Hello from London!!! Well, today Roger Sims took me to the Stroud train station at 7:45 or so. I boarded an 8 o:clock train for London. I was able to confirm yesterday that my Eurail pass works for the train, so that was great. It had been prepaid. I saw there was first-class and second-class seating. I chose to go into first-class and waited for the conducter to kick me out of there. But, nope, I was ignored -- and as a matter of fact, I didn't see the conductor at for the entire one and one-half hour journe
y.Helen Sims had printed me a map showing the route between the Paddington (London) train station and the youth hostel. So, upon arriving in London I set about walking the mile or so there. It was easy to find and it turns out t
he youth hostel is quite nice -- there is a shower and w.c. (yep, that my new term for the you-know-what). There are two bunk-beds there and I noticed another person had been there before me. I haven't had a chance to meet him yet. That'll come later, I'm sure.After checking my bags at the hostel, I made my way to the Baker Street undersground station and found a tour-bus. I bought a ticket and started a 2-hour journey
around much of London. I spotted a number of sites I want to see tomorrow and Thursday, including the London and Tate Museums. Upon arriving at the Tower of London (it's a prison as you know), I changed from the bus to a boat and went down the Thames River to the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Great fun. I stood on the Zero Meridian, with one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere and one foot in the Western Hemisphere. I met the planetarium lecturer and took some nice photos of the 28" refracting telescope and the Transit Telescope at the Zero Meridian.I went to see Iron Man tonight. Grrrreat movie. It is tongue-in-cheek and Robert Downey is very good. So, for those of you who like that kind of thing, I recommend it highly..
The photos I've uploaded include one of me on the zero meridian. There's a picture of Big Ben and Parliament as well as the Tower of London. Lots of folks "lost there heads there!!"
More later as usual......
