The Great Mysterious Underwater City of London

I know what some of you might be thinking. "London isn't an underwater city!" Well, when we were last there in August, I was definitely under the delusion that the city had sunk beneath the Thames for as dry as our trip was. The week leading up to the trip was dry as a bone and the days afterwards saw nary a grey cloud in the sky so I'm convinced that the powers that be insist on me having a terrible time every time I go to London.

Be that as it may, the trip out from Mansfield was early but largely uneventful. Our taxi arrived sharply on time and we got to the train station with time to kill. The same for Nottingham as well since we had a nearly one hour layover until our train left for St. Pancras. We had ourselves an early morning drink at the train station and then made our way to the train.

I don't much recall the train ride in to London but, as it always seems to be the case, the closer we got to London the more packed the train became until there was standing room only.

We got to London only a few minutes behind schedule and we were off to explore. We had chosen to only adorn ourselves with rucksacks this trip as rolling luggage across the uneven terrain would have been difficult and extremely annoying.

We had time to kill and we wanted to relax so we caught a movie at the nearest Odeon and saw Guardians of the Galaxy which, for not knowing anything about the premise, was a very entertaining movie. After the movie I insisted we go to Chipotlè since I was dying for a good burrito (and basically any good food at that point).  

After my burrito gettin' we began our tube journey towards our hotel. We had to use the underground as well as the DLR; the Docklands Light Rail. In very little time at all we arrived at the correct station but had to walk ages to the hotel merely because we had no idea where the entrance was!

We later found that the DLR station was actually connected to the hotel via a breezeway. D'oh!

Our first glimpse of the hotel left us impressed. The sole function of the hotel was to entertain the masses that attended the adjacent convention centre. We just happened to be at the hotel during a time when absolutely nothing was going on at the convention centre so the room prices were dirt cheap. 

In no time at all we had checked in and were given our room keys. 

Our room was a very nice size and the bed was unbelievably comfortable. The room itself had black out curtains over the windows which made bright daylight into deepest night within moments. The room also had a large flat screen TV mounted on the wall and had we known, we could have brought the laptops and hooked them up to the TV to watch movies.
My favourite thing about the room had to be the shower. I'm a sucker for a nice shower. This room had a rainfall shower with slate tiles and with the hum of the vent I swear the mixture of sounds reminded me of a distant symphony.

Had the weather behaved itself for even a moment it would have been amazing to have dinner outside.

Here we have the entrance to the DLR station that connected our hotel and the convention centre. When we realized just how accessible the hotel became we were very relieved that we didn't have to walk clear across the hotel just to get inside any more.

Now this is where there will be a giant gap in the pictures because it was absolute non-stop, miserable rain. Neither of us would dare bring out our precious cameras in the off chance they'd get wet.

So Sunday evening came and went and Monday morning arrived with dark grey skies and incessant wetness. We had plans to meet my friend at the Science Museum in central London. We left in what we thought was enough time but with the rain and the train rides we arrived with barely any time left to spare. We still had not eaten yet as, mysteriously, all the shops near the hotel were closed for Summer Bank Holiday, so we quickly found a café and ordered coffees and pastries. I had messaged my friend to let her know we were running late so we packed up and set out in the torrential downpour. We got turned around slightly but soon found our way to where we needed to be.

We soon came to a queue standing out in the rain. We walked and walked and the line just grew and grew. We then realized that the line we saw was for the Natural History Museum next door to the Science Museum. We couldn't believe that so many people, hundreds of them, were just standing in the rain waiting to get in. As it stands, we were supposed to visit the Natural History Museum after the Science Museum. With that line, we didn't get to.

After much messenger checking and standing on things to see over crowds, we finally located my friend and her family. They were in line for some simulator ride so we parted ways and agreed to meet up at an Italian restaurant near Covent Garden.

Well, time seemed to slow to a crawl for me and the SO as, sadly, we found the museum to be very dull. We spent as much time as we could manage pouring over the floors and very little was absorbed because either I was fighting for space because it was at a premium or the exhibits just weren't that interesting or exciting to me. On one floor they actually had the tangible engines of a dozen or more very impressive aircraft. The fact each engine had a tag telling what they were and very little else was exceptionally boring to me. I've found only a few museums really able to hold my attention in my short life. The Gettysburg Museum, the National Air and Space Museum in Virginia and the Museum of Science and Industry, both the Chicago and Tampa locations. Unfortunately, the Science Museum in London did not meet my high standards.

After we left the museum we wandered around a bit, specifically to Forbidden Planet comic shop, one of the coolest (and busiest) places I'd yet been to. The place was mobbed with people. I have low-grade agoraphobia and claustrophobia and I was getting antsy being there. I couldn't walk away with nothing, however, as this shop had everything! The lowest level was the comics and graphic novels and I do believe that if this shop didn't have it, it didn't exist. It also had books and amongst those a decent Star Wars collection of novels. Sadly I've not picked up a SW novel in a decade so I'd be grossly behind but I did think about purchasing a few.
I didn't want to go overboard with spending so I picked up some Mace Windu purple lightsabre chopsticks and called it a night!

We visited M&M world after that and none of the shots came out well, to be honest. It was an absolute madhouse because everyone was trying to stay out of the rain. I wanted to see what there was in merchandise and my phobias kicked in to overdrive so we spent very little time there in comparison to our other stops.

Next we journeyed to the Italian restaurant we were to dine at, Sartori, only to find they were completely shut. There was no sign on the window and the normal hours for the restaurant included Mondays so we concluded they had shut for Summer Bank Holiday and not bothered to put up a sign to show as such. We were miffed at the very least. We waited until the pre-designated time in which we were to meet back up with my friend and her family, only with the throngs of people and incessant rain, we were afraid we had missed them. Finally we see them and they explained that they too had seen that the restaurant was closed so the boys had retreated to a nearby pub. The place was packed yet again so we ventured forth to another Italian place. Unfortunately they could not accommodate a party as big as ours, but they did suggest going to their sister location not far away. When we got there, we were worried they too would be full, however as luck would have it they had one spot at the top of the restaurant so we went up and sat down. Our waiter was a lively man, quick-witted and very humorous. He was very quick to tell us that he probably was the only English waiter in all of London.
Needless to say with the good food and sharp wit of our server, we quickly began to have a very enjoyable evening. As I would find out later, the restaurant we dined at, Bella Italia, was a large chain and had several locations, one of which in our very own Nottingham!

We were having such a good time that time flew by unannounced and without a care. We left the restaurant nearly two hours later and wandered towards Piccadilly Circus. We came across a casino en route and we stopped just to have a look. I was happy to still be carded. I was perfectly content to piss away a few quid here and there but I think to my friend's boys it was more of a novelty.
We arrived at Piccadilly Square and just wandered around enjoying the uniqueness of it all without the pouring rain.

One of the signs in Piccadilly Square.

I love how British this shot looks. Only in London will you see so many bright red double decker buses, the rest of the country just colours them however they like. 

I've no idea what this statue is on about, but it was big and pretty so I photographed it.

There you are, the giant slew of adverts that Piccadilly Circus is known for. Why? I've no idea.

Just in case you missed where you were the first dozen times.

Anyways it started to get somewhat late and even the Tesco Express had shut by then, which honestly I'm deeply surprised it's not a 24-hour shop anyway, so we all decided to part ways. We caught the nearest tube east and then jumped on the DLR towards our hotel. It was very good to get back merely because my feet were killing me and it was fantastic taking a hot shower after an entire day of cold rain.

In the morning it was raining, yet again, so we decided to see what the convention centre was all about since we did occasionally see people going in and out. It was fantastically large and completely impractical, at least when there were no conventions on at the time. Each end of the massive space had a few small fast food eateries and absolutely nothing was open in the middle. We finally came across a place that was open and sat down to eat.
When we were done we went back, checked out, and began our journey back in to London proper.
Before that, however, I had to get a few shots of the inside of the hotel simply because it was so impressive.

Above you can see the fitness room complete with your typical cardio equipment.

I was very impressed by this pool and very sad we didn't get a chance to use it, despite bringing our swim clothes with us.

Here is where they sold overpriced food and beverages.

And here is where we could have had drinks had we had the inkling to do so.

Here is basically where our journey ends, St. Pancras train station. To those Harry Potter fans out there, they used the exterior of St. Pancras for "King's Cross" in the movies, despite the fact that both train stations are literally across the street from one another. I was mildly interested in the Harry Potter King's Cross walking through to Platform 9 3/4 thing they had there, but the line was far too long for me and being I hate crowds I just walked over to the Harry Potter shop instead, which also happened to be an absolute zoo. It had some neat things but nothing I couldn't get over the internet or from Universal Studios so we called it quits and went back to St. Pancras.

We had absolutely no idea yet what platform our train was due to leave from so we wandered around just snooping through shops. We had been on a mission the entire trip to have gelato/gelati from an Italian place and not once had we had the opportunity. So, we came across a  Ghirardelli chocolate shop and stopped for ice cream. It was utterly fantastic. I also bought some liqueur truffles for an insane amount of money. On our way back towards the platforms we noticed that the board had finally given us a platform and of course it was probably the furthest from us! So we started power walking to the platform and only got there just in time before the train left.

Well, there you have it. I realize I'm dreadfully late in getting this piece out and really I've no valid excuse for it. Up next I'll write about our trip to Belgium and from there, who knows!
Merry Christmas everyone!