June 27: Picking up the Bike & The "Expensive Dump"

 We had a good night's rest in Epping, we slept till 11am. I noticed that it didn't get dark till VERY late. I mean very, very, late. It was 11:30pm till it was full dark! This made us think it was earlier than it really was. That and we were still feeling the effects of jetlag. Anyway, we finally got our things together and went to the tube station. The " tube" is their word for the subway. Our first task was to go to the bike rental shop, so we took the tube into London. When we finally got to the bike shop they let us know that the bike we had rented was no longer available. We started to panic because the bike he wanted to give us was far too small and we knew it wouldn't have space for all our luggage. Fortunately he gave us another bike that had large cases on it that we could use instead. We finally got the bike packed and prepared to leave for the hotel, b but we weren't sure where to go. While Tim was looking it up on the GPS, a young woman got on the bike next to us, so we asked her where the street the hotel was on was located. She said that she should know because she was a London cab driver in training. Instead of just telling us how to get there she took us there. A woman we knew only a few moments took time out of her day to help us. When we finally got to where the hotel was supposed to be we were puzzled because we didn't see a hotel sign. Instead we saw what looked like an abandoned building. Then we saw someone come out of the building so we asked where the hotel was. He pointed to the building. We were pretty shocked but it was getting late and I thought it might not be too bad inside. I went in to see the room, it was a dump. When I tried to get my money back I was told there are no refunds. I was really mad because we paid the equivalent of $125 a night for this place. I wouldn't have been upset if we'd spent only $49, but I expected much better for the price. Then we needed a place to park the bike as its illegal to park on the street. The clerk told us that therewas no parking for the hotel but he knew of a lot 2 blocks away that was only 5 £ ($8) a day that his friend owned. While Tim was having this discussion, I saw another man come by who was cleaning out the trash bins along the street. I thought surely be would know where we could park. He told us we were welcome to Park the bike in the church parking lot right there. To make sure I went in and asked the priest. He said it would be fine and said the bike would be safe because they locked the gates at night. We went to our room, unpacked, and headed out to find a place for dinner. After a LONG walk we found an Indian Restaurant. While the menu was in English, there weren't any explanations of what the dishes were so we asked the waiter for help. We had a wonderful dinner. What impressed me were how many different languages we heard spoken in that tiny restaurant! French, Spanish, Italian, and Hindi. We never see that in Rockingham County! --OR even in Greensboro for that matter. It was amazing to see all these people of differing ethnicities getting along peacefully. After dinner we went to bed, the mattress was pretty hard, but we were exhausted.

Pictures are here-click link to see pictures