Ich komme an - Part II

Horn Ride in Hyde Park

I arrived in London shortly before 8:00am.  I didn't leave Heathrow until 9:20.

Yes, that means that I stood in a line at customs for almost an hour and a half.  Tim's Tip for the day: don't go through customs at Heathrow.  It is one of the most soul-crushing, life-sapping experiences on God's green earth.  You stand in a windowless room comforted only by the endless line of crying children and angry foreigners of which you are a part.  You're only hope for escape is the procession of the line, which is moving at the gruelingly slow pace of not-moving.  You see a hole in the line slowly moving backwards as every person in front of you moves forward but with each person the hole becomes smaller because people are territorial and lazy, and when that hole reaches you it has become so small that the step you are allowed to take is precisely equal to "baby steps" as dictated by Mother May I.

Now it's time for a little confession: I hadn't really planned out what I was going to actually do in London.  I thought it would be fairly easy to take some trains to the city center, see Big Ben from afar, takes some pictures, and drink some ale with fish and chips.

At first, I thought this was an excellent assumption because as I exited customs I found a nice man selling tickets on the "Heafrow" Express to "downtown London".  Both sets of quotation marks are intentional.

Turns out London's a pretty big city.  Actually it's a unbelievably massive city.  Their "downtown" constitutes an area of approximately 15 square miles.  And Paddington Station--where the Heathrow Express runs--is 3.5 miles away from Big Ben.

Not that this information would have helped me because I had no idea where Big Ben or Paddington Station was.  And every attempt to figure out how to get there turned out fruitless--I even asked a policeman to no avail.  I did, however, figure out where the Thames was in relation to Paddington, so I thought that, since Ben is on the river, I would head to the river to see what I could find.

Thus, with nothing but 30 lbs. of books on my back and my laptop bag at my side I struck out on the streets of London.

I attempted to remain on the same street for as long as possible because I still had a flight to catch and I couldn't afford to get lost.  This led me northeast down Praed St. and then southeast down Edgeware Rd.*  Along the way I saw St. James - Paddington :

and a few double-decker buses:

After about a mile-and-a-half, I came upon Hyde Park.  "Well," I thought, "at least I made it to something marginally famous."

The following monument is in Hyde Park.

It's a memorial to commemorate the Reformers Tree.  Reformers Tree was once used as a meeting place for political activists in the 1800's.  The tree was burnt down in a riot in 1866 and was replanted in its original location in 1977.

I walked further and found the Serpentine River:

As I was taking this picture, I heard the sounds of a marching band.  I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hear a London band, so I hustled on a southwesterly course.  When I reached the edge of the park, this wonderful sight appeared:

Yes ladies and gents, thems Trombones (and trumpets and woodwinds and drums and tubas) on horseback.  Needless to say, I was overly ecstatic about this, but it was indeed Very Cool.

I then walked over to the Albert Memorial--an ornate monument to Prince Albert.

At this point in my journey it began to rain and time was short, so I decided to call it a trip and head back to the airport.  But not before a plate of fish and chips and a big glass of ale.


Up next: The train to Bielefeld.

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*I would also like to say that at the time I had no idea what those street names were because, apparently, the English consider street signs a luxury and heaven forbid they appear wasteful.