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April 5, 2006

London, Day Four: Lost

I got lost in London today.

Well, "lost" is probably too strong a word (I knew where I was on the map), but certainly I spent a good hour of my time wandering around a section of town, looking for a hotel that, as it turns out, was miles away.

Breaks down like this: Richard is in town, having flown in from Italy early on Wednesday. The two of us wanted to hook up for dinner at a pub, so the plan was for me to head over and meet him where he was staying. I got the address, fed it into Google Local, saw the directions, and elected to stroll (it was just 1.2 miles East of my current location, and I was craving the walk).

So I walked down to Strand, and continued along to Fleet, enjoying the views of the Royal Courts of Justice, Old Bailey, and St. Paul's Cathedral. And the whole time, I'm looking around for my left turn, the one the map showed that takes me right to the hotel.

Didn't materialize.

I'm walking up and down the streets, trying to remember the exact layout of the Google map and getting more and more frustrated with the rabbit-warren-esque approach of London's side streets. Many of them look like alleys, and, as night was beginning to fall, I grew increasingly wary of walking down many of them.

So I stopped and asked directions from bike messengers, newspaperman, and others, each of whom (politely) looked at me blankly and (politely) shrugged.

Eventually, I happened upon a guy in a "SECURITY" slicker who was working a gate. I stopped and asked him if he'd heard of the hotel. He hadn't, but he asked his friend, a night watchman, to come over for a second.

The watchman, an older guy with a friendly smile, asked me for the name of the hotel. "Lancaster Gate," I told him.

"Lancaster Gate? Are you sure? That's miles from here!"

I wasn't sure of anything at that point, so I asked him if there was a phone somewhere I might get my hands on to see what was what. He kindly loaned me his cell phone (which was doubly nice, as I had no English coins on me), and I rang the hotel. Sho' 'nuff, it's near Hyde Park. Dammit!

Mr. Nice Watchman then pointed me in the direction of the Chancery Lane tube stop, which, he assured me, would take me straight to the Lancaster Gate tube stop. The hotel was about a 5- or 10-minute walk from there.

The lessons from all this?

• Yes, London is twisty and hard to figure out, especially when
• Google Local will lie to you, and
• Leaving your hotel room without a cell phone in a new town is kinda dumb, but
• Leaving your hotel room without coins for the phone is even dumber, and while
• English Night Watchmen are about the kindest people on Earth (thank you, Mr. Night Watchman!), their kindness goes farther because
• The London mass-transit system rocks.

This last point is the one I really came away with. I was able to get from Point A to Point B at 8:30 at night on an idle Wednesday because of the established, well-publicized transit system that knits the city together. Eric and I got a firsthand experience with that in the morning, too - we walked to a Tube stop, got aboard, popped out at Paddington Station and hopped a train to Reading that departed 10 minutes after we got there. The Reading trip was just 25 minutes, and we found ourselves a scant mile or two from the Microsoft offices (which are super cool, by the way), allowing us to take a cab the rest of the way.

I've been able to get around some pretty vast distances on public transport in this town. What's amazing, too, is the sheer number of London citizens that use it. People in Seattle treat the bus like it's something for other people to use, but here in London the Tube was packed at 11 PM with people going about their business.

The other cool thing about the Tube is that, having seen it (and seen all the stations, and whatnot), I have a much better appreciation for the mood Neil Gaiman was creating in "Neverwhere." I have to re-read that book.

It all ended happily, which is to say, with pints.

(Oh, and the pub Richard and I drank in was founded in 1721.)

Posted by Gavin Shearer at April 5, 2006 10:43 PM. Posted to MSFT | Travel.

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