London

 Ah! London. The city of kings and queens. The capital of England and the UK. A city with history dating back to Roman times when it was set up and called Londinium. It is home to 9 mill people in London city and with the surrounding boroughs about 15 million. It also has the most interesting and huge transit system. Thank God my first introduction to transit on this scale was in English.

The London Underground know as the Tube, because of the round tunnels the tight fitting train comes out of has 272 stations and over 400 km of track. It opened in Jan of 1863 as the first underground train system.

London is also the birtplace  of my great grandfather and his family who were oar and scull makers and lighterman on the river Thames. It would be cool to see where that is but not this time around 

 It is a city that without Roz's connections I would not have been able to visit. It is dammed expensive.

We arrived in London and took the Tube to where our accommodations were. With the transit system it was easy to travel from outside the city down into the centre of London.

We settled in and then decided to get a few things for breakfast and then some tea at the local Starbucks.

 It was now 4 pm and we were darn tired as neither of us had slept on the flight over. We decided dinner was in order or we were both going to be asleep where we stood. Off to a little pub that served Albanian food. There i am in an English pub and choose kofta. Simiar to Bulgarian kofte. Delicious and I had a delicious fruit cider. Good thing I don't drink much because I could have become addicted to those.

 We got our second wind and managed to stay awake until 9 then I couldn't handle it anymore and off to bed I went. Even night owl Roz was in bed early.

The next morning we took the Tube from a northeastern borough to a southeast burrow to see Roz's nephew, wife and 7 month old baby. I always wondered what the inside of these row houses looked like.

We headed downtown, by Tube, of course, to go to the theatre district to see if we could get tickets for the Lion King or Hamilton. Lion King had taken the week  off and Hamilton started at 68 pounds for the nose bleed seat. About $135. We voted no and instead got tickets to Wicked.

Next was lunch at the Sherlock Homes Pub.

 We then decided we were off for a boo at Trafalgar Square. We also did a loop down the Thames to see the London Eye.


We decided to go back to our digs for nap and then head out to go to the theatre just off of Victoria station. Now that is a train station! It is humongous.

 


Dinner in Victoria Station then off to see Wicked. It was so good. Really fun take on the Wicked Witch from Oz..


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