Travel Diary

January 5, 2003: The Day Begins Early

It was around 3am when I heard the noise. At first, it seemed like a loud obnoxious alarm clock. But after a few moments, the truth had dawned--it was the fire alarm. Not knowing what the protocol was, I simply waited to see what would transpire next. Well, after people pounding on the doors and commotion in the hallways, it was obvious: the procedure was to evacuate the building. Oh great. That's exactly where I want to be in the middle of winter and in the middle of the night: on the streets of London. I grabbed my coat, scarf and gloves and headed out. I wanted to stay and hide in bed, but since I wasn't entirely positive that it wasn't a fire, I thought it best to evacuate along with the others. I mean that's not the way to go. Getting mauled to death while duking it out with a wild bear in Alaska; that's the way to go. Suffocating to death from smoke inhalation due to laziness? That's just plain sad. So out the door I headed. The stairwell was packed full of residents exiting. Slowly, we all descended down the seven flights of stairs and out the door into the cold London streets.

The streets were now full of people and the weather was dreadfully cold. Fire trucks were parked in front of the building with their lights flashing. No one looked happy to be there. It would be some time before we could enter the building again. I decided to stroll around the streets a little bit. I didn't see anything exciting, not at 3:30am. When I returned from the stroll, people were filing back into the building. It took some time, but finally, I was back in my bed again. This lasted until around 7am.

One Person Really Can Make a Difference

Like clockwork, I was wide awake at that 7:15am, so I decided to head down to the breakfast room. It was nearly empty inside. I got some toast, juice, and coffee and then sat down to eat and write. A few minutes later, I returned for more coffee. Up at the refreshment counter, I noticed two things: one, the person who was working there was gone and two, the bread was burning. Figuring that maybe I should help out a little and solve this burning bread problem, I walked around the counter and investigated. Yes, the bread was really burning now. Smoke was billowing up. The toast machine apparently wasn't automated and would keep heating the bread until a fire started. Figuring that fire was probably a bad thing, I examined the machine to find an off switch. I didn't see anything. Then, I noticed the control lever. I raised it up and the bread (nearly on fire) came out of the toaster. There were eight blackened pieces, all heavily smoking. Calmly, I took each piece out and put it on a plate. I then tossed the plate in the garbage. Smoke was everyone now. Throughout this whole process, I had remained calm, cool, and maybe a little too lethargic. Had I moved faster, the following might not have happened...

Having finished the bread dilemma, I now noticed how the thick smoke had permeated throughout the room. I looked up to the ceiling to discover a smoke detector covered with a plastic bag. Ah! They'd gone through something like that before. They're now prepared for such events. All was well. I sat back down and drank my coffee. Moments later...BEEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP!!! Oh no! Not again! But how could this be? The smoke detector was covered. Hold on a second. I looked up in my area of the room and saw that the dining area had ANOTHER smoke detector in it...and this one wasn't covered. Well, the darn thing smelled smoke and now all the alarms were going off again. But this time, I knew it wasn't a fire. I continued to drink my coffee. Some German residents also carried on with their breakfast until a Hostel worker came into the room and yelled for everyone to evacuate since the alarms were going off. I wanted to explain that I knew for a fact that there wasn't a fire, since I had personally watched it all happen, but I felt it better to just exit. No use getting evicted one day before leaving anyway. Still, it would have been nice if I could just climb back upstairs and crawl into bed, but I was now on the fourth floor and my room was on the sixth floor. I would not be able to fight the flow of dozens of people streaming down the stairwell. So once again, I exited the building.

Outside, the fire trucks had returned. The same old drill was being performed. But this time, we were allowed back in much sooner. Somehow, I did manage to located Steph and Amanda. They informed me that since the festivities of the night had robbed them of precious sleep, they did not want to start the sightseeing too early. I acquiesced and told them they could sleep in. While I hated to lose valuable time during my last full day in London, I could understand their pleas. Besides, I had already seen most of this stuff last year. I couldn't return to bed since I just wasn't sleepy, but I was a little thirsty. And what did I still have left in my room? Cider! Okay, one cider would sure start my day off in an interesting way, so I consumed it. Ten minutes later (to add further interest), I consumed another one. Around 9am, the girls came back to life. We got out of there after 10 or 11am. The first thing we had to do was to buy tickets for an evening show. We decided on Mousetrap. We had heard that it was the longest running play in London theatre, so we figured it must be pretty good. And plus, I wasn't really thrilled about seeing The Woman in Black for a fifth time-though I did have most of it memorized.

Taking the Tube, we journeyed over to South Kensington Tube Station. Exiting the underground, I popped into a little snack shop and purchased a strong beer. Well, it was my last day in London. I was entitled to a little fun. The girls simply watched with silent amusement. Amanda seemed happier since she knew that once intoxicated, I would be more likely to sing out loud as we walked, and she had her camcorder with her.

More Museums

We entered the National History Museum first. I was happy since it was a place I had never been to before. On numerous occasions, I had passed by the awe-inspiring building, but never entered. The building was gargantuan and had colorful blue and yellow bricks all over it. It also looks fantastic at night. Inside, it's even more wonderful. The first display one sees is a huge dinosaur skeleton. Each room has wonderful exhibits of animals throughout history. We spent some time in there and saw many different things, although after two ciders and a beer, I wasn't sure exactly what I was seeing. It's very odd, but my photos from that museum also seemed to be blurrier than normal. Finishing that place, we walked over to the Victoria and Albert museum. Yeah, it was a museum that I had toured before, but it's so large that I hardly scratched the surface during my first time. This time I certainly scratched the surface. We gave that place a good hour and then left to explore more of the town.

Outdoor Activities

Our next stop would be Kensington Gardens. Exactly how to reach the place wasn't clear to me. I knew it was there somewhere though. After fumbling about, Steph had the bright idea about asking for directions from someone. Brilliant! Honestly, it's so odd how that idea simply didn't occur to me. I guess girls and boys really do think differently. I had just assumed that the thing to do was to keep searching until the path was found. But after receiving directions, we found the place in no time. Kensington Park was quite nice and we found ourselves being constantly greeted by friendly squirrels in search of free food. Walking along, we came upon a huge pond filled with waterfowl. The swans and geese were all too happy to get out of the water and surround us in hopes of getting something to eat. We had nothing but cold cereal to offer them, but they didn't seem to mind. Feeding swans is always enjoyable to me, and since I had my gloves on, their nibbles didn't really bother my fingers too much. Once our food stash was depleted, we carried onward. The actual Gardens were nice, but they weren't terribly impressive during the wintertime. Still, we looked, gave a few "oohs" and "ahhs" and continued walking. Shortly after, we found another Tube station and returned to the hostel.

I relaxed a short while, but soon learned that Gardner and Heather had returned to London and were now out in search of tickets to join us in our show. Since I wanted to go make reservations at Wagamama's, I headed over to Leicester Square myself. The first two ticket stations showed no sign of G & H, but finally I found them at the third ticket booth. It was fortunate that I did run into them since they were under the impression that we were all seeing Phantom of the Opera that night. So they had been trying to acquire Phantom tickets, which were all sold out. I straightened out the facts and shortly after, they possessed two tickets to Mousetrap. Now, we were all going. Happy day!

For dinner, there would be a decent sized group of us. Alan and Irena had already eaten, so they opted out. The rest of us walked down to Leicester Square and entered the restaurant. Wagamama's! We were finally there. It is one of my favorite dining places in London. I was so glad to be eating there once again. My order was that of a special fried rice dish. As expected, it was delicious. While I could have easily finished it all, I saved the last bit of it for Stephanie since her dish wasn't terribly large.

When dinner was finished, those of us with theatre tickets headed over to the theatre. Getting there was a little tricky. I did have a map and a compass, but since we had plenty of time, what was the harm in getting a little bit lost. Eventually, we made it; which was good since I was tired. The act of getting up early every day was really wearing me out and making my tired in the evenings. We got our tickets from the box office. I then cleared up a little misunderstanding. It seems that Steph had somewhat misinterpreted the "longest running show in theatre" to mean it's the longest show in running time. I explained that it meant the show had been playing for many years. I could see the relief in her eyes. I think she had feared a 5-hour night at the theatre.

A Night at the Theatre

Our seats were found at the top of the balcony. It seemed ironic that we had bought tickets so early in the day, but our seats were terribly far back. Nevertheless, we could see the whole stage from our position. It was also nice not to have to worry about anyone sitting behind me. The show began. It was a murder mystery type show, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, except that now that I'd done so many of them for dinner theatre, I'd sort of grown tired with the genre. Still, I sat and watched, or at least tried to. Yeah, my eyelids were growing heavy and I soon found myself nodding off at intervals. I wanted to stay awake, but just couldn't do it. Oh well. I doubt that I would have enjoyed the show any more if I had been wide awake. In the end, it was an okay show, but just that. Why it's been around so long remains the real mystery. Maybe that should be investigated. It could be the plot for another show, and this one could even be 5 hours long!

Come Dancing

After the show, the girls wanted to visit the Sports Café, so I agreed. Why not? It was our last night for us all to be together. We got ready back at the hostel and then Steph, Heather, Gardner, and I headed down the street. Ah, it's so nice to be so close to the action. Five minutes later, we arrived. No cover was charged so we entered quickly and contentedly. The place wasn't very full when we arrived. We got a few drinks, but I passed on any heavy drinking, though Heather was all too generous in buying alcohol. Still, I wasn't feeling too hot since drinking a lot that morning. And plus, I had to be on a plane for 10 hours the next day. I didn't want to do that with a hangover, not again at least. I learned my lesson during my previous London trip.

Dancing was fun as always. The more we danced, the more I wanted to stay and continue. But finally, the time came to leave. Steph and I headed back to the hostel while Heather and Gardner veered off to some pizza café.

Not wanting to head to bed right away, Steph and I chatted in the hallway for well over an hour. We then agreed to meet in the common room and hung out there for a while, talking and playing games. Eventually, the Sandman called to her and she headed off to bed. I decided to remain awake throughout the night. Alan was also staying up late, so I joined him in surfing the net. After all, it was only a pound per hour. Afterwards, Alan decided to catch some Z's, so I watched some poorly done movies on TV and did a little reading. My reading brought me to an inspiring moment. The book I had selected for the trip was Moby Dick. During one passage, the narrator spoke of a little shiny plate that had been placed on the HMS Victory to mark the fall of Lord Nelson. I was really struck by reading that. For one year prior, I had been to that very spot and seen that very plate. It then reminded me of seeing the column in Trafalgar Square and then I recalled seeing his portrait in the National Gallery. All of the sudden, all of the different pieces came together and I felt somehow connected to a piece of history. I guess that's what makes traveling so exciting. It's a process of discovering and learning. In school, one can learn about the pieces of the puzzles, but one needs to travel to really put the puzzles together. And now, I feel more clued in as to whom this great Admiral was.

Returning Home

Around 5am, Irena came into the common room. She was done sleeping for the night. We chatted a little and soon enough, it was 6am. We then headed to the room and got Alan up. In short time, the three of us were leaving the hostel and heading home. While Irena was highly pleased, I was indifferent. I would have loved to stay longer, but school was already starting and London isn't a terribly cheap place to stay. Yeah, it was time to return home. London would still be around, hopefully in the summertime when the weather is warmer.

The Tube wasn't crowded and we arrived to Heathrow early. This was a good thing since the airport was terribly crowded. Once again, I was randomly selected to be searched (when is "random" no longer a viable word? When did I begin looking like a security threat? It's gotta be the darn trench coat!) We had our final English meal at an airport restaurant, where I used up most of my remaining pounds. Soon, we were boarding the plane. I was quite drowsy at this point and ready to nod off. I was happy to have an aisle seat again. The safety videos played on our little monitors. My head grew heavy. Finally, after being awake for over 27 hours, I slept.

I didn't sleep the whole way, but perhaps for four hours. A large disappointment was the movie selection change. I had wanted to watch Edward Scissorhands, but it was no longer on the schedule. Instead I watched Cold Creek Manor. It wasn't great, but okay for killing time. Our meals weren't terrible tasty, but palatable. The time went by rather slowly, but it did pass. And at 1pm, we were touching down in San Francisco, the weather being close to what we left it back in London--overcast. After a slow customs check and having my bag searched, we were now free to leave. I said goodbye to Alan and Irena and headed over to the BART terminal. A train came and I boarded it. An hour later, I was in Pleasanton. Not wanting to inconvenience anyone, I simply walked home from the BART station. It was only three miles and I was quite used to long walks at that point. My little toddler rolled loudly behind me. The weather was of course cold. Finally, a half hour later, I walked in my house. After eight days, I was home again.

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