It's a really good thing we did Harry Potter already, because we'd have never made it there today.
The morning actually started out pretty well, despite leaving late due to a missing iPad that wasn't really missing. And having to add cash to two of our Oyster cards (for the Tube).
We met Michael for a goodbye breakfast at Serpentine. It was our first meal in London and our last. Quite fitting. It was even better the second time, since it wasn't crowded at all. Plus, we're getting to be old pros at UK dining.
While Marsha and Madison went back to the hotel to gather our things, Michael and I went to pick up the car. And that's when things went downhill a bit. At first, it was all roses and sunshine when the clerk offered us a better car with all sorts of "discounts," but when he came back with a figure, it was over a thousand more than we'd planned to spend. Marsha would have killed me and rightfully so. I was so glad that Michael was there to help.
Once we finally got all that sorted out, and closer to what we'd originally planned to spend, Michael coached me on driving back to the hotel. Switching to right-hand steering and driving on the left was really freaky. Though I can drive a stick, learning to shift with my left hand was too much, so we went with an automatic.
Also, getting a car with GPS was exorbitantly expensive (you even had to pay extra if it was built into the car), so we optioned to do it the old-fashioned way. Luckily, thanks to Marsha's suggestion, I'd printed up all of our directions. I also got a better map from the rental company.
Once we got the car loaded and said our goodbyes, we just had to hit the road in front of our hotel and head straight out of town. Easier said than done actually. We needed to go in the opposite direction, and thanks to the median and many one-way streets, it took us a good fifteen minutes or more just to get pointed in the right direction. We couldn't get out of South Kensington, much less London.
We eventually made it onto the highway and it was mostly semi-smooth sailing from that point on. I managed to get in the wrong lane at one point and got lost on a town, but Madison turned on her precious data and used her phone's GPS to get us back on track. The best part (aside from being on the open highway) was getting our first glimpses of the rolling English countryside.
Eventually, we made it to our hotel, the Menzies, in Stratford and everything got instantly better. Well, not instantly, because Marsha didn't like our first room (a modern apartment with a circular staircase, a living room, kitchen area, two bedrooms and two baths), so we moved to the main building, which was much better. Madison switched to a day bed, but she still has her own room and an iMac, where she started looking for London colleges where she could take classes over the summer.
The Menzies was once a grand estate and it shows. Teddy Roosevelt once stayed here (when it was still a house) and the Queen herself even visited back in the 80s. After we explored the grounds a bit, we got back in our reliable mini-van (trust me, the only one in the parking lot) and headed into town.
We found the Shakespeare birthplace easily enough and then a place to park. Of course, it's right in the middle of town, surrounded by more modern (but still old) buildings. On the other side is a quaint little pedestrian street with lots of little shops and the entrances to the Shakespeare house and bookshop. The house had just closed as we walked up. I even saw they guy turning the sign around at the bookshop.
Then we started wandering and oh, what a treat. We found a small canal that we followed. The canal path led under bridges and through a neighborhood. We immediately recognized the little English canal boats from an episode of The Amazing Race.
By the water and the town center is a monument to the Bard himself (though for the record, I don't believe William Shakespeare actually wrote the works attributed to him). It's surrounded by four smaller statues of some of his most famous characters: Hamlet, Falstaff, Prince Hal, and Lady Macbeth.
We just loved exploring the streets with so much Elizabethan architecture. Aside from the modern cars, it felt just like a storybook. Every street down which we turned had buildings dating back to the 1500-1600s, some even earlier.
But my favorite was Poundland, the UK equivalent to the Dollar Store. You just can't restrict a good idea to one country.
We had dinner at the Garrick Inn, the oldest pub in Stratford. The building dates back to 1594 and the pub dates back to 1769. Marsha and Madison found it while we were walking around. We did some more exploring and then managed to find our way back.
Both the food and service were really good. I had the fish n' chips, of course, while Marsha had the bangers and mash. Just keeping the British end up, you know.
Then it was back to our grand hotel for a bit of Telly and some rest. We ended up watching some American TV shows, which is just as well. That's what Michael watches.
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