Day 12 – Sheffield to London
By: Curt Glesmann
Northern Lights Club Director
Today we got up around 7:30am for an 8:00am full English Breakfast. It’s a good thing we are doing so much walking or else Curt, Marlon & Adam would be about 20 lbs heavier from this trip.
We left the hotel after breakfast and walked to the Tram Station and took it to the Sheffield train station. We did so well in getting to the first Tram stop, we ended up at the train station about 1.25 hours early. We just hung around in the waiting area until our train came at 10:26. We hopped on quickly and stowed our bags and found our seats. The train was empty at Sheffield, but as we headed toward London it kept getting fuller until it was standing room only. Fortunately we had reserved seats.
Most of the girls slept during the trip, but a few stayed awake. I was sitting in a table arrangement with Ashley and Claire and we worked on a couple more of the word games I brought. They did a good job on knowing many of the answers, and on the ones they didn’t know Adam & I helped them out. They are very inquisitive. Claire and I also watched the movie UP which I had on my computer.
When we got to London we had to take the London Underground (Tube) to our hotel. I originally told everyone it was on the Victoria Line, but then about ˝ down to the trains I changed it to the Piccadilly Line and shouted it back to everyone. The 5 behind me heard it and followed me. The other 5 along with Adam & Marlon didn’t hear it and when we got separated in the ticket turnstiles (it tried to eat Kelsey’s luggage) my group didn’t know it and we just kept going right along. We got on the Tube, and the girls said that Adam and his group were right behind us in another car. It was so crowded there was no way to see that, so we just went to the hotel stop and got out expecting to see Adam and his group also getting out of another car on the same train. Wrong…no Adam or Marlon or 5 of the girls. It turns out they went to the wrong line, but Adam having been here before realized it and got them back on track to the correct line. They showed up about 15 minutes later.
We checked into the hotel, and everyone got some food around the area we are staying in. We then headed back into London for their first surprise at about 3:45. We took them to the London Eye, which is the big permanent Ferris wheel that is over 400’ high and has air-conditioned compartments that hold 25 people. It takes 30 minutes to go around and it’s on the river overlooking most of the major things in London. A few were a little worried about the height (Marlon was one of them) but everyone ended up getting comfortable by the end of the “flight” as they call it. The views are spectacular and the team really enjoyed it.
After the London Eye visit we walked along the South Bank of the Thames River where they have a park area with lots of street performers. We then crossed over the river and hopped into the Tube for a quick trip to Piccadilly Circus where we got off and walked to Leicester Square. This is the area of London where many of the theatres are located and it’s called the West End. We went there because it has a ton of souvenir shops where the girls can buy T-shirts and sweatshirts. We let them shop for 2 hours, and Curt, Marlon, & Adam went to scope out a restaurant for the evening and also to sit back and relax and have something to drink while we watched all of the people in the Leicester Square area.
The girls were back promptly at 8:00 and we walked over to the restaurant we had picked out. It was an Italian place that had a big variety of food. 8 of them had Pizza, 2 had chicken. The adults were more adventurous and had various other pastas.
After dinner we walked back towards the Piccadilly Tube station and on the way back stopped at the ice cream shop Adam & I had found earlier.
Tonight at dinner we told them our plans for tomorrow, which was to visit the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, take a short boat ride down the Thames to the Tower Bridge and visit the Tower of London where all of the crown jewels are kept and much of the beheading went on. I also told them that for their final night on this trip we were going to have dinner back at Leicester Square area followed by the musical play Mama Mia….they got pretty excited.
So tomorrow will be a big final day for the team.