Taming the Tube

Greetings from London. I'm lounging here in my big dorm room at the London School of Economic's Passfield Hall. It's definitely an older facility than the one in Edinburgh, but it's not bad at all. Our bathrooms are down the hall here, so that could take some getting used to, but we seem to have the floor basically to ourselves right now, so it's fine.

As far as I'm concerned, today was an amazing success for me--not from a scouting or sightseeing standpoint--but from a navigational standpoint. I got us from Edinburgh to Passfield Hall in London with only two brief stops to ask for directions. And the best part is that I navigated the Tube with 100% perfection. I know, I know, the London Tube is a totally easy subway to navigate. The thing is, I've always relied on others to navigate it for me, so I'd never done it on my own. Until today, that is. I can't tell you how proud I am of myself. Maybe it seems silly after finding my way around and about in China, but my dirty little travel secret is that public transportation scares me. I'm not scared of riding on it, I'm scared of not knowing how to use it (buy tickets, for instance) and of getting hopelessly lost on it. but I got us from Heathrow to Bloomsbury, and then from Bloomsbury to central London to meet up with Eric and Heather. I may never take a cab again.



Bloomsbury is a nice neighborhood. Even Dickens lived here once.


We didn't manage to meet up with Eric and Heather until after four, so this was not a big scouting day. I count my Tube success as scouting, though. I simply MUST be able to navigate students easily around this city, so this is great practice for me. We did walk over towards the London Eye, and then across Westminster Bridge for that gorgeous view of the houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and the white steeples of Westminster Abbey. I love that view, and this is a walk we will definitely make with our students. Tomorrow we have a tour of the BBC in the morning, and lots of scouting stops in the afternoon.









The kids and I were really tired today. Despite my huge success with the Tube, we did spend most of today traveling from one place to another with no real destination, except London, of course. We spent a lot of time on super crowded subway trains, and that can be exhausting. And did I mention that the man in the seat in front of us on the plane was so saturated in body odor that Maria got a little sick to her stomach? We could probably all use a little down time, but I'm not sure when we'll get it. We only have five days left, and a lot of ground to cover. Let's hope a good night's sleep helps.

Oh! Dinner tonight was in a US teen's dream restaurant: the original, first in the whole line, Hard Rock Cafe.



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