….and the loo award goes to

So we had my bother in law, sister in law and nieces for a visit this weekend.  We enjoy having visitors but if they are coming from Canada they are asked to pay for room and board in the form of boxes of Kraft Dinner and marshmallows.  They obliged and arrived with said necessities.

While they were here, we did quite a few touristy things which I always enjoy as I get to find out some neat bits about the city and got to witness first hand the highway robbery that tourism….as you can see by some of these gift shop goodies and other bits and bobs

1) King Henry’s blog….seriously, if they wrote history like this when I was a kid I would understand it much better

See, all the cool people blog...it's a historical fact

2) King Henry/Anne Boleyn pants (or underwear for the Canadians)…nothing says”I’m a history ‘buff’” like the King’s face on your a**.

3) Fancy a drink at Harrods?  It will cost ya.  £3.50 will give you the chance to drink out of a Harrods branded paper cup – it did come with unlimited refills but even still it would take quite a few trips to the machine to get your £3.50’s worth.  A 2L bottle of Coke goes for £1.25 here so you would need about 3 bottles to equal the cost of one Harrods cup.  If each Harrods cup was 250ml (which it was about) then that would be about 24 trips….and about 15 trips larger than my bladder could hold (I love shopping maths… if it was explained to me in terms of cups of Coke, I would have done much better in school).

4) Loo of the year award?  I am obviously happy to use award winning facilities but seriously, a) who came up with the idea of loo of the year awards b) who the hell wants to have a job judging them?  Spa awards, luxury hotel awards, cup cake tasting awards sure, sign me up but loo awards?  no thanks. (Although I do love that they have a website – Loo Awards)

Wimbledon ticket queue

So we are through week 1 of Wimbledon and last week, the hubby and I figured that since we still have enormous amounts of time on our hands that we should captialise on a sunny day and go watch some tennis.  Last year we entered the ticket raffle and were lucky enough to get centre court tickets but this year we did the ‘queue’ thing.

Basically, Wimbledon allows 40,000 people in the grounds each day.  There are a few thousand tickets that are not allocated each day and sold to those who queue up.  On top of the tickets that are available they have a one in one one out system throughout the day so when people leave the grounds, they let the queued up people in. Apparently about 13,000 to 16,000 queued up people get in on a regular day (although Saturday when Andy Murray played, they were at capacity first thing in the morning and figured there would be no more room for the rest of the day).

Anyhoo not knowing what to expect, we headed to Wimbledon to get our spot in the queue.  We arrived at the main gates but were told to walk ‘10 minutes down the road’ to the start of the queue…we walked and walked and walked until we found a parking lot where it started.  When we joined the end of the queue we were given a queue card with a sequential number.  This meant that we could have left the queue and came back a few hours later and re-joined.  Having not known anyone in the area and the fact it was a sunny day we waited, and waited and waited.

It was the most organised queue that I could imagine.  The entire route was marked out with plastic panels so we weren’t ruining any grass or having to get our shoes dirty and along the whole queue were various food stalls which ranged from ice cream to coffee to burgers.  There were garbage and recycling bins everywhere, toilets en route and quiz questions and a hall of fame toward  the end of the queue to keep us from dying of boredom.  We finally reached security then headed across the street to the main gates (3 hours after we had passed them originally) to buy our tickets.

Once in the grounds it radiated with patriotism for Andy Murray and the champagne and strawberry poshness that I can’t get enough of.  The grounds are perfectly manicured and my favourite ball boys and girls looking as stoic and efficient as usual.

We were fortunate enough to catch Andy Murray playing from the public viewing area called “Henman Hill”, (after English Tennis player Tim Henman), which they are trying to change to Murray Mound in honour of the new favourite.  We then wandered to some of the outer courts where there were ladies singles and doubles playing.   It’s quite amazing as you get so close and really get to see how fit the players really have to be.

Despite how it sounds, the 3 hour wait wasn’t that bad as it was a beautiful sunny day and to be fair, we didn’t have much else to do.  It was well worth it because Wimbledon is quite an event and is fairly hard to describe unless you’ve been there (despite this terribly wordy post where I am trying to do just that).  I would recommend it to anyone and am hoping to go back next year….although fingers crossed we will have to take a holiday day to go versus still being ‘between jobs’.

How bout those odds?

We had a lovely weekend with P&C, our Canadian friends, whom are visiting for the weekend. One of the highlights was on Saturday when we headed to the pub to watch the Grand National horse race. As per my (fairly lengthily) post last year on this. It is the most bet-on race in the UK as it truly is a race that just about any horse can win as it is so unpredictable (as long as he has a jockey on his back which I learnt the hard way).

The race is fairly long (30 jumps) and the jumps are quite large, some with ditches on the other side causing horses to fall, riders to fall off and a bunch of jockey-less riders cluttering the track.

This year was one of those spectacular ones when the winner was truly unexpected. His odds were set at 100-1 meaning if you had the dumb luck to pick this guy…you did quite well. Chances of that were slim it seemed as we were in a packed bar and only one person had chosen the winner. Even the mother of the jockey only placed a bet of 50p on her own SON!! Hopefully she buys him something nice with her £50 (I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest new teeth as a BBC reporter is getting in some trouble for doing that already….I was just thinking a pint or two to say ’sorry for not believing in you’).

Anyway P&C seemed to thoroughly enjoy the (marginally inhumane) event and I think it added a little British-ness to the trip (as have the multiple pints of London Pride and John Smiths and trips to Primark).

Note to self…

I saw this story and couldn’t help but comment as I really thought that the ‘don’t pee on a railway track cause you might get electrocuted’ was an old wives tale just like if you swallow chewing gum it will stay in your body for 7 years or touching frogs give you warts…apparently it is true as this guy found out. 

 

This man went to find a discreet location to urinate at Vauxhall train station in London.  His chosen location was too close to the tracks and he urinated on a live track which electrocuted him and killed him. (I can think of better ways to go than electrocution via urination in a busy train station).

 

Being married to a man who has a terribly small bladder and after a few pints will pee just about anywhere (ask our bathroom floor or any side street on the way to our house) makes me sort of glad that I read this story as you never know,  a few too many pints after work one night and he could have been that guy. However I am pretty sure that if that was the case, I would make up a way more spectacular cause of his death…something about a heroic rescue involving the crown jewels, a hot cup of tea, some Buckingham Palace Guards, MI5 and the Queen.

 

(he doesn’t read my blog which means I have full rights to tell stories about him)

I am not sure why it is that way…it just is

I had a friend over from Canada this weekend and her visit helped to remind me of a few things that may seem strange to someone visiting London.

 

Fish and Chips – they leave the skin on the fish here and yes, everyone seems to eat the entire thing, skin and all

 

 

 

Woolworths – they are still open here, not sure why they closed in Canada but I am sure it had something to do with a larger, American store coming in and taking away their business

 

Argos – yes these are just like Consumers Distributing and no, I don’t know why the concept still works here and didn’t at home

Salad Cream – this is not a moisturiser for your lettuce it’s a sweet mayonnaise salad dressing – I think at home we call it coleslaw sauce

 

 

Marble Cheese– no they do not have marble cheese in the UK…cheddar cheese is naturally white, for some reason in Canada they dye cheddar orange so when they make marble cheese they just don’t fully dye in the naturally white cheese, since they don’t dye their cheddar cheese here, they don’t have marble.

 

Mobile phones – no you don’t get charged for incoming calls in the UK…people over here think I am nuts when if tell them that in Canada we get charged to make AND receive calls….so in Canada if someone answers the phone when you call they must like you enough to accept the charges, if no one tends to pick up their mobile when you call…you might need to get new friends

 

Warm towels – Yes you really should use the towel warmer in the bathroom…there is nothing better than a warm towel after a shower, not sure how I lived this long without them

 

 

Tube – yes, we take it everywhere.  Its smelly, hot and packed but you ignore that as it takes you from one end of the city faster than if you walked (most of the time) and much faster than if you tried to drive

  

 

Lager shandy – a traditional shandy is made with half beer half Lemonade (Sprite for Canadians) NOT half beer half Ginger Ale as they do in Canada

 

 

How to fit in when riding an escalator in London

In order for all 8 million of us in London to live together in harmony there are some basic ‘social rules’ that (most) Londoners (and foreigners who think they are Londoners like moi) tend to follow. And, with tourist season upon us, I feel the need to point a few such rules so those of you wandering around in your socks and sandals with tour books will be able to fit in (as best as possible).

One such ‘social rule’ we will call the ‘stand on the right rule’. The stand on the right rule (herein referred to as SOTR) seems to have started as a method to move the 4 million daily tube riders up and out of the tube via escalators as quickly as possible. It works so well that most Londoners tent to adopt the SOTR strategy on any escalator they are on…I am hoping to implement the SOTR rule around the globe as it is brilliant and allows impatient people like me to move around the city at breakneck speed for no particular reason.

The SOTR rule is fairly simple, if you are riding an escalator you basically have two options, stand and let it escalate you or, climb the stairs. The SOTR refers to the former category, if you choose to stand and let the escalator escalate, then park yourself to the right of the elevator…when I say park I mean shove your body, arms, bags, luggage, children, grandmother as far to the right as you can get. This allows the impatient, late, athletic, more important people, to walk up the stairs on the left so they can reach the top a full 30 to 45 precious seconds before you.

When it works (and it does in London), its brilliant, people who want to get somewhere fast can, and those who aren’t in a rush or don’t need the exercise can happily ride their lazy selves to the top. If you are visiting the city and do not follow the SOTR rule, expect people to stomp up behind you, huff loudly, breathe down your neck or just impatiently grunt EXCUSE ME at which point you should get to the right of the escalator as fast as you possibly can.

Thankfully there are signs in the tube to remind you of the SOTR rule as I am sure even if you have made it all the way to the bottom of this blog without falling asleep there is no guarantee that you will remember SOTR when you are fumbling with your camera, tour book, tube map and tube ticket. I do hope though, that once you understand and see SOTR in action, you will try to implement it in a city near you. Together we can make the escalator riding more enjoyable for everyone.

The wheels on the bus

I did one of my favourite things this weekend and rode the bus around London in what I call the ‘tourist seats’.  These are the top front seats on the London double decker buses (no neither of those people in the picture are me). I highly recommend grabbing one of these seats (and hanging on tight) should you be visiting London anytime soon.  The seats give you the best view of London and are great fun.  Mainly because most of the bus drivers drive like Otto Mann (from the Simpsons) on speed but for some reason you have this (false) sense of secuirty being in this big red tank zooming through the streets.  Before you know it, you will be letting out a little ‘wheee’ when taking a corner at mock 10, on 2 wheels, aiming for an old lady/pram/tourist.

The other neat thing is that because the bus doesn’t have a proper front like a car or school bus you get this really strange sense that you are going to drive right into things in front of you. Its hard to get used to the fact that there is no engine in front so you can pull up within 3 inches of cars or other buses (sometimes 1 inch).  Its even better when you have a ‘late on the brakes’ driver that seems to be accelerating until they hit the 6 inch distance then slam on the brakes just in time…good times (and the faces of the true tourists in the tourist seats when this happens for the first time probably makes for amazing CCTV footage).

Besides feeling like you are on an inner city amusement park ride it can also prove to be a fairly useful journey as if you grab bus number 23 you can pass some of the key sites including St Pauls, Regent Street, Oxford Circus and Trafalger Square….all for £2 (or 90p if you get an oyster but that’s a tourist tip for another day).  Anyway even if you aren’t a tourist I highly recommend nabbing these seats to not only for the fun of clinging on for dear life but to remind you what a great city London really is.  I think sometimes after riding the tube at 2 layers above hell you can forget what a pretty spectacular places London really is (and before you all write, yes it can be dirty, stinky and crowded at times but you are immune to that when you sit in the tourist seats…try it if you don’t believe me).