Covid and an Unplanned London Adventure

Phillip and I disembarked from the Emerald Princess on Monday, May 9, 2022. Passengers who were flying home that day were Covid-tested onboard on the 8^th. Princess had no provisions for any tests on disembarkation day and they refused to test us on the 8th. Our flight was scheduled for the 10^th, so we had to test on the 9^th at Heathrow Airport. The United States requires an official negative test before boarding any flight home. We rode a cruise transfer bus from Southampton to Heathrow and found the Covid testing location. After some frustrations, we tested and then waited for a bus take us to our hotel for the night. We got the test result email while we were still at the bus stop: Pat, negative. Phillip, positive.

Once at our hotel, Phillip performed one of the eMed Covid tests that we had with us, hoping that he’d gotten a false positive from the airport test. Nope, that one lit up its positive bar within ten seconds. I immediately booked our hotel room for longer and he called the airline about our flight from Heathrow. They cancelled our May 10 flight and gave us flight credits for the future rebooking of it. Fortunately, our hotel room had two twin beds instead of a queen, so I was able to distance myself from Phillip in the hotel room.

Phillip had a headache and runny nose, so he stayed in the hotel room for the next several days. I didn’t want to catch his Covid cooties, so he suggested I go into London (about 45 minutes away from the hotel as the hotel was next to the airport). Good idea! I spent the next three days on my own in London, riding the Underground and buses to and from the hotel, becoming proficient with my Oyster card (their transit ticket system), and seeing a lot of sights. On Monday, I went to the British Museum, spending about five hours there. So many rooms, so many artifacts. Egyptian sarcophagi filled several rooms.

The actual Rosetta Stone is the most viewed exhibit in the Museum. It was discovered in 1799 with British scholars realizing its value in the 1820s. Three versions of a decree from 196 BC are on the stone, written in hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. Until the Rosetta Stone, scholars could not translate hieroglyphics, but they could the other two languages. They used the Stone to unlock hieroglyphics.

Not knowing how long we would be stuck in England and not having a prepared sightseeing map, I decided on Wednesday to take the Hop On, Hop Off bus tour.

It was a rainy day. I was the only passenger who spent the entire three-hour trip on the open top of the bus. I had an umbrella but it was less than effective on the bus top. I saw the British Parliament.

Because of the weather, Trafalgar Square was pretty empty.

The bus crossed over the Thames River several times during its circuit of London.

It was still early afternoon when the bus returned to its starting spot, so I decided to walk to Buckingham Palace. The Queen’s Jubilee celebration will be in early June, so reviewing stand construction and cleaning of the statues was the order of the day at the palace. The rain and wind picked up so I ended the day’s adventure and returned to Phillip.

On Thursday, it was chilly but not raining. My Hop On ticket was good for 24 hours, so I returned to the bus before the ticket expired and was able to ride the circuit again, this time in better weather. I shared the bus top for about an hour with a class of schoolchildren.

I saw the same things as the day before, but more comfortably and I could get better pictures. Big Ben is not the clock or clock tower. Big Ben is really the name of the bell inside the tower. The clock tower is Queen Elizabeth Tower. 

After the bus tour, I decided to walk to Hyde Park, a 350-acre area of grass, flowers, lakes, and blooming trees.

I walked about twenty feet into the park and began sneezing and my eyes began watering. I could see pollen drifting in the air. Did I turn around and leave? Nope. I wanted to see the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and Kensington Palace, at the other end of the park. So, Kleenexes in hand, I went thru Hyde Park. The pictures I took of the Diana Fountain don’t do it justice. It was one of the most moving water features I’ve seen.

Not a fountain with spouting water, but with water that flows in a circular motion over different surfaces.

I continued walking thru Hyde Park to Kensington Palace. I was getting tired, and running out of tissues, so I headed back to Phillip. 

At the hotel, I took a Covid self-test to make sure my symptoms were allergies, not Covid. I was still negative.

On Friday, Phillip was too bored to stay in the room and felt much better. He masked up and rode the Underground with me to London. FYI, London no longer has a quarantine requirement because 93% of the country is vaccinated. At the edge of St. James Park, near Buckingham Palace, we saw some of the early Jubilee activities.

We saw the Queen’s Guard wearing the traditional big fuzzy hats. While the Queen’s Guard have been around since 1656, their trademark bearskin shakos date back to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. French grenadiers wore large bearskin shakos to make themselves appear taller and more fearsome. In 1815, the British defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and the British took over the shako wearing as they were then the fiercest warriors.

As children, we learned the London Bridge song and got the idea that it is a grand bridge. This is actually the London Bridge:

The fancy bridge over the Thames, mistakenly called the London Bridge in some movies, is really the Tower Bridge.

During our trek, Phillip and I walked about 9 miles, from St. James Park to Big Ben, across one of the many bridges over the Thames, then along the south bank of the Thames to the Tower Bridge, across the Thames and back along the north bank.

The Tower of London, next to the Tower Bridge, looks more like a castle than a tower. It was built in 1078 and was used mainly as a royal residence until the 1700s. Over the years, additions and remodeling have been done. It has served as a prison, mainly for high status political prisoners. It’s where King Henry VIII imprisoned and beheaded Anne Boleyn in 1536 for treason. It still houses the royal jewels.

The weather turned nasty again on Saturday and Sunday, so we did not return to London. We just took Covid tests and waited for Phillip to become negative.

Finally, on Monday, the 16^th, he had a negative self-test. He immediately took our last e-Med test and was negative so we could fly. I took the bus to the airport and got my new official negative test and we flew from Heathrow to Newark, New Jersey on the 17^th to stay for six nights with Robin and Tom.

This was our first visit to their new home. They have lots of room in a multi-level house, a definite upgrade from a one-bedroom apartment!

On May 23, we flew back to DFW Airport to end this adventure. I enjoyed the opportunity to visit London, but would have rather done it on my terms, with Phillip in tow the entire time, not just one day. Our health update: Phillip came back still negative for Covid but with an ear infection needing antibiotics and ear drops. That allergic reaction I had in Hyde Park turned into a sinus infection needing antibiotics. Although I resisted Phillip’s Covid cooties in England and tested negative thru our visit with Robin, I tested positive after my return home. I’m asymptomatic and feel fine. Robin and Tom tested negative after we left so we did not leave Covid cooties with them.