stopping in at hotels to try to find out where to go, but to no avail. After hailing down a Taksi large enough for the four of you and your bags, he looks at the address, waves his hands, says “No”, and gets back in his cab to drive away. What do you do? We hailed the next one, same reaction, but he was at least able to tell us the road was blocked with bad traffic where we were going, so “Bye”.

So today was going to be an experience, and that it was. It lived up to our wishes, but remember the adage, be careful what you wish for. So I left you with the Turkish Bath last, which was such an experience. We had intended to go last night before it closed, but after our relaxing and most wonderful dinner, complete with Turkish water pipe/hookah/nargile, we didn’t leave ourselves enough time and had to return this morning. While we were at the bath house last night, we talked to a woman who had just finished her bath about her experience. She was cautious, said she would never do it again but that it’s an experience you must live, so she’s glad she did it. That doesn’t sell it entirely well. However, one of our friends was committed, and we would all be going in the morning.

I’m not yet sure how detailed my readers want me to get or how much people want to read, so here’s the short version. In a Turkish bath, people are either naked or partially naked with just a thin wrap for men or loaner underwear for women. There’s not a single part of you that won’t get wet, and someone will place their bare hands on your skin. Lots of suds are involved, and the room is much like a sauna in that the air is thick with moisture and very warm. You’ll sweat on your own, and your pores will love you for it, especially after a two week journey. For me, we went as soon as women were allowed in the bath at 7:30am, and I was the first bather to arrive. For the men who went with us, they were in a separate room at the bath house we chose, and they had 7 or so people in the room with them.

For my experience, there were times it was really nice, and others it was altogether surreal. This bath house has existed here since 1584, and the locker key they give you reminds you of this while you lay in the steamy silence: “1584 Çemberlitaş Hamamı”. The paint is chipped off in many areas of the wall, the room is filled with a large, gray marble centerpiece platform on which you lay. It’s warm, either heated underneath or heated from the room. Everything is damp. Eye glasses were a poor, poor choice for this girl who got ready too quickly this morning. They fog instantly. Don’t slip on the marble.

The woman who leads me in is the woman who will eventually bathe me. What a strange phrase. Either I feel like a sick child or Anastasia Steele, neither seems right, but I go along anyway with an open mind. I walk in, glasses fog, don’t slip, woman removes my wrap….um, thanks?, and places it on the marble and leaves me to lie down and relax.

During this time I notice more of the architecture, noticing the date on the keychain, trying to remember how to say the name of the place which has the different C and different S in the name, seeing the beauty of the place and not being able to capture it in film, so I start counting shapes and sizes of the geometric shapes within the room. The platform is around 15’ wide with 12 sides, made of gray marble, overlooked by a high arching dome with dim-lit holes in the ceiling. They’re not perfectly aligned; there are seven rows of large cut out circles and elipses, nine in the center. Maybe this means something. Sounds are of the single water fountain worker #52, my bather, left on for me. It’s a little more than a trickle, but its sounds reverberate throughout the expansive hall, bouncing from the domed ceiling to the nooks where other bathers might be with other silent fountains. I kiss the air aloud and hear it bounce around. I do it a few more times.

Worker #52 returns and pours warm water all over me, scrubbing with a loofah glove and sudsy craziness. I say craziness, because I think she sadistically gets pleasure from making it fall in your face, as she reinforced later while washing my hair and rubbing soapy hands in my eyes. She never told me when she was going to pour water in my face, which I didn’t like, but again, all a part of the experience, with as much leisure time in the bath that I wanted. What an experience, and that was only 45 minutes at the start the day!

Now…to our unexpected last “experience”, our flights. It started with the overly delayed flight from Istanbul to Rome, landing over an hour past its time, leaving 20 minutes between gates…

Copenhagen was an amazing city. Cheap to get to from London, and with a little smarts and know-how, the city can be incredibly enjoyable on the cheap. Here are my main thoughts about this amazing city in an exciting country as I reflect on our three day adventure to the country’s capital:

• The city is rich with incredible history. Did you know that the Prince & Princess walk about the city like normal folks? Our walking tour guide said he’s bent down to pet someone’s dog before, and he looked up to see it was the royal couple who stopped to talk with him for a few minutes while walking their dog! They like getting out in public.
• For almost 20 kings, the names have gone Frederick then Christian…then Frederick II and Christian II – today we have Crown Prince Frederick, grandson of King Frederick IX, who was son of Christian X….and so on. Current reigning monarch is Queen Margrethe II, cousin to the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II, and longest reigning monarch of the Scandinavian countries. She was the first female to reign since the 1300s.
• Danish as a language is interesting and one of the hardest to learn. None of the words are pronounced the way you’d think they were.
• Tivoli Gardens are an exceptional treat. It was created by the royal family in the 1800s for the people’s enjoyment, and it’s been well-maintained ever since. We were told that a young Walt Disney traveled to this famed amusement park. It is said this is where he got the ideas for his parks.  After attending Disney World in Florida and Tivoli Gardens, they’re both magical indeed. Tivoli gives an other-worldly feel, where you can while away your whole day for about $15 if you don’t want to ride rides. We saw great shows including those of the city wide Jazz Fest, and the whole day was something I’ll never forget. I’ll have to write a post just on Tivoli later.
• There are many canals and waterways throughout the city.  We took a boat tour from a central area near Nyhavn that took us out past the Opera House, into Christiana, past The Little Mermaid statue, and back through boat lined canals, snaking through tiny tunnels and into the cool sunshine.
• The Copenhagen Walking Tour was the best. We learned more about how to speak Danish (hint: difficult!), about all the fires the city has had, about why the city is known for the happiest people on earth (hint: they invented beer as we know it, and they have excellent social care), how they have their own “little secret” of a hidden city within a city called Christiana where people build their own houses and have their own internal government, and how to enjoy the city like a Dane.
• Enjoy Nyhavn when you go, but don’t eat at the shops along the water unless you want to spend a lot of money. Instead, since it’s allowed on the streets, grab snacks and a cold one from the local 7-Eleven and relax like the locals do, watching the tourists.
• We enjoyed an afternoon snoozing in the sun in a park after exploring the country’s riches and history of Rosenborg Castle.
• Uber is a great idea in any country that has it.
• Danish pastries in Denmark are called wienerbrød/wienerbröd or “Viennese bread” because to them, it was created in the viennoiserie tradition. In Vienna, they’re known as Danish pastries because they were first invented in Denmark.
• As a designer, the Danish have incredible, amazing, creative designs all throughout the city at every facet – buildings, decorations, furniture, textures and textiles. The city is a designer’s paradise for creativity and inspiration.

We’ve done a lot of traveling and I hope we’ll do a lot more traveling in the future together, but you never know what’s going to happen that might throw a wrench into those plans. We’ve been fairly lucky in the injury department, so far…

Saturday, I saw that there was a free walking tour being offered by London Walks sponsored by TfL probably in an attempt to get people walking and exercising more. Apparently these occur three times a year. I saw walks 2 in our area, one leaving from Tower Bridge and walking to Greenwich (supposedly 8 hours) and the other leaving from City Hall and walking to Canary Wharf (3.5 hours).

Rain was in the forecast for the afternoon, so I picked the shorter of the two, City Hall to Canary Wharf. Expecting a similar walk to one I’d taken previously through Bermondsey, I thought I would check out how a different company conducts their tours to see if I’d prefer one over the other.  Turns out this one was highlighting sights north of the river, so it was a bit different than I thought it would be.  Here is the description of the tour I took:

Walk along the Thames Path with the Chairman of the River Thames Society

This special walk passes over Tower Bridge, looks at St. Katharine Dock and follows the Thames Path past the former London Docks, through Wapping, Shadwell to Limehouse, with its historic Narrow Street.

The walk also takes in a visit to Limehouse Basin, before crossing Limekiln Creek to Canary Wharf, with great views of the river along the way.

Part of Walk London's Spring into Summer weekend of free guided walks funded by Transport for London.

So I set out towards City Hall and met up with the tour.  We crossed over Tower Bridge and saw the small cruise ship, Berlin, docked beside the HMS Belfast bringing many visitors to London where they’ll tour the city in motorcoaches.

We crossed over to the north bank of the Thames, and learned a bit about the St. Katharine’s Docks, home to the M.V. Havengore which has the distinction of being the vessel that took Churchill up the Thames for the last time.

The tour continued through Wapping, to the Hermitage Riverside Memorial Garden, designated as a peace reminder with the WWII Blitz Memorial.

It began to drizzle as we passed a couple of high end restaurants overlooking the Thames, past the ICC International Maritime Bureau, down a short flight of steps, and BAM!, down I went.  My left foot slipped on a metal step and didn’t find grip on the next step either. My hands were in my jacket pockets keeping them dry. My right arm pulled up before I hit the ground seeking a place to brace my fall. I landed primarily on my hip with my chicken wing pinned under my chest. My left foot continued down the steps, taking the legs out of the girl in front of me, and down she went too. She jumped up, grumbling something about my needing to be more careful. Not sure how I was doing, I slowly got to my feet. A well wishing Samaritan grabbed my sore arm and shook it asking if I was okay. I said I hoped so. I brushed my jacket off and found my arm tender and it stung, but I didn’t see any blood and it still worked properly, so I took those to be good signs. My leg and hip hurt, but they supported my weight, so check, another good sign. My chest hurt where my arm had cushioned the fall and I had developed a head ache. Time would tell. Would they stiffen up and turn black and blue? Would I be spending the night in the urgent care clinic looking at x-rays and casts?

I kept walking with the tour group. It wasn’t the senior citizens that fell, it was me. Apparently rubber soled hiking boots aren’t necessarily non-skid. I did try to avoid walking behind people and I noticed a few did their best to avoid walking in front of me. Even so, I was still walking better than the majority of them.

We continued along, past the Wapping Police Station and dock, the Captain Kidd pub, Wapping Overground Station, along the Wapping Wall, through King Edward VII’s Memorial Park, and stopped for a story regarding the East India Company’s saltpeter warehouse.  Continuing along the Thames Path through Shadwell, we got stopped at the Limehouse Ship Lock as the Narrow’s Bridge was blocked to allow a sailboat to exit the Limehouse Basin. While waiting, the heaviest rain I’ve experienced so far in London began to fall. I felt as if it was egging me on to fall again. Up a long stairwell, holding onto the railing, we crossed the bridge. We followed Narrow Street until we got to another bridge leading to Dundee Wharf and began following the river once more to the Canary Wharf pier where our tour came to an end.

 

For the record, this is the relationship between Canary Wharf and our flat.

 

 

From there, to get to the nearest Underground tube stop, I walked up the stairs and along West India Ave until I reached the Cabot Place shopping center.  There, for good measure, my left foot slipped on the last wet step before getting out of the rain. I didn’t fall this time, but it was a jarring conclusion to the walk.

I took the tube back home to Bermondsey, walked home, and surveyed the damage. Fortunately, my clothes were not torn.  My arm was scraped up a bit and bruised, ribs were sore, but unmarked, and I’ve got a huge, very sore welt on my hip. A couple of Aleve later, a full nights rest, more Aleve in the morning and it still hurts, but nothing turned black and blue, so I guess I’m in the clear!

Just remember, even the most basic of adventures can cause you to end up in pain. It was just a 3.5 mile walk that many senior citizens were able to complete, without injury I might add.

To quote the 1980’s crime drama,

Let’s be careful out there…

When we flew to France in the summer of 2014, everyone told us that the French like to strike. We were like, there’s no chance of us being affected by a strike while we are there for a measly three days. We had no idea that strikes are practically the national pastime of France.

We flew into Charles de Gaulle airport, rode the train out to Paris and toured the city. We heard there was a possible strike of the taxis and rail service strike scheduled for tomorrow. The hotel suggested we go ahead and pre-schedule a taxi for tomorrow as it may be impossible to hail one on the street. We did so, since we were taking a trip to Normandy the next day. We fell asleep not knowing if we had transportation that would show up.

The next morning we awoke with enough time to walk to the train station. Amazingly, a taxi was waiting for us. As we rode in the car, Tasha was interpreting the news playing on the radio station discussing the taxi strike that was going on.  It was all quite humorous as we were currently in a taxi at the time.

We arrived at the Saint-Lazare train station still hoping our train wouldn’t be on strike. We didn’t know if it would be a local Metro strike, a commuter strike, a long distance train strike, or no strike at all. Train tickets are funny things. They tell you where you’re going and where you’re leaving from, but the signs that tell you which train to get on only provide you the endpoint for the train itself and you either have to know or you have to locate the right sign that tells you all the stops that the train makes. Even asking someone is dangerous.  We were off to Caen (pronounced like “Conch” without the “ch” sound at the end), but if you don’t speak French and I do not, I would pronounce it like “Can”, which would get you put on a train to Cannes. So be careful out there. Fortunately, we found our correct train and got on it, and most importantly it wasn’t on strike.

All afternoon we toured Normandy and paid our respects to our fallen heroes in the cemeteries above the D-Day beaches. While there was a nagging question on whether or not the train would be running in the afternoon, I hoped we had nothing to fear. Right on time it pulled up, so we hopped on and made our way back to Paris. I think we jumped on the Metro to get back eliminating the need for a taxi to return to our hotel.

Two days later, all was going smoothly until we arrived at the Eiffel Tower. Of all things to go on strike! The attendants running the elevators went on strike. So you were left with the option of walking up a billion stairs or admiring it from the ground. We opted for admiration. We had already gone to the top of Montparnasse Tower to get a great view of Paris with the Eiffel Tower in our pictures. While we were below the tower, this lady came up to me to ask me to sign a petition. I’d been warned about this, because after you sign, a bully comes up to demand you pay them a fee for which you just signed. Why don’t these losers go on strike?

The next day, we scheduled a car to pick us up the next morning from the hotel and take us to the airport. Glad we did, because the taxis went on strike, again! Lucky for us, we were in a private car and not a taxi which was somewhat funny, since the strike was to protest Uber coming to Paris. As our flight was in the early morning, we missed the traffic caused by the taxis that blocked all the lanes of the highway to the airport to prevent all traffic heading to or from Charles de Gaulle.

All in all, I’d say we were extremely fortunate on this journey. Uber was coming to the European continent and like in most cities; the taxi drivers hated it and were striking. The only thing that truly affected us was the elevators going up the Eiffel Tower. Guess we will be forced to go back to Paris another time. Oh the torture!

So when they warn you might encounter a strike in France, it might just happen…

Guys, we’ve got it easy in Amsterdam.

Public urinals are all over the place.  Yup, #1 is downright simple for men in the city.  At first, I looked at them and thought, is that a urinal? It can’t be, there are no doors. Later, while on a walking tour of Amsterdam, just beyond the tour guides head, I saw a guy walk right up to one and, sure enough, it was. Right there in the open. How freeing! While hiding everything from view, it allows a guy to do what he needs to do.

Now, it is quite possible these were only out there for the national holiday of King’s Day, or Koningsdag, the Netherland’s celebration marking the birth of King Willem-Alexander which is held on April 27th each year. Either way, I thought they were notable.

Perhaps music festivals could put a few of these around their parks.  In the space that one portapotty takes, you can allow 4 men to pee at once. That ought to cut nearly half the population out of the restroom lines.

And how does this help the women in our lives?
If men are using these, they aren’t peeing on the seats of the toilets that you use. Additionally, it’s making room for more of the portapotties that you need.

As my family has always noted, travel always comes down to toilets, so I am sure this won’t be my last toilet post to the blog.

 

 

Amsterdam is a wonderful city. It’s full of fun, happy people. They’re a bit crazy about bicycles, but I applaud them for it! Every time we crossed a major street near our hotel, we would comment how much we love this city due to the available transit options. We used the phrase “head on a swivel” remind us to look both ways for oncoming traffic as there were many more lanes of traffic in the Netherlands than we were used to seeing.

1. You had to be mindful of oncoming pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk.
2. You would cross the bike lane, to make it to the “safe zone 1” before the street.
3. You would then cross the street at a crosswalk where the cars would actually stop for you (but fearing they wouldn’t, you’re always extra careful), before making it to “safe zone 2”.
4. Then swivel around some more to make sure the light rail isn’t coming on either track from either direction, before making it to “safe zone 3”.
5. It’s time to do this in reverse, crossing the street again, getting to “safe zone 4”.
6. Next is the other bike lane.
7. Finally to the other sidewalk.

Traffic in the bike lanes and sidewalks travel in both directions, so you have to be vigilant.  Here is a screenshot from Google Maps and I tried to illustrate this for you.

All in all, it was a great experience and we learned a little more about how more of the world should design it’s roadways and how other transit options should/could be adopted. The US could learn a lot from Amsterdam.