One
of the best things about getting older is being able to travel
around this great planet of ours. You get to a point where you
seem to have more time than you did in your earlier days. Maybe
it’s because you don’t have so many football, baseball and
soccer games to attend. You don’t need to spend as much time on
the freeways going to get school supplies or food. Becoming empty
nesters tends to free you up somewhat in many ways, both for the
good and for the bad. Well, anyway that gets me the proper lead in
for this week’s story about my trip to London with my youngest son
last week.
I
found one of those auction sites on the Internet for vacations and
lo and behold one came up for a trip to London for 2 people. I put
in a bid at $1,050 for the thing and won. What a deal. This was
airfare for 2 to London, hotel and breakfast for a week. Now,
I’m thinking the hotel has to be a dump, but not so. Although
the rooms were small, that’s to be expected, none of their rooms
are ever very large. Who stays in a room anyway? All I wanted to
do was to spend time in the museums. My wife says she hates
tramping over dead people, but I don’t care. The flight over was
great, not full, great service, decent food. The hotel is as
described above, clean, quiet and comfortable. The breakfast was
adequate. Getting around London was a snap, even for an old guy.
Just drop down to the tube or underground or whatever they call it
and wait for a few minutes and here you go.
Trains run every 10-15 minutes and getting from one place to
another is easier than you think. Unless you get turned around and
go east rather than west, you can’t go wrong. Since the foot and
mouth thing was going on we ate fish, chicken and whatever so we
should be safe on that score. Lots of places that sold beef were
mostly empty. I didn’t gain a pound.
I
have always wanted to just go over and wander the museums on my
own time and not be hurried. Well, I have overdosed on museums. I
drug my son to. …Tower of London, Saint Paul’s, Westminster
Abbey, National Portrait Gallery, Natural History Museum, Natural
Science Museum, Seaport Museum at Portsmouth, 2 plays and 1 movie.
In between those we shopped at various arcades and Harrods
department store, which is a trip in and of itself. I shopped till
I dropped and finally got my fill of London. Trust me, I was ready
to come home. The trip until this point was wonderful.
Now,
we get on the plane coming home with a group of Americans who, I
swear, must have never traveled on a plane in their lifetime. This
is impossible of course, since they were in a foreign country
headed back to the US of A. So they had to get on a plane to get
over there. These had to be the rudest people I’ve ever met in
my life. They pushed, they shoved, and they put bags in the
overhead then pulled them out 5 minutes later. They cut in line
going to the restrooms. Up and down for 6 hours back to New York.
Pulling on the seats, kicking the seats…you name it, they did
it. Several of them must have a bet going on as to who could walk
back to New York, since they circled the seats for nearly the
entire flight. Some liked the food and wanted more, some didn’t
like the food and wanted something else. I was beginning to think
they thought maybe we could order pizza from 37,000 feet up in the
air. I thought they would stop once we landed, but no, they pushed
ahead of everyone at the customs and passport lines here in the
states. Weird people.
Other
than some Americans being ugly, the trip was great. Go if you can.
Do it while you can. You might wish you had later on. It was a
good time for my son and I. We may never get to do this again
together. We both got tired of tramping over dead folks. Comments
go to www.pearyperry.com
