Last Saturday in London

As I mentioned at the tail end of my last post, I was sick with a cold most of the second week in London. Basically, I went to work, then came back to the apartment to eat and crash. I did go out to Piccadilly Circus / Leicester Square after work one night, but paid for it the next day.

Meanwhile, my pictures of Portsmouth and Greenwich sat on my hard drive; I couldn’t work up the gumption to edit and post them.

I will say that the UK version of Sudafed actually worked to a certain extent; I’ve definitely felt worse, but I was still pretty drippy up through Thursday night. It was actually kind of weird — I went to bed feeling miserable, and woke up from a dream of a little girl offering me a present, and I knew I was past the worst of the cold. Friday I was still feeling kind of jury-rigged, but the worst of the drippiness had stopped, which left the question: what to do about Saturday?  I had one day free before my flight back. Continue reading

Sunday at Greenwich

When I visited Greenwich last fall, I didn’t plan my trip very well; it was kind of spur of the moment, after starting too late, taking longer than expected at Westminster Abbey, and not being able to get onto the London Eye. I didn’t get down there until about quarter past four — just in time for everything to close.

Still, I liked what I did see, so I decided to go down to Greenwich on Sunday, after doing Portsmouth on Saturday. I had breakfast in a nice little cafe about a block away from the apartment, then headed to the Embankment to pick up a ferry. Continue reading

Portsmouth

I got an interest in the maritime from my Dad. I first encountered the Hornblower series around eight grade, and it’s become my favorite novel series; I’ve re-read it a dozen times. After seeing the prototypical touristy things during the last London trip, I decided I really wanted to see HMS Victory, Lord Nelson’s flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar, which is now in drydock in Portsmouth. So I looked up the train schedules, found it was doable, and headed down there this past Saturday. Continue reading