Tuesday was our last full day in the Big City and we still had a full day’s use of the CityPass to take advantage of so naturally, we were once again up and out early in the day. This time, our destination was a bit outside the city center and was looking like it would take close to an hour to get there: The London Motor Museum.
Continue reading “London 2014: Day Seven & Eight – Cars and Cards”
With the Con basically behind us, we were all set on Monday to start really exploring London and making full use of our CityPass. Of course, in order to do this, we figured we needed an early start so we were up, had breakfast and were on the train by 9:15, heading out to the Tower of London. This seemed the best place to start, to reverse our trip of Thursday. Do the Tower, then the Bridge, then The Globe. Made perfect sense. Continue reading “London 2014: Day Six – There’s popular and then there’s POPULAR!”
When Sunday morning rolled around, we weren’t sure what we were going to do. We had originally intended on spending the day at the Con, but the one main event we wanted to see, George R. R. Martin discussing Game of Thrones, had been cancelled by George the day before (and what a hassle that was to find out – It was listed in the printed program but then Ruta had shown me the Con’s app for making life easier and it was not listed there so we ended up at three different locations and talked to four different people before someone confirmed it had indeed been cancelled). And while there were bits of programming we wanted to see, we also wanted to see more of London (it’s a big place, after all). Continue reading “London 2014: Day Five – Hitching a ride with Hugo”
Ostensibly, the reason we were in London in the first place was to attend LonCon3, the World Science Fiction Convention for 2014. As reasons go, it’s not a bad one. Especially since I’m a dues paying active member of the Science Fiction Writer’s of America (SFWA) and make such little use of that it barely registers as more than a line on my CV. So, knowing I was going to the con (that’s what we in the “know” call conventions) I volunteered to be on a panel when they had an opening and got an invite to the SFWA reception and had decided to attend the SFWA informational meeting. I figure if I’m gonna get back into this writing thing, I need to start hanging out with people again. Continue reading “London 2014: Day Three & Four – LonCon3”
Thursday started bright and early with breakfast at the hotel, which was kind of weird. Most hotels, if they offer breakfast, it’s usually a continental style, with pastries and coffee. Hostels often offer similar. This place had a kitchen so you could make what you wanted and offered up eggs, bread, cereal and some fruits. So we had scrambled eggs and toast before heading out for our day.
First stop, as planned, was the British Library. There was an exhibition on about British Comic Books until the 19th and since we didn’t know when we’d get another chance, today was our day for it (Monday and Tuesday were already blocked out due to the London Pass – to be explained later). Continue reading “London 2014: Day Two – Walking the walk, talking the talk…”
This trip actually started a few months ago when AAron and family couldn’t make it to LonCon3, the World Science Fiction convention, this year held in London. Since they couldn’t go, but had already gotten memberships, Rasa and I took them over and planned a tourist trip around the con.
Of course, this wasn’t the only way AAron was involved. See, we were flying RyanAir which is notorious for how cut-rate they are. Until very recently, they would only allow one carry on bag, no more than 10kg, and anything else would be charged an exorbitant fee. They’ve since loosened policy a bit, but not much. In any case, we still weren’t checking any bags, but we had the ability to take two onboard. Continue reading “London 2014: Day One – Getting there is half the fun”
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 