London With the 'Rents - Part 2

After a good sleep at Oak Hill, we woke up and had a delicious breakfast with the Rubies at their place. Rachael made us crepes, and we oohed and aahed over Emily. Isn't she the cutest baby?

I could have used a little hair color, make up, and Botox. Emily posed sweetly for the camera.

Rachael took a break from her masterful cooking to smile with us.

We went to the Tube to head to the Tower of London, and we were delayed at one of our change overs. It was dumping snow outside. We thought, "It won't be bad once we get there." After 30 minutes of standing around in the cold with no sign of our train, we decided to walk "about 10 minutes," in Nathan's estimation.

Before setting out, we took a picture with Dad's hat off...

and one with it on. I loved it.

We walked and walked and walked. Everything was closed nearby because it was Saturday and because it was snowing. It was cold. It was way longer than a 10 minute walk. Finally, we made it to the Tower of London. There it was in all its glory. Success! 

Until we got to the window to pay for tickets to get in. "Sorry," the young woman in the ticket booth said to Nathan. "We're closed due to inclement weather."

"Are you serious?" his eyes bulged. "Then what are you still doing here?"

"I'm just giving people refunds."

A guy next to the booth, who was also an employee, said to Nathan, "You should have stayed at home, mate."

"Yes, that would have been valuable advice two hours ago!" 

I was definitely in a grumpy mood. It was about 1 p.m. on our last day, and we hadn't "done" anything besides walk around in the snow looking at closed buildings. After thawing out in the KFC in a cluster of gift shops selling Tower of London paraphernalia, we came up with a plan and decided to try Buckingham Palace. 

"It's completely indoors," I said. It shouldn't be closed. So we walked yet again through the snow, trying to "do" something in London.

Wrong. Closed. I momentarily considered a tantrum on the ground, but I didn't want to get my clothes muddy and wet.

So close to warmth and entertainment and learning more about the monarchy, yet so far.

These guys looked really cold. I guess I couldn't complain too loudly.

I was definitely not smiling in my heart in this picture.

Or this one.

Or this one.

We had officially been not "doing" anything in London for four hours, and I was despairing for my poor parents who came all this way not to do nothing. I was cold and discouraged. Despite of our better judgement not to go to the biggest department store in England the Saturday before Christmas, we decided to try to find Harrod's, and after another hour or so of Tube trains and walking, we found it. It was open, which we considered a victory. 

The sidewalks outside the store were jam-packed with people. The windows were dressed up for Christmas with a Peter Pan theme, which was a little weird, but nice. I mean, it was strange to see mannequin mermaids dressed in lingerie with a little boy mannequin next to them. We headed indoors. 

Big mistake.

We were herded around like cattle, not being able to move of our own accord either forwards or backwards because of the sheer volume of people. It was crazy crowded. I may or may not have had a small panic attack. We lasted five minutes. I stumbled back out into the snowy outdoors, gasping for breath. It was 4 p.m., completely dark outside, and all of us were hungry, tired, cold, and done with trying to be tourists. It just wasn't meant to be.

We buzzed around the block to Pizza Express, snacked on some way overpriced pizza, and decided to just go back to Oak Hill for dinner. My parents needed to reserve their plane seats online and pack. 

We walked to the closest Tube station. Closed. For the weather. Of course. We walked to the next closest one. Closed. For the weather. But would re-open in 15 minutes. We decided to just wait. 

Standing out there in the cold with a closely compacted group of people waiting to go underground, I was just so sad. The metal gates they shut that separated us from the warmth of the Underground below reminded me of the Titanic, when they wouldn't let the third class escape the ship at first. It felt like a failure of a day in terms of not being able to really "do" London, despite our best efforts. And I thought about my poor attitude for all of those hours when I could have just been happy to have my parents with me at all. I thought about improving that, but then we were met with another challenge.

After standing outside in that huddle for more like 30 minutes, they opened the metal gates and people poured down to the trains. It started getting so crowded again that I thought people would get pushed off the platform and onto the track. Every train that came through was so packed that only a handful of people could smash in at a time. The four of us just slinked back to the wall in defeat and tried to think of another plan. A taxi? The line for taxis outside of Harrod's was really, really long. A bus? We had no idea which one/s to take. It was too far to walk back up to Oak Hill. We decided to just stay put, link arms, get in some sort of line for a train, and hope for the best. We inched up toward the front with each passing train. It would finally be our turn next. I braced myself for a heave forward into the already crowded car.

All of a sudden we heard cries of delight from people further down the pavement. The train was nearly empty! We yipped with joy and the four of us actually got a seat for our 45 minute Tube journey back to our station.

Whenever my mom gets in some sort of moving transportation, be they trains, planes, or automobiles, she falls asleep almost immediately. These pictures of her snoozing were taken throughout our adventures of the day.

We finally made it back to our station, had a pub dinner nearby and then dessert at a Greek confectionery across the street, and made it back to the Rubies so my parents could reserve their seats on the plane the next day. Will and Rachael told us that our friends Dave and Mindy were stuck at Heathrow and had been trying to fly out to California that day on the same flight number as the one my parents had the next day.

Uh oh...