Last Wednesday we went to London with my sisters and Monica. It was an adventure!
We parked just outside London and took the subway into the city (about a 45 minute subway ride). When we arrived at Westminster, we were able to take the elevator up to the outside, but that put us on a pier, right in front of a huge set of steps that we had to climb up in order to be at street level. Why would someone design an elevator for handicapped and strollers that dumps you right in front of another set of stairs? Not so smart. We carried the stroller up, I think about halfway up a nice man stopped and offered to help us carry it up the rest of the way.
Little did I know this would be the first of many attempts to carry the stroller up and down stairs that day.
We took our required pictures in front of Big Ben and the London Eye (although Michaela does not take pictures of the London Eye because it is so ugly).
Then we walked to Westminster Abbey, where there was a lot of discussion about who we could not take pictures of and which pictures could not be posted, etc. Once we had fulfilled our tourist quota at Westminster, we split up. Michaela, Meliss, and Monica went to Tower Bridge, saw the Crown Jewels, went to St. Paul's, had tea at Harrod's, and saw Buckingham Palace I think. Kody and I had already seen all of those and preferred to go somewhere indoors so Cormac wouldn't be outside in the freezing cold all day. So we went to the
Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. The bunker where Churchill and his men commanded from during the war has been turned into a museum. Some of the original maps are still on the walls, complete with pin holes that marked the location of battle ships. The audio tour was great; overall the museum was really neat and was a nice indoor activity for us. Kody managed to get the student and the disabled discount so the tour was much more affordable.
After the War Museum, we headed toward the U. S. Embassy for Cormac's passport appointment. This involved another trip down into the subway, only this time without Michaela and Meliss to help. We learned that most of the subway stations do not have handicap access, and it seemed like we always needed to use those stations. Walking further to get to a subway station with a lift (elevator) wasn't too appealing to poor Kody, on his crutch, especially on a cold, drizzly day. So the two of us carried the stroller down, down, down into the subway system. What a sight - Kody with his crutch around one arm, limping down the slippery wet stairs, with the stroller. But we never fell, thank goodness! When we exited the subway near the embassy, a kind Muslim woman helped us carry the stroller up the last flight of stairs. Kody thanked her with a "God Bless you!". We walked a few blocks to the embassy, and at last, saw Old Glory flying:
What a glorious sight! Of course the U.S. Embassy is hideously ugly, but the bald eagle and stars and stripes made up for that. Cormac's first time on American soil!! But we weren't allowed to take any pictures of him at the embassy.
Security at the embassy was intense, only one person/group could go through the security room at a time. We turned in our camera and cell phone, but then the guards pointed out each battery in my purse, Kody's iPod in his sleeve, his kindle, etc, and made us leave all of it at the checkpoint - no electronic devices allowed inside. They also made Kody drink some of the water in his water bottle in front of them to make sure it was water. I was glad security was so tight, especially because the terror threat level had been raised to severe for the day we were in London because of a government meeting regarding Yemen. The guards' large automatic weapons made me feel much safer (the first time we've seen guns since we've been in this socialist country!)! Alas, there were no lifts into the embassy or up to the second floor where the passport services were, so we carried the stroller up several more flights of stairs. The passport application took two hours - they checked all of our paperwork, then we sat down while they went through it all, got called back up to fix things, sat back down, etc. Kody was disturbed because almost all of the staff was British. The final guy we dealt with, who took our affidavits, was American. Kody asked how he liked his job, why Brits were working at the American embassy, etc. Then when the man asked us if we had any other children (part of the affidavit questioning) Kody responded with, "None that we know of." The guy did not smile. Some people just don't get Kody's sense of humor.
When we finally got out of the embassy, we headed over to Regent Street because Kody wanted to go to
Hamley's, the enormous toy store. We walked by all of the wonderful Regent St. shops (first time I have seen a Banana Republic since August! but no time to go inside). I was hoping to see the brand new
Anthropologie in London, but we didn't have time to find that either. We checked out every floor in the toy store (luckily they had a lift!). Kody really is a kid at heart - he could have stayed in the toy store all day.
After the toy store we decided to just go to our meeting place,
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, where we were all going to have dinner. There were no lifts at any nearby subway stations, and it was now rush hour. The thought of us trying to carry the stroller down 4 or 5 flights of stairs to get on a packed train was a little overwhelming so we decided to try the bus instead. So we took one bus, got off too early, then caught another bus over to the pub. On the second bus, Kody managed to get the handicap seating:
We got to the pub, which wasn't too crowded yet, but it was still difficult to navigate the stroller through the tiny rooms and all the steps of the ancient pub. Then we waited and waited for the ladies to show up. Let me mention here that Michaela has an international plan on her cell phone, and we have a pay-as-you go cell phone. We had put 10GBP on our phone before our trip to London. That morning, Michaela had Kody text her so she'd have our cell # saved in her phone. She thought it would cost less to just text her, but the text cost 9GBP! So we couldn't call Michaela for the rest of the day or we'd run out of money. She liked this set-up, and was able to text us throughout the day, but we couldn't respond. We were supposed to meet at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for dinner at 7PM if meeting up earlier in the day failed (which it did because we were at the embassy for 2 1/2 hours). But they were late and Cormac was starting to fall apart. So Kody called Kevin and had Kevin skype Michaela to tell her to get to the Cheese. Ahhh technology. They finally got to the Cheese, got drinks, and then we left to head home. We took the bus to a subway station with a lift, but that still involved carrying the stroller down a few flights of stairs to get to the lift. Cormac cried most of the 45 minute train ride back to our car but luckily our train was pretty empty.
We finally made it home, all in one piece but quite exhausted. Cormac did pretty well overall but it was a long day for such a little guy. It was a great day, besides all the carrying the stroller up and down stairs. Luckily we got the passport and SSN applications done and we should have his passport in two weeks.
Next time we go to London, we won't be bringing a cripple, nor a stroller. And please, if you ever see someone trying to carry a stroller up or down a flight of stairs, offer to help them!
