“Hello” London, EN

In many respects our flight from Delhi to London was very smooth. We had an early morning, but boarded with no trouble, and had an easy takeoff. Clear skies gave us a turbulence-free ride, much to Christina’s pleasure. Our selection of movies, quality and frequency of services were all top notch. Unfortunately, I enjoyed none of it. During the two days leading up to our departure I had been feeling vaguely unwell, with general cold symptoms of headache and congestion. I felt like the pharmaceutical assistance I had employed was keeping on top of it. On the day of the flight I could feel a fever, and had a raging headache before we even took off. During the flight I had two “episodes” of high fever, cold sweats, dizziness and nausea. If I had not been sitting down it felt like I would have passed out – in fact I can’t swear that I didn’t, things got that spotty. A stewardess brought me some pills which did help with the headache, but Christina was still pretty concerned, so I agreed to visit a clinic when we landed. Doing my best not to look like a drain on their healthcare system, we cleared customs through one of the most genial officers I’ve met, then collected our baggage and were done.

Before we left the airport we stopped at a tourist information stand to see if they could find us a hotel. We had done a pile of looking online, and really found nothing acceptable. I was very surprised that in a city like London there would not be a nice selection of hotels, but in the less-than-a-week booking window available our options were limited to “very far away” or “very expensive”. The gentleman at the counter promised to do his best, but wasn’t optimistic. We told him that our priorities for the trip would favour proximity over affordability, being our anniversary and all. He gave us basically the same two choices we’d seen from Delhi, and recommended one which was well outside my preferred room rate – indeed, outside our daily budget entire. We were under-budget in India, wanted to start Europe off on a high note, and are celebrating our anniversary. So we went for it, and booked ourselves in for a week. For the next evening we booked a show, Dirty Dancing: The Musical, based on Christina’s favorite movie.

From the airport we took the subway, or “Underground”, into London, disembarking at Tower Hill station, right next to Tower Bridge (which I, and likely many other visitors, assumed was London Bridge, when in fact London Bridge itself is much less interesting), and only a couple of blocks from our hotel. Even before we reached the hotel we were satisfied with the decision to pick a central location rather than commuting in to town each day. When we arrived at the hotel this satisfaction was reinforced. So new that parts are still under construction, and it’s entirely possible that nobody else has ever stayed in our room, Grange Tower Bridge Hotel is a picture of modern comfort. I was still feeling very poorly, and after dropping our bags I dropped into the broad and deep bed and listened from under the covers as Christina made little happy noises while exploring each of the rooms numerous luxuries. She took advantage of the multi-jetted shower and nine-yard egyption cotton towels while I dozed.

Once she was freshened up we visited the front desk to get directions to the nearest clinic, which turned out to be located just a fifteen minute walk from the hotel. We walked it, and checked in at the clinic, located right next to a hospital. While waiting Christina did some reading in our handy “How To Not Get Killed By All The Bad Foreign Germs And Bugs” book from the Health Authority in Calgary, which said that in the event of a fever to get a blood test. My name came up and the clinic doctor said that we needed to go across the street for the blood test. So we did that, and waited longer. A lot longer.

They were thorough, once we got started though. I saw three different doctors, and at least as many nurses. I gave out a urine sample and about half a dozen vials of blood, had an x-ray of my chest, was put on an IV, and threatened with intubation (in jest). The bad news was that they needed me to return the next two days for subsequent testing. By midnight we were back at the hotel, having spent half of our first twelve hours in London at the hospital.

That night, at least, the hotel room was worth every penny. Not in recent memory have I been more grateful for a comfortable bed in a dark, quiet room. We slept until nine o’clock, then went downstairs for our included breakfast, which was a real 4-star european treat. I was still feeling somewhat fevered and ill, so we planned out a pretty slow day, starting off with my visit to the hospital. This was blessedly quick, thanks to a note from the last doctor, forwarding us directly through all queues, and directly to the needle. We were in and out in just a few minutes, then walked back past our hotel, and then south to the Thames river. We walked along the north side of the river bank, making a loop around the Tower of London, then back to the hotel. We rested there, then got ready to head out for our show in the evening. The conceirge printed us out a map, and talked us through the route. We headed out and jumped back on the underground, changed trains a few times, and were up again in less than 15 minutes. We were in Covent Garden, a pretty hip area of the city, with lots going on, and more to see than we had time for. We committed to returning to check it out more extensively, and took in what we could on the two block walk to the Aldrych Theater.

We picked up our tickets, found our seats, then visited the bar where Christina picked up a drink. I, being heavily medicated, didn’t need one, so got a water instead. We seated ourselves a few minutes before curtains, and were whisked away to “Kellermans” for a couple of hours. I wasn’t really that familiar with the show, having seen it at Christina’s insistence several years ago, but from what I recall, it must have been a pretty good match. Christina said that some of the dialog was slightly altered, but she was recognizing scene details left and right, so it must have been quite faithful. The best thing about the show was how creatively they used the tight, circular stage space to compose different scenes, and how they created transitions while keeping the story moving. The stage had sections that rotated, sections that lowered and lifted, other parts swung in from from off-stage, and they had two stair sections wrapping around the outer perimeter of the stage in twin arches with hidden doors both above and below each section. There were lighting and projector effects that did an amazing job of emulating grassy fields, water at the beach, rain, and the scenary from a moving car. Both of us enjoyed the show more than we expected. Afterwords we visited one of the Covent Garden pubs for dinner, where they had after-show specials, due to the high number of theaters in this locality. we had pub-style potato skins, ribs, and chicken and mashed potatoes, then finished with sweet toffee pudding. A great end to our anniversary.

In the morning we had our last, and quickest, visit to the hospital. The best feature of this visit was when I timidly inquired about how much all the attention I had racked up would be costing. They said that since it’s the Accident & Emergency department, there’s no cost… I was floored! I thought only Canada and maybe Switzerland had free healthcare, and even at home they’re always hassling you for a healthcare member number. we walked down to the Tower Bridge and bought the 48-hour pass for the Red Bus hop-on-hop-off tours that run all day on various circuits of the city.

We spent the day exploring, both on and off the bus, and took approximately one million pictures. By the end of the day we had seen Big Ben and the Parliment buildings, Westminister Abbey, New Scotland Yard, Victoria Station, the Wellington Arch, The Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly Place, Covent Garden again – where we had a drink and journaled, while listening to some live entertainment – and Trafalgar Square. Probably some other stuff too.

We stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe, to pick up a shirt for Tito Greg, and learned that this location is actually the original Hard Rock Cafe, though it is an American brand. We picked up a picnic lunch at a cafe called Pret A Manger, which shortly afterword we discovered is one of the most ubiquitous shops in London, with an outlet on nearly every corner. We ate our lunch in Green Park, enjoying the sunshine, and a nice break from walking. We resumed exploration and then returned to the hotel, completely walked out, and had a quiet night in our comfortable, expensive room.

The architecture here is absolutely staggering. I’d seen nearly all of these places either in pictures or movies before, but in person you can actually appreciate them for scale and detail and elegance. The buildings and relics we saw in India were very impressive in their category, but this is a different class, and I was pretty blown away. London is almost a poor choice for starting location, since it’s one of Europe’s key cities for architectural highlights. I’m sure there will be other big ones, but it might have been nice to work up to it.

Our next few days will be spent with more sight-seeing, and exploring the pubs, restaurants, and markets in London’s many hip areas. I’m feeling a lot better than when we arrived, and my needle tracks have almost healed. Christina should probably write some notes of her own, as she likely has a completely different perspective on the past few days that I do.