Crash Landing in London
Well what can I say about our flight into London except “AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH”. Well it was a nice enough flight. The plane was empty which meant we could spread out over several seats and even have two TV screens going watching different movies. The flight over Europe was magical. Out the window we saw pools of light here and there and we tried to figure out which mass of twinkling light was which city in which country. But as we approached England the skies clouded and our view was obscured. The pilot announced our decent into Heathrow and the clouds swallowed us up. In the clear patches I saw the most lights I had ever seen before in my life. It was London; there was no doubt about that. The distinctive squiggle of the Thames snaking though the middle and I could only imagine what all the lights themselves were. St Paul’s, London Bridge. However also out the window we noticed several other planes above and below us all circling the city, as it appeared we were too. The pilot announced that only one runway was open tonight and we were waiting our turn to land. I kept a vigilant eye out the window for planes heading our way. Isn’t it just amazing how they keep all those planes up there without hitting each other? Well I guess when you think about it, it is a big sky. Its like worrying that two cars in an empty car park the size of ten football fields are going to have an accident. But then again that all depends on the drivers I suppose.
The closer we got to the ground the bumpier things got. We had the fortunate pleasure of being in a plane with cameras mounted at every angle and we could look at the ground below, the clouds above or check to see if someone is coming up the arse of the plane. I was watching the front camera and the runway was making brief appearances as it raced from one side of the screen to the other and back again. Things got bumpier and bumpier, twistier and turnier, and at this point the pilot decided to practise his barrel rolls. Also at this point the pilot decided to turn the cameras off. I presumed he did this to inspire more confidence in us passengers that we were actually going to make it down in one piece. The only thing left to watch was the big display at the front of the cabin with computer graphics reporting exactly how insanely fast we were hurtling towards the ground and exactly how far it was until the ground hit us. Next came the speed humps. These cars driving in the big car park were now doing donuts over the judder bars. We could see the ground now out the window and it wasn’t a calming site. We only saw the ground when we were 50 feet away from it and before we had become comfortable with the idea of the ground being so close we were bouncing down the runway on one wheel. I swear, and this is the truth, there must have been less than a metre between the wing and the ground we were on such an angle. We roared down the runway and after the pilot had finished showing off he slammed the other wheels to the tarmac and we came to an abrupt stop. This was now my new all-time number one of terrifyingly cool landings. Mel has a somewhat different opinion of the whole experience, but I figure if you are going to pay ridiculous amounts of money to fly, you might as well have a roller coaster ride thrown in for free.
Heathrow was quiet and we were out before we knew it. Mel’s cousin Chanel met us on the other side and it was at her place we were staying for the next short while until we could get our feet on the ground. We picked up our bags, which strangely enough had tripled in volume after leaving Bangkok. We didn’t look quite like the backpackers we were. We dragged them down to the Tube and loaded up on to the next train and sped off to Chanel’s house. The tube is great, and if you were unaware the Tube is the name for the London Underground Commuter Train System. Named such because it is like riding in a toilet roll. I had expected it to be cramped and narrow but as it was late at night we had the luxury of a whole car to ourselves. The Tube system is brilliant. Take a look at a tube map sometime and you will see what I mean. If you don’t have a tube map then get a big bowl of different coloured noodles or spaghetti and throw the contents of the bowl at the floor. What you should get is a fairly accurate depiction of the London Underground Map. There are 12 different central London Tube lines and hundreds and hundreds of stations. Mel and I looked at the tube maps on the walls of the train and tried to figure out where all these places were and wondered how you ever found yourself getting anywhere. But once you get past the apparent complexity of the map it is really really easy to find your way across London on the Tube. But for tonight we were tired and we left the Tube for another day and got off at Chanel’s stop. We stumbled into her flat and fell asleep on the floor.
The next day we realised how cold it was in London. Everyone told us it would be miserable and cold and it was pretty bad but after some careful analysis on the subject Mel and I decided it wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone had said it would be. It was cold, and we had to pile on the layers when we went out. Layers being something we were lacking in after spending months in Thailand. Fortunately Mel and I had both sent boxes full of stuff over before we left so we would have some nice warm clothes to wear. Unfortunately Mel’s box had arrived but mine hadn’t. My boxes never turned up incidentally. I am writing this some three months after the boxes were due to arrive and only last week I discovered they had gone back to New Zealand. If I only give you one piece of advice about London it is DO NOT SEND PARCELS TO LONDON! Not even if your life depends on it. They will not get there they will sit in a warehouse for a month and then be sent back. This is a well-known fact about the British postal service and I was surprised to learn that no one was surprised when I told them about my parcel. “ohhhh yes,” they would say “You wouldn’t have been expecting the parcel to actually be delivered, were you?”. Two parcels of mine never arrived, another from Mel’s friend in Australia never materialised, and Mel herself had sent a pile of stuff from Malaysia when she passed through. All of these parcels we discovered had been sent back to their respective countries because they were never collected from the post office. The fact that we never received notification about the parcels arriving probably had something to do with it. Since then I have had another parcel go missing, with no surprise really, but I am now wiser. I have the local parcel centres phone number written on the wall by the phone and I actually rang them and said
“You wouldn’t by any chance have a parcel for me would you?”
“Oh what’s your address and post code?”
I gave them my address and after some shuffling of papers the man on the other end of the line came back to me
“Oh yes we have a parcel here for you”
“Why hasn’t it been delivered?” I enquired
“Well you haven’t asked for it to be delivered yet”
This I found a little hard to swallow but apparently they had tried to deliver it three times and had left me a note in the letter box each time to tell me a parcel was waiting for me. On one of the dates the guy gave me I later found out I was home all day and had never left the house. I never received the notes.
“Can I have it please?” I asked.
“Sure we can deliver it tomorrow”. In the end I had to get it redirected to my work address because the time they gave me for delivery was “between 6am and 4pm” which was a fairly accurate window if you ask me and I would actually be at work to collect. Anyway this was our first introduction to how things work in London. They don’t! You have to wait in queue for everything, sign 30 forms, provide blood samples and genetic material as your identity and generally wait 2 months for anything to get done. But more about the joys of getting nothing done in London later. So back to Chanel’s and the realisation that things weren’t going to be as cosy as I first though.
The next day Mel and decided to tackle the Tube for real. No dilly-dallying for us. We loaded up the layers, Mel a shirt jumper and a jacket and me 4 t-shirts and a polar fleece, and we headed down to the station. We were off to do some sights. After initially getting on the completely wrong train going completely the wrong direction we were soon on our way to St Paul’s, two changes on the tube and eight or so stations. Now depending on the line you are using the ride on the tube can be pleasant or rough. Some of the lines are still the originals from when the underground first opened all those many years ago. So similar to the planes doing donuts over the judder-bars in car parks the trains felt like they were riding on tracks that looked from the side similar to a share price chart in the IT sector. However the nice new Jubilee line feels like you are floating on air. We were on the circle line now, we changed from the Hammersmith at Paddington Station. The disappointing thing about Paddington Station was there were no bears. Anyway we emerged from the earth at St Paul’s and felt incredibly lost. One of the things you get used to after using the Underground for a while is finding yourself walking out of a tube station and having no idea which direction is which. Sure there are maps in the stations that show you where you are but in most instances that map only extends a block or two. Also a station can have four exits so if someone tells you to walk out of the station and turn left it doesn’t help you very much when there is four lefts to choose from. We stumbled out onto the street and were fortunate enough to spy one of the many tourist signposts around London. They have really done a good job and everything is signposted, the tube stations, the tourist sights, and any building that has any form of history. You will be walking down some small lane in the middle of nowhere important and you will find a building with a blue sign on it explaining how Bob Smith lived here in 1853, or some church used to be here before it was blown up in WWII. Almost every road has at least two of these buildings and it is quite fun to walk down the street you live in and fine one of these blue signs. It kinda makes you feel important to be living 200 meters from a famous building of some degree. Anyway, we followed the sign to St Paul’s and found ourselves walking around a corner to be confronted by the awesome size of the church. We paid the outrageous entry fee and walked around inside in silence. The acoustics are just incredible in St Paul’s, you could hear people talking at the other end of the cathedral, which when you see how big St Paul’s is you will realise that that is really quite amazing. We admired all the beauty and the architecture and slowly made our way around the cathedral. I flicked through the free leaflet that we paid good money for and discovered you could actually climb to the top of the dome and look out across London. Well that was it, the 1000 odd stairs between us and the top didn’t discourage me one bit. I hurried Mel along as she seemed to be reading every inscription on everything and dragged her to the stairwell. Well around and around and around and up. The good thing about the climb is it is broken into 3 stages. First you reach the whispering gallery which is right at the base of the dome. From here you can look down on the ants on the floor and realise that the ants are talking and wearing clothes. The Whispering Gallery has a unique acoustic quality which means if you get everyone to be quiet enough one person can stand on one side of the gallery, put their mouth to the wall and whisper something, and the other person can placed their ear against the wall and hear it. Of course there are always 50 people in the gallery so to actually try it is near impossible but I have spoken to people who have tried it and claim it is true.
At this point in the Gallery you are already quite high up but on the other side you will find a small door leading up some more. So up we climbed again and found ourselves walking out onto the top of St Paul’s part way up the dome. Still more stairs leading up and so we continued. Eventually we were as far as you could go, right to the top and boy what a view. We hade perfect weather and the views were incredible. The top is very narrow and it is extremely difficult to move around without getting in someone’s photo or knocking them off the edge to their death. After ten minutes up there you feel like you should be heading back down again to make room for everyone else. A shame really considering how long, and how many stairs, it is up.
We left St Pauls and jumped back onto the Tube to check out Big Ben and the houses of parliament. For some reason Big Ben looked small, both Mel and I assumed it would be much bigger. Go figure. So we wandered around to the Houses of Parliament and found the last session was in progress so we popped in for a bit of a look. Two security checks and five queues later we were in the Strangers Gallery, which was quite fitting for us as were are a little strange, and watching real English politicians arguing. There was only three party members left and they weren’t arguing as such, more like being overly nice to each other. Calling each other their right honourable friend and otherwise being exceptionally friendly to each other. . They were talking about Mad Cow’s Disease and the disposal of toxic waste which was reaaaal interesting so we left after five minutes. We passed through the 12 security checks and 2 queues and then decided to head up the road to Buckingham Palace.
We didn’t know we had found it when we got there. It looks just like a flash house. I was expecting lust gardens but found a busy road and big fences. If I am allowed to say, BOOORING. I have seen nicer places in Mission Bay back home. Sure no royal people live there but at least you know you’re not likely to be the target of a nuke should World War Three break out. Mel and I promised to each other we would come back and do a tour in the summer. We were tired at this point and found it a little disappointing. The tour of the palace is great I have heard. The other day one person loved the tour so much that they invited themselves to stay the night. They must have been as bushed as Mel and I was at that stage and let themselves into one of the guest rooms for a snooze. The next morning they were picked up walking the grounds enjoying the company of royalty. We might see if we can give it a go next time.
Mel and I jumped the right tube home and felt satisfied we have had our first real taste of London.