different names for the same thing: Portabello Road

Well, we survived our first night! Tuesday, we spent the day in London, but not after a bit of an adventure. We got up, ate, and then called “Carl”, the apartment manager. We had called him last night, and he told us we could just leave our luggage at his place while we toured the city, but I was a bit uncomfortable with that. So, we decided to leave the luggage at the hotel. This morning, he convinced us that we should bring it out to him so that we wouldn’t have to travel back out to the hotel after our day in the city. SO!! Again, with the faith issue, we headed out to Notting Hill and met this Carl guy. We got to ride on our first double decker London bus. It was great fun!
<It was an adjustment not hearing French anymore. Being able to speak English made a huge difference in our ability to communicate, ask questions, get directions, find what we need. It’s amazing. It’s surprising what a difference it makes. I think it was a nice break for the kids to be able to understand everything. They loved being able to read all of the signs and understand the announcements on the tube.>
Carl was every bit as sketchy as we thought he would be, but seemed pretty sincere. He had us go to a totally different apartment than we had signed up for. We left our luggage there, along with a family from Saudi Arabia’s luggage and hoped that we could actually trust this guy!
We still weren’t sure exactly where we were going to stay the night when we headed out for the day (which was significantly later than we had hoped.) We just said a lot of prayers and hoped that all would be well when we got back. We took a bus to “Marble Arch”. We walked down Park Lane which goes along side Hyde Park. We reached Constitution Hill and saw some really cool monuments and memorials (see photos below)! It was great to finally be out and seeing some of London’s sights. We walked down to the Buckingham Palace and through the palace gardens. The palace was pretty amazing! There was a garden party of some sort going on because we saw a huge line of people dressed up and all of the women were in hats.
We walked down through St. James’s Park. It was one of the most beautiful park settings I have seen. It was an artist’s paradise. We stopped at the Guards’ Museum for lunch. We were the only people there, so we had great service and super yummy food. Again, everyone was happy with their meal, which is such a bonus. Dillon and Mali toured the museum and Dillon loved it. Lots of cool old war weapons. :)
We walked down to see Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. We missed getting into the Abbey by about 10 minutes, oh well. So, we went down and got in line for the boat cruise. It went down the Thames to the Tower of London. There was great commentary and we were able learn some interesting things about buildings along the river. The London Bridge was just amazing. We got out by the tower of London and then got on a bus down to Trafalgar Square. From the square, we walked back down to Westminster bridge. Mali needed to use the restroom, so we tried the train station there. A crazy old woman was running the restroom, which cost 50 cents to use. I was nervous sending Mali in there unattended, especially after seeing her harass other women in line. Crazy.
We walked over the bridge to “The London Eye”, the world’s largest observation wheel (a giant ferris wheel.) Dave and the kids had tickets. When I saw it online, I thought we should not waste money on a ticket for me after the Eiffel tower “panic attack incident”. But, when I saw the thing, I was sad that I didn’t have a ticket. Whatever! They loved the ride and the views of London were amazing. The sun was starting to set, and so the city looked beautiful.
After the London Eye, we decided to try our luck on heading home. We were all pretty exhausted from not sleeping well the night before and the long day. So, we called "Carl” and met him at the bus stop. He had decided to let us stay at the Notting Hill apartment, where we had left our luggage. He kept on telling us what a fantastic apartment it was and how we were getting a steal. We were just happy to see that all of our belongings were still there.
He did give us a great recommendation on a local pub to eat at, Prince Bonaparte. When we reached the door, the kids were all very hesitant to enter, and pleaded to go elsewhere (because it was a pub/bar). Once we got to our seats and actually got our food, they were super glad we stayed. It was delicious, though eating at 10 at night is not my favorite!
When we finally got home to go to bed, we discovered that the apartment was not really “cleaned”. I pulled back the duvet and the sheets were filthy, yuck! The bathrooms and kitchen were dirty as well. What were were we paying the 200.00 cleaning fee for?? I put two shirts over my pillow and slept in clothes so the sheets wouldn’t touch me. (paranoid, I know, but I hate the idea of bed cooties!)
We were supposed to give the owners a 400.00 security deposit through PayPal. We had tried to do it before we left, but for some reason, PayPal put a temporary security block on our account. Dave followed all of the verification steps to get it unlocked, and the second we tried to use it, it locked again! We were so frustrated. I was starting to panic, worrying that we wouldn’t have a place to stay tomorrow night if we didn’t get that stupid money transferred. Stupid PayPal.
Other than that, the day turned out far better than expected. We were able to see a lot of beautiful sights and the kids were super troopers with all of the walking. I also need to mention that Dave, Dillon and I were all feeling the post-Tommy workout pain all day. It was sad/funny to see Dillon trying to walk up and down stairs. Dave and I are used to it, but poor Dill had not experienced it before. :) It was great to be sore again – the good kind!