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Getting to London
Thursday, 11 April 2002 - Friday, 12 April 2002
In order to prevent jet lag, I had this brilliant idea of going to sleep at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night (that's 1 a.m. London time), waking at 3 a.m. (that's 9 a.m. in London) and then pretending like it was the beginning of the day, so that when I got on my flight from Detroit to Amsterdam, it'd be "bedtime" and I could fall right asleep.
Well, everything went to plan, except for the "falling right asleep" part. Of course I didn't sleep on the plane. I never have, and extreme tiredness (not to mention a tylenol pm and half a mini bottle of wine) didn't guarantee it this time either. Oh well. Actually, that's not right. I did manage to grab about 90 minutes worth of fitful snoozing. Not helped by the flight attendant coming on the intercom, yelling about someone smoking in the lavatory. They didn't catch whoever it was, I don't think.
Anyway, I arrived in Amsterdam at 5:30 a.m., and my flight was to leave for London at 7:30 or so. Now, I'm sure Schipol is nice if a) there's anything open b) you have euros to spend c) you've slept at least a little in the past 24 hours but as none of those applied to me, I found it hellish. And I wasn't any happier when I found out my flight was delayed a further 2 hours. So I was hungry, tired, and had nothing to read, as I'd already finished all three books I'd brought with me.
Finally, finally, finally, our plane left Amsterdam and I arrived at Stansted. I still had about 2 hours of journey time ahead of me, but the home stretch! Fantastic! Grabbed the bus into London and watched the city go by. God, I love London! Every little bit of it. The suburbs, the parks, the grafitti, the traffic, the high streets, the pedestrians, everything. I get to the hotel, struggle up the steps with my huge suitcase, and nearly get jammed in the too-small revolving door. (Hey, this is a fancy hotel. Why isn't there an easier way? Bizarre.) A bellhop takes my suitcase, and I check in. Get my key, go upstairs. Chris and Rebecca and Julie are already there. Okay, so I'm 3 hours late. They don't mind. I take a shower (whew! I stunk!) and Chris and I head out to the expo.
We take the train to the expo. I point out some of the sights to Chris, and we see some of the race course. The expo is huge. We get our numbers and chips and are disappointed to note that we haven't gotten a free t-shirt. What's up with that? But we stop at the huge merchandise area, and I buy two t-shirts and a Flora London Marathon pint glass. (God, I love England. I must've missed the marathon-themed cigarettes, but surely they were there somewhere.)
We head down to the main area of the expo, and wander around a bit. We buy some Lucozade Sport so we can try it out, if not in training, at least we'll know what it tastes like. Very sweet, as it happens. They're also giving out samples of different flavors. The mixed berry flavor is quite nice, but unfortunately, it's the orange they'll be giving out at the race. We see the Runner's World booth, and the Penguin was there. I was excited about that, but too nervous to say anything. We picked up an information sheet about the "Get you around" pacer (the Penguin, as it happened) but the time for that group was 5:30, a bit faster than my anticipated pace. No matter.
We only stayed at the expo for a little while. We were both tired and jetlagged, and a bit punch-drunk, so we left. On the way back, I decided we should get out of the tube at Westminster, so I could see Big Ben. It's my favorite symbol of London, and I wanted Chris to see it. We wandered around that area a bit, and caught a bus back to Victoria. I couldn't help peeking into the Waterstone's in Trafalgar Square, but I paced myself - didn't buy any books that day. Although I really wanted to.
Made it back to the hotel, where Chris and I soaked our feet and rested our weary legs. A little while later, we headed off to another hotel for our tour company's welcome reception. Although it was only a maybe 10 minute walk there, I got us lost and it took closer to thirty. Ah well, at least we got to see Buckingham Palace and the finish line. So we found the reception, and got a glass of wine and basically stood in the middle of the room, awkwardly. We're both sort of shy, so we decided to wait until someone came and talked to us. Fortunately, someone did, a woman named Pam ("I like your name," she said. We had nametags on.) from Minneapolis. She was very friendly, and was with a group who had done the Paris Marathon the week before. Crazy!
After attempting to look friendly after Pam left, but not reeling in any more people, we decided to leave, and head back to the hotel. One would assume since we got so lost getting there, that we'd be more careful heading back. But no, this time I got us even more lost. God only knows where we went, but we got a nice little tour of Victoria and its surrounding areas. Marianne met us at the hotel, and the five of us went to have fish and chips at a pub where Anne used to work. After dinner, we exhaustedly made our way back to the hotel, where Marianne and I caught a cab back to Islington. Best £10 I ever spent. But before we got in the cab, we were chatted up by some smooth East End gangster-types. Maybe I watch too many movies. Our cabdriver, as it turned out, ran the marathon himself eleven years ago. He gave me a few tips but said he'd never do it again. Very reassuring. One of the things I love about London is the cabdrivers. You never know what you'll end up in an in-depth conversation about.
Made it to Marianne's flat. Very nice. She shares a house with three other trainee lawyers, and I had my own room and half-bathroom. After making small talk with one of Marianne's flatmates, who was also running the marathon, I went to sleep and slept for a good twelve hours. Zzzzzzz....nice!
