Traveling to London.

Amazingly, the rental car drop off was a snap. The people weren’t even there, so Mom and Papa just parked it an left the keys in a designated box. They walked back to the train station, where they had dropped me and granny and all of the luggage we were guarding, and we boarded the express train to London. We had a spot of trouble finding unreserved seats, but it all worked out in the end. Of course, the express didn’t take us directly to Victoria station, which is closest to our hotel, so we had to take the tube. That was a bit of a hassle. They seem to love putting oodles of steps between the train and the tube, up and down which we were dragging our luggage while the intercom told us the train line we had planned on using was shut down for maintenance and the ticket checkers told us our flexi-pass didn’t work on the tube. She let us barge through the subway anyways, at our own risk, and directed us to an alternative train. We did have to change subways just to get to Victoria, and from there drag our luggage up too many stairs and onto the street, and down the street to our hotel, and down the stairs to our room. Today was full of stairs.
We are staying in the same hotel for five nights. However, within those five nights we are staying in three separate rooms. This means we have to stow our luggage in the reception area, behind the desk, the days we change rooms. But at least we are conveniently located. There are lots of shops, restaurants, and grocery stores nearby, and it’s a reasonably short walk to the station. In fact, we have already walked there and back a second time, to get bus maps, and stopped along the way at a grocery store which was only open ten more minutes, but we managed to get supper, and a Starbucks for Granny and I. Granny stayed behind in the room, reading up on London and recuperating. Tonight’ll be another picnic dinner, we bought a newspaper just so we’d have something to eat off, and a lot of planning. Our list of things to do is 21 strong, but that’s really rather impossible. We’ll just see how much we can pack in.