Where’s the Loo?  

Part 1 London

The title says it all, doesn’t it? A vacation to end all vacations, we travelled abroad and were able to see red telephone booths (What? I like them!), drunk dancing, ancient ruins and camels with questionable behaviours that would rival any current president. Yeah, I went there. Let’s get into it.

Since the airlines in Newfoundland have decided to take pity on us, again, we have a few options to go across the pond without first travelling three and a half hours in the opposite direction, only to turn around and head back. Now, we can get a direct flight from St. John’s to Gatwick, or to Dublin. No going backwards first. Thrilling for us islanders and we took full advantage of it. 

An overnight six-hour flight and we landed in Gatwick tired, cranky and sounding like any true Brit! Fake accents, smelly travel clothes and whining about the train ride we were about to take to get into London. We dropped our bags at the hotel and hoped no one was interested in an overstuffed backpack blazoned with a Canadian flag and weighed closely to that of a small child. That was my idea of ‘packing light.’ It came back to bite me in the ass when we trudged up a hill in Greece in thirty-degree Celsius heat to get to our hotel because, “it’s only a short walk.” Fuck you, it was a LONG WALK UPHILL AND I SWEAT AND SWORE THE ENTIRE WAY.  But I digress…

London. We landed at Victoria station and tried to decide the best way to see everything in five hours or less without falling asleep standing up or being run over by wild taxi drivers or double-decker buses. So fun! We headed right, because we saw a sign that said Buckingham Palace with an arrow, so we followed that. Canadian ingenuity at its peak! There was also discussion about where to stop for lunch, since we were hungry and who wants to encounter a group of hangry Canadians. We might tell you to move out of the way instead of saying, “Excuse me!”  Totally unacceptable behaviour. Anyway, we followed the arrow, then the signs then got momentarily distracted by the multitude of pubs along the way and stopped and admired the beer, then finally got to the palace. We stopped. Took pics. See?  

Then we headed back the way we came, after some discussion about which direction that was, and then made it to a pub aptly named a Bag O’Nails.

Lovely. Who wouldn’t want to have fish and chips there? We are so adventurous!  Luckily, no nails were consumed, but there was beer. And an interesting trip to the ladies’ room which was situated upstairs and through a fire exit door, like WTF dudes?  We have to pee, and you think it’s fun to send us on a scavenger hunt to find the lady’s room? The men’s room was seriously, right across the bar. I felt a call to rise and protest, but who has that kind of time? And me without my sign. Dammit. 

We left the bar and headed in a direction I can’t remember despite my detailed notes. We did manage to find an old red telephone booth that I gleefully went inside to snap some pics and carefully sanitized my hands immediately following.

And we managed to see some of the highlights like the London Eye, Westminster Abbey and a Palestinian protest. Bonus!   We convinced Hubby to move along lest he forgot he was no longer in the police force and decide to “help” the other members out. The protestors seemed quite peaceful for the most part, so we skedaddled out of there and kept on walking. And walking. And walking. Until we looked like the characters from the Walking Dead and thought getting back to the hotel would be a good idea. Yay!  Now, if only we could find that….

The tube! Great. Which way? No idea, I thought you knew. Nope, not a clue. Let’s ask. Asking. Oh, the other way. Found the tube. Found the express to Gatwick and fell asleep on the train. Got to the hotel. Ate, drank, then went to bed.  That was London. A very short extravaganza of evading protests, taking in sights and staying awake long enough to make it back to the hotel without ending up in some rando suburb where we would be forced to drink beer and recite our national anthem. Although, that does sound interesting now that I see it on paper…

It should be noted that the weather was cooperative. Sunny and warm but not too hot. No torrential rain or sleet to make us want to bury our heads and drown our sorrows in beer at a pub. That would not have been such a bad way to spend an afternoon. The next day we were on a plane out of Gatwick and on to beautiful Santorini built onto the sides of cliffs with the classic blue and white structures, and beautiful sunsets. And wind to rival any Newfoundland coastline. Glad I brought my sweater for the evening out of, “This feels like I’m on my back patio forcing myself to stay outside because it’s summer, dammit!” and my walking shoes because she was steep! 

Stay tuned for our Greece adventure and why I advise GETTING A FUCKING TRANSFER TO THE WINE BAR FOR FUCK’S SAKE. My glutes are fine….