A day trip to London

A day trip to London is a concept that is totally incomprehensible to any european, especially if you are an officer of UK Immigrations (more later). But let's be honest, it's only 200miles from here to London. That is nothing and total travel time each way is only about 3 hours door to door, which is just within the limits of day tripping. If you really want to freak a european out, tell them you are taking a day trip to London, you will be looked at like an alien and people will think you crazy.

The trip started off at Schiphol and an unmentionable hour of the morning. The security line was pretty long because people kept walking up to the front of the line, saying they were late and cutting in. It kind of pisses you off to watch people with flights at the same time as yours cutting in front of you and making you closer to being later. For whatever reason, they have started x-raying your boarding pass as Schiphol. Is it really possible to conceal something inside a boarding pass? This time, they actually lost my boarding pass inside the x-ray machine. I told them they were going to go find it and, eventually, they did.

The conversation at immigrations at Heathrow went something like this:
Officer: How long are you here for?
Me: Just the day.
Officer: Where did you come from?
Me: Amsterdam.
Officer: No, where did you start your trip?
Me: Um, The Hague.
Officer: I mean, where you live.
Me: I live in Holland.
Officer: I suppose you can prove that can you?
Me: Well, yes.
Officer: Why are you coming to London?
Me: I'm going to see Jeremy Clarkson do a show at Earls Court.
Officer: See, people need to have a reason before they come all the way to London.
Me: Yes, I'm going to see a car show.
Officer: And you're definitely leaving today?
Me: Yes, it's a day trip.

So, eventually they did let me into the country. Their immigration guys have obviously got some issues. I over heard the one at the line next to mine remarking to an african gentleman, "Didn't we used to rule you guys?"

Into London by tube, a slow and bumpy journey, but considerably cheaper than any of the alternatives. I was early, so took a nice walk through Hyde Park in the frosty air. Enjoy a swan.


Then, on to the main event. The show was a little less than I had hoped for, I wanted more action and less of what I would call live commercials. Even the static displays were mostly done by car dealers rather than car makers. But, I did get to see JC


And The Stig!

Note that The Stig cannot be captured by camera. It is one of his ways. Sadly, no showing for the Toyota Hilux and, worse, no Stig t-shirts for sale.

Then, back to Heathrow, onto an airplane and back home in time for a dinner out at a reasonable hour. See folks? A day trip to London is a quite doable and not unreasonable thing to do. Certainly much more relaxing than that day trip to Sweden I did.

All in all, I would say a day trip to London leaves you with nothing more than a decent bit of entertainment and an unfulfilled craving for decent indian.
You can find the rest of the pics in the gallery.