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Thursday, Dec 15, 2022
The first thing I did after getting through immigration was to get on the Piccadilly Line and head on over into London. My hotel would be the Club Quarters near Saint Paul, although this started off with a mistake which I assumed that I made at the time, but it was actually the fault of Alaska Airlines hotel system, and something they refused to correct – so other people likely are making the same mistake.
In short, they list amenities in a certain type of room which don't exist, so if you book it and show up there, you won't have the room you wanted. Since I made this mistake, I had to go back downstairs after checking in and pay for a better room. In fact, this almost happened to me a second time but I caught it in time. In the future, I’ll be using Alaska less often for hotel reservations.
Anyway, the location is pretty cool, though if you're seeing shows, it does mean a long walk, or a Tube ride to get over to the West End. It is nice if you're going to be near the Tower of London a lot, or need to be around St. Paul's Cathedral. I liked trying the area once. I’m not sure I would try it again. Still, the area is very quiet at night, and not even that active during the day – for a better or for worse.
Since I arrived in mid December, it was a cold time of year and it had snowed recently, so there was still snow on the ground. For most of my trip, the snow would be instead be rain off and on. After getting settled, in I made my way over to the West End because I was watching a play with Matthew Modine in it called “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It was based on the book and very well done with only a few slight changes. One disappointing thing is they felt the need to sully the primary character a bit for no real reason. (Was the person too perfect to be believable?) Outside of that, it was a great show.
London was festive and colorful for the holiday season. One nice thing going before Christmas is that there are many more decorations up. I wandered around for a while and took many photos, but then had to get back to the flat to get some rest as I had a big day coming up.