Royal Residences, Declined Debit Card, and Quiz Night - London (Day 8 - GToE)

This is my final day in London. <sniff> I wish I could stay longer as it's been so much fun. (I get the feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot over the next 2 months.) It was yet another beautiful day in London with mild temperatures and beautiful blue skies.

Today was a strange, yet great day. After breakfast, I headed off to Victoria Coach Station to take a tour of London, Windsor Castle, and Hampton Court Palace. The tour of London contained some highlights of places on our way out of London. But one building that I found particularly interesting was next to the Royal Albert Hall. If anyone is watching the ITV series, Mr. Selfridge with Jeremy Piven, I got a snapshot of the building that is used in the show as the Selfridge family home. So excited!

We arrived in Windsor in the morning and had three hours in which to explore this wonderful historical castle. Windsor Castle was built in the 11th century by William the Conqueror and has been a royal residence for centuries. The Queen considers Windsor Castle as her home and Buckingham Palace as her office. Must be nice to have a home as beautiful as this one.The tour includes viewing of the state apartments and St. George's Chapel. As this castle is a working castle, the state apartments that I toured are the same ones that dignitaries from all over the world have viewed - although they're allowed to sit on the furniture. St. George's Chapel is where several of the most famous monarchs are buried, including Henry VIII, Charles I, and the Queen's parents - King George VI and the Queen Mother. After spending a couple of hours touring Windsor Castle, I took a stroll over the River Thames to Eton. I had no idea that Eton was so close to Windsor Castle. I didn't get as much time as there would have liked but it is a beautiful town.

After a quick lunch, it was back on the bus which took us over to Hampton Court Palace. HCP was originally built for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, one of King Henry VIII's favorites, but when Wolsey had a falling out with the King, the palace passed to the King and was one of Henry's favorite homes. HCP is a massive structure with so much to take in. I managed to tour King Henry's apartments, the King's kitchens, and King William III's state apartments. The splendor of this palace is magnificent with beautifully designed gardens. HCP hires actors to portray various royal persons which makes it a very interactive visit. 

I returned back to Jen and Bill's place where I had to deal with a major pain in the arse. Earlier in the day I had gone to an ATM in order to get some cash out. My card was declined. I thought perhaps that it was the machine. I tried again later in the day with the same result. Finally, when I tried to pay for lunch with my debit card, it was again declined. ARGH! There wasn't anything I could do about this problem while on this tour. When I returned to Jen and Bill's, I managed (thru Jen's benevolence in allowing me to use her Skype account) to reach my bank. It turns out that someone had used my card in Stop and Shop in Massachusetts on Oct. 27. As the bank knew that I was in Europe, they froze my card. Oh for futz's sake. After much irritation and some compromise, it was worked out but I have to hope that my new card arrives in Amsterdam when the bank says it will or I'm pretty screwed. So what to do when something like this happens? Go to the pub, of course.

Tonight was quiz nite at the pub that Jen and Bill frequent. If you've never attended a quiz nite, you're missing out on a ton of fun. The basic premise is there are teams which consist of approximately 4 people and the MC asks random trivia questions and the teams do their best to answer the questions. The questions run the gamut from politics, sports, pop culture, etc. Out of the 5 teams who played tonight, my team came in .... last! Well, what can you do when the questions are mostly UK focused and you have 4 Americans on a team. It was the most fun ever!

For my last day in London, this was a pretty good one. Tomorrow I head for Dublin. It's after 1am and I have to be up at 4am to get myself to the airport. Ugh. There won't be much sleep tonight.

If you remember, I was unable to upload photos from yesterday because of a lost camera cable. Well, the new cable arrived today, so feel free to check out photos from Day 7 (yesterday) and Day 8 (today) at my GToE photo site. Enjoy.