England 2: First Full Day In London: draaaama!!

Or, more accurately, Continuing Draaaaama. With a little new drama thrown in for effect!

Monday started off with a bang, literally, as my blowdryer burst into flames. Setting off the smoke alarm. And causing Kim to break a window blind trying to get the window open. Why, yes, we are the most exciting houseguests ever! I’d completely forgotten to switch my dryer’s voltage to …. whatever you are supposed to switch it to when you’re away from the US. No doubt due to having other things on my mind, like the phone fiasco. And the cat bite fiasco. We were both a bit distracted. But the blowdryer’s flames went out quickly and the smoke was waved out the windows and our host recovered and found it amusing (silly Americans!) and the blind was an easy fix – not really broken, but off the track.

After dealing with our Morning Crisis, we set off to deal with the Phone Crisis. It was too early for Cat Bite Crisis calls, since London is five hours ahead of our part of the US. We had to: A) figure out what to do about my phone charger (my phone was on the very last bar and flickering); B) figure out how to get Baker B’s charger to him; C) Figure out how to let Baker B know about the charger situation, which probably actually should be (A); and D) figure out why the hell Kim’s Android wasn’t working. At all. Basically, we had to figure out how to go from no working phones back to three working phones again.

I did manage to come up with a Cunning Plan for Baker B’s charger, so I get points for that. After discarding a number of not-so-cunning plans (like, go rent a car and drive out to Devizes and switch chargers— not such a great plan because it meant A) renting a car and taking the whole day to drive to Devizes, find Baker B and drive back and B) we had no way to tell him we were coming so had no way to find him as he would certainly be out hiking in the wilds of Wiltshire) (or take a train to Devizes, also not so great a plan due to B above and also the train just goes to Pewsey, oddly – maybe 7 miles from Devizes). SO, I finally hit upon the (probably obvious) solution- I’d just overnight the charger to him! That did mean I would not have a charger until Week 2, when we met him as planned in Devizes, but hey, we had Kim’s phone, so at least we’d have one phone! Hahahahahaha.

We ride the tube to the Tower Hill station because we want to go to the Tower of London when we get the drama all sorted. And we find a Starbucks for wireless and spend, oh, forEVER trying to figure all this out. First of all, Kim needs to sort out what in the HELL is wrong with her idiotic Sprint phone, which she had added an international plan to before leaving so that she would in fact be able to use it in England. It was getting no signal at all and she couldn’t even use it to call Sprint for help like you generally can even if you don’t have service. (Well, I guess you generally can. I may be making that up. Regardless, she could not call anyone anywhere for anything.) We wanted to figure that out first because at least we’d have one phone then. Meanwhile I find a phone number for the pub that is attached to the flat where Baker B is staying in Devizes, because that’s where he picked up his room key and the owner and his landlord are friends, and if I overnight my charger I’m sure it will need a signature upon delivery, and the pub seems like the obvious place to send it, especially since I can’t reach Baker B or his landlord to fill them in on the Charger Situation. That way at least Baker B would get it, whether he was expecting it or not. I do email them both, but I’m sure Baker B won’t be checking email (he’d have to go to the library to do that) and I know his landlord is teaching classes all day during the week so he may not check his till the evening either.

Then we find a phone box so Kim can call Sprint and I can call the pub beside Baker B’s flat, as by then my phone was a goner. I’ll just cut to the chase and announce that Kim’s phone company gets Worst Company EVER award. (It’s actually TracPhone; the service is through Sprint. It’s cheap. And there’s a reason for that.) After spending ages on the phone with TracPhone/Sprint/Whoever, she discovered that when she initially called and told the customer service person that she was travelling to England and needed to switch to a plan that would let her make calls IN England TO the US and to other phones in the UK, the customer service person (who spoke astonishingly poor English) gave her a plan that would let her make calls TO England, FROM the US. Exactly what she did NOT need. Even better, there was nothing they could do about it! And no, they would not refund her money! And, tough luck, loooooooser! was basically what they told her. So, yeah. Don’t use TracPhone/Sprint. Ever.

SO. No phone for Kim! At all!

I make my call to the pub, and speak to a tremendously nice woman who has only worked there a couple of days and doesn’t know Baker B’s landlord, but she agrees that mailing the charger to them is no problem and gives me the address and tells me she will pass on a message to him and Baker B if they come in that evening, and will also tell her boss since he’s the one who knows them. So I feel a whole lot better about that at least. Baker B will have a phone, even though Kim and I won’t!

Our Old Fashioned Phone Box where we made our Old Fashioned No Cell Phone Calls: (I was sitting on a bench behind the wall waiting on Kim, too tired to take a proper picture.)

I then locate a post office fairly nearby with my nifty London Offline map app, which IS nifty but sadly isn’t always totally accurate and had the post office a couple of blocks away from where it actually was… but we found it. And I got the charger overnighted for the amazingly low cost of six pounds, or nine US dollars. I just paid $11 to send a small light package via normal pokey-ass mail through our local PO, so I was very impressed.

There’s ONE problem solved. Next we set about trying to find a new charger for my phone– which is something I didn’t really think was going to happen, since my phone was a cheap loaner phone from Verizon. My own phone is not global and couldn’t be upgraded for global use, but Verizon loaned me one which was awfully handy. Until I got separated from my charger. We asked a guy at a Boots and he recommended a place a few blocks away that sold phone supplies. So we headed off in that direction. Before we reached the phone supply store, I spotted a Vodaphone store. My loaner phone said Vodaphone when it was on…. and Vodaphone looks a whole lot like Verizon- same colors (red mostly), same setup. Thinking how cool it would be if they WERE the same thing, meaning I bet they’d have a charger that would work, we went in. They are somehow related, actually, but sadly did not have a charger that would fit, although they were very nice and tried several. BUT, what they DID have was very cheap pay-as-you-go phones. REALLY cheap, like five pounds!!! Which is about $7.50 US. Of course they were out of that one but they did have a ten pound one – $15 US — and I gratefully grabbed it, bought the special 60 minutes including international plan, and…. TA DA!!! We have one working phone!!!

With a completely alien number (my loaner had my usual US phone number, awfully convenient) that I had to pass on somehow to Baker B. We go find Starbucks AGAIN and I email him and the landlord one more time, giving them my new phone number and telling them the charger was on its way to to the pub.

And we decided at that point, FUCK THIS DRAMA!!! We had done ALL we could. We had spent ALL DAY on drama and crises, and OMG we were in LONDON on VACATION and it was officially time to stop worrying and GO ACT LIKE TOURISTS.

Naturally Kim had to make a zillion Cat Bite Crisis calls since we had a working phone again. And the verdict was that her mom was still among the living and still did not think she needed to go to the doctor even though her arm was kind of red and swollen. AAAGGHHH!!!!! Kim called the nephew and texted with the niece who actually lives in a teeny upstairs apartment in Kim’s mom’s house and everyone agreed to A) keep an eye on their grandmother and B) not tell their mother/Kim’s Insane Jealous Sister who would Never Let Her Hear The End of It. Leaving Kim without a whole hell of a lot else to do other than feel guilty.

Finally, though, we washed our hands of the drama and played tourist. Of course by then it was late in the day and we decided to put off Tower of London till the next day. Instead we took a very long walk along the South Bank. Last time we were there, we walked a little along the South Bank one evening, and said we’d go back later and walk more, but never did. So even though this wasn’t a touristy London Pass Thing, we still really enjoyed doing it and it was something we’d wanted to do. We walked quite a long way — as far as the Thames Path ran to the east. And then back

And as we were having another pint at our Weatherspoons later in the evening, on our way home, FINALLY I got a phone call from Baker B’s landlord, who had gotten my frantic emails. And FINALLY got to talk to Baker B, and explain the Crises to him. And he got to tell me all about his own Disaster — he had a flat tire, after running off into a ditch on a narrow teeny Wiltshire Road trying to avoid getting hit!!! As I sad before, that Ford Focus we rented was WAY too wide for those narrow roads – and for people used to a Honda Fit- and on his second driving day he still was not used to the teeny narrow roads. (He never got used to them. Next time we’re getting a teeny little stickshift) LUCKILY his flat happened in a spot where he could actually get off the road and into a parking area, which was a minor miracle. We were later marveling at how likely it would be on a lot of those narrow teeny no-shoulder roads to just get hit by the next car that happened along. There is often NOWHERE to get out of the road. But he was really really lucky, and he got the tire changed (some nice person helped him locate the Fifth Lug Nut which we do not have on American tires) and he found a place in Marlborough to get a new tire. (and I’m still waiting to get reimbursed as we DID have insurance on the car). And greatest astonishment of all, when I talked to him at last that night, despite being obviously rattled and exhausted (as were Kim and I after all our disasters), he was not all “OMG I HATE TRAVELLING WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THIS I WANT TO GO HOME NOW WAAAAHHH!!!!!” But in fact said something shocking along the lines of, “Well, you just have to deal with these things when they happen!” And said he loved Wiltshire and had a great hike and the flat tire did not ruin his trip.

Okay. Pictures now, and then I have GOT to get off the computer and GO TO BED. I’m acting like I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.

The Britainia Pub, near Monument. Where we’d been wandering around hunting the post office and a phone store. Fish and Chips! And, even more important, a pint. Or two.

Monument. I wanted to go up in Monument, which has fantastic views (the Great Fire of 1666 started near here, hence the monument) but sadly we did not find time. Oh, well. Next time. I also didn’t get a particularly good picture of it, but this will do.

Kim in front of Tower Bridge, wishing I would not take her picture. She made me pose first. That’s what she gets.

Tower of London from across the Thames:

Colorful boats:

Disembodied Carved-Up Head Sculpture with a Leonardo da Vinci Quote that I do not recall:

Cool Wharf buildings with odd, yet attractive, pedestrian bridge:

Lots of boats:

I loved the buildings:

Starting across Tower Bridge:

Walking around the Tower of London to get to the Tube station:

Odd and somewhat disturbing painting depicting the Great Fire – one of a number of similar paintings in a tunnel area going from Tower of London to the tube station nearest the Tower. Not terribly accurate, though, as the Great Fire was a couple hundred years prior to the Tower Bridge being built.