Take that Eyjafjallajökull

Just home from London again and finally was able to meet up with my friend Amanda.  I've known her since my college days and she and her husband are living and working in the UK.  Since they moved to the UK, I haven't had London layover's that often and when I did, it seems there was a conflict with their schedules.  Rewind to April, and I had two London trips for the month.  We made plans to meet up on the second trip.  They were going to come into town and we were going to see Wicked and spend the day hanging out.  Then Mother Nature showed us her wrath and Iceland's most famous unknown volcano erupted and brought air travel to Europe to a halt.  I had things I was carrying over from some of Amanda's friends and I had some US goodies she could not get over there.  So much for plans.


Last weekend I finally was able to meet up with them!  Our friend Jenn re-mailed the package I was supposed to take over and I had Gerber Puffs for Amanda's little girl and Double Stuffed Oreo's for Amanda.  They took the train into the city and we met up at Victoria station.  Aaron, Amanda's husband, was hoping to get some pictures of England fans in pre-celebratory mode for the World Cup game against the US.

We had an enjoyable afternoon walking around London.  Although I might write a letter to the folks at London Underground to install more lifts because Amanda and Aaron had to deal with stairs going into and our of the subway with their stroller!  We stopped first at Trafalgar Square and then made our way down to Leicester Square.  It was a beautiful sunny day!  Aaron got a few photos of the rowdy Englishmen in World Cup fever.  We did see a strange group of Protesters at Picadilly Circus who were trying to bring the conspiracy surrounding Michael Jackson's death to the public.  

Our next stop was Green Park.  Their is a great statue collection of Asian Elephants all over the city.  I saw some last weekend when I was down by St. Paul's, but at Green Park they actually had a bunch of them lined up.  Each one is painted in a different style and you can purchase the statues as a way to raise money for these endangered animals.  http://www.elephantfamily.org/how-can-you-help/events/elephant-parade-london-2010/.

At this point in the late afternoon, my  5 hour Energy shot was starting to wear off (I had passed on my arrival nap and hit the ground running).  We made our way back to Gloucester Road by my hotel and had dinner at Ask, my favorite London Pizza place and then Aaron and Amanda took the District line back to Victoria Station and their train back home.  It was a fun day and great to meet up with old friends, especially when they live far away!

High Church at St. Paul's

My scheduled trip on Friday night cancelled after about a four hour delay.  I was bummed because I was trying to take Ladyfriend with me to London.  It started out well enough.  Even though the flight was full, she still was able to get a Business Class seat and we were all set.  As we were about to turn onto the runway, all the galley power went out.  We returned to the gate, but after several hours they were not able to correct the problems with the electrical system and the flight was cancelled.

The next day I was able to pick up another London trip.  When trips cancel, we scramble to try to recover our lost time.

Given that it would be a Sunday layover, not much would be open so I went with my co-workers Dianne and Karla to St. Paul's Cathedral for a High Church Evensong service.  We arrived at the church about 30 minutes before the service started, and you could hear the bells ringing outside.  We went down into the crypt first and visited the bookstore.  I bought a few postcards and little gift items.

St. Paul's is an amazing Cathedral.  Part of the Anglican church, it sits on the highest point in London.  It's actually the fifth Cathedral th occupy the site.  The others being lost to fire.  The present structure took 30 years to build and was completed in 1697, designed by English architect Sir Christopher Wren.  Amazingly, the building survived the Blitz during WWII.  It was hit numerous times by bombs, but no major damage was done.  There was time released bomb that failed to detonate, which experts think would have totally destroyed the Cathedral.

For the actual services, visitors sit under the dome of the cathedral.  For the Evensong service, the Boys and Men's Choir perform the singing, accompanied by a dooming organ.  Sunday's service coincided with D-Day, so there were British war vets sitting in their uniforms in the front of the sanctuary.

At the conclusion of the service, there was a lovely organ solo.  The acoustics of the church carried the strong sound throughout the sanctuary and it was an amazing end to the service.

We exited thru the side of the church and made our way over the Thames to the Tate and then proceeded to walk back along the river towards Parliament.  At one point it started to rain a bit so we stopped at a pub and had some beer.  Dianne and I had the Fruli beer, which was the strawberry beer I tired in Greenwich last month.

After the rain let up, we made our way back over the Thames to Parliament and and took the Tube back to the hotel.

The layover was relaxing for a Sunday.  It was great to fly with my friend Dianne. It was actually our first time flying together, but she had been working a flight years back where I was escorting a little boy back to Paraguay.