1.Cell phones in the UK: I can’t speak for other mobile phone providers, but O2 has a great pay as you go SIM card plan: Each time you “top-up” (that’s what they call buying a designated amount of credit for your SIM card), you get a certain number of free international minutes per month. This is great for calling home. The minutes do not carry over to the next month if you don’t use them, though. For example, if you top-up with 10pounds, you get 50 minutes free for the month, in addition to the 10 pounds of credit that you can use to call within the UK. If you top-up with 15 pounds, you get 100 minutes free in addition to the 15 pounds of credit, etc. Receiving calls and calling UK phone numbers is a certain number of pence (equivalent to the US “cents”), and it is more expensive to call mobile phones than land lines (about twice as much). Receiving texts is free.
2.Don’t buy a SIM card from a Vending Machine in the airport! Patience will save you 10 pounds! Brian and I bought a SIM pack for 10 pounds, but even after we thought we activated it, it wouldn’t allow me to call out. We finally found an O2 store in Trafalgar Square and asked. It turned out that we had only paid for a SIM card, but with no top-up voucher. If you buy it from an O2 store, they give you the SIM card for free when you buy the top-up voucher. Beware!
3.Economy airlines (easyjet, ryanair) usually depart pretty early from the London Stanstead Airport. To get to London Stanstead, you can either take the Stanstead Express. This usually isn’t the problem, as the Stanstead Express runs pretty early (first departure on a Sunday was at 5:10AM). The problem is getting to Liverpool street, the departure point for the Stanstead Express. The first train on the Tube (the subway) is around 7AM. What to do? We had an 8AM flight with approximately an hour on the Stanstead Express. A 7AM tube train to Liverpool was not going to cut it. We had to ask about three people to finally get a solution, the N11 bus from Victoria! It runs about 2 to 3 buses an hour between midnight and 5AM and goes to Liverpool Station in about half an hour. *note: when asking ticket tellers around the UK for information, they rarely know very much about any form of transportation other than what they are responsible for (ie, a Tube ticket teller will not be able to tell you much about the bus or other trains, the overground train teller won’t be able to tell you too much about the bus, or even a train from another company). In our experience in asking locals about transportation as well as reading guide books, we have gotten contradictory information, so just be careful in getting information. It is best to go directly to the people who run the mode of transportation that you are interested in to get the most accurate information*
4.Another option to tip number 3 is to sleep in Stanstead airport. There are a lot of tips on how to do this on the WikiTravel entry for London – Getting in.
5.Yet another option to tip number 3 is to take a “coach” (US: Bus). There is a National Express coach from Victoria straight to Stanstead Airport (takes about an hour and a half). This can bypass the whole getting to Liverpool problem. In general, coaches are a much less expensive way to travel through the UK (to Bath, to Oxford, etc), and usually depart from Victoria Bus Station. We were very lucky in booking a hotel in Victoria so we could just walk to the bus station. There is a coach from Victoria to Stanstead (about an hour and a half), and a coach to Oxford (for 9 Pounds only! With free internet on Board! Look for the green coach that says “Oxford Express, Travel in Style”). There is one National Express Coach from Bath back to London at 6:30PM for about 17 pounds. Other times will involve a stopover in Bristol. This might change for the summer. Our guide books had told us that there was one every hour, which we found to be not true. If the bus is booked and you don’t want to take the Bristol bus or pay 47 pounds for the train, you can consider taking the 13pound ~ 1 hour train ride back to Oxford from Bath and then taking one of the many coaches that go from Oxford to the UK (virtually one every twenty minutes to an hour, travel time about 2 hours). This comes out to be much cheaper than the 47 pound train!
6.More notes on the coach: The National Express has many bus lines running all over the country and is the most accessible from coach ticket booths, as is the Oxford Express, but there is also the Megabus (megabus.com) that you can only book on the Internet that is possibly cheaper (no internet, though). We didn’t have internet so we couldn’t book it. You can give it a try! *of course, taking the bus also runs the risk of sitting behind two really grumpy men… but I hope that doesn’t happen to you!*
7.Getting to Stonehenge: It’s tough getting into Stonehenge, you need to take a train to Salisbury and then a bus to Stonehenge. We wanted to get there from Bath. There is a direct bus from Bath to Salisbury, but adding up all the train and bus fares, we found it was cheaper to take one of the tourist vans from Bath that takes you straight to Stonehenge (14pounds. We even got a discount because they convinced us to take an earlier tour with fewer people! 12 pounds!). This gives you an hour to walk around. Unfortunately, that’s not enough time to walk around the trails in the area and to other mysterious sites, but it was very cold up and windy that I think, at the time, it was better that we didn’t The bus driver also points out various sites along the way!

“clever” – The driver/tour guide of our Stonehenge purple bus was talking about some engineer who designed a fancy bridge at the age of 21. He called him “quite clever” So apparently use genius when someone is clever and use clever when they are a genius.

“cheers” – a British version of thanks. Amy and I struggled to force ourselves to say break away from our American ways. I murmered it once at a news stand, but then I worked up the courage to say it at a food cart while paying. Though I was so nervous that I made the ‘e’ sound too long. Amy and I practiced later and decided it’s said somewhat like pez but with a ch sound at the beginning.

Here are some pictures from our trip over:

[Show as slideshow]

We enjoyed the museums and buildings of London. Amy made friends with a Cantonese tourist at the British Library. We paid too much money for a Ferris wheel ride (but maybe the view was worth it!) My sore knees, back and hip taught me the value of packing light. In one of the British Museums Amy and I played Go and Mah-jong. I am horrible at mahjong; though it didn’t help that no one explained the rules to me until after the game… (Amy interjects:I didn’t know he had never played before!)

[Show as slideshow]

On April 4 we spent an afternoon in Oxford. The walking tour there was very interesting and the guide was very scholarly. I had never realized how confusing the Oxford school system is. Amy and I never could figure out where they had classes. Though it would be a great to school to go to. Only 4000 Pounds and they have nice meals served to them in Hogwart-like-dining halls. One of the name cards sitting out in preparation for the students dinner was for Nancy Weatherspoon. Amy and I independently discovered this name card and photographed it. We like that name.

[Show as slideshow]

Bath was nice and I got to stay in my first official hostel. Quite nice actually. We took a tour to Stonehenge in a purple bus. The hour drive was entertaining. There was a a white chalk horse carved into the side of a mountain, thatched roof houses, pig farms, and sheep. Amy really enjoyed the sheep. Stonehenge had a very informative audio tour. Amy thought Stonehenge was going to be bigger, and she even had to double check that the stones were in a circle after seeing a postcard. “I thought they were just a pile of rocks,” she said. Back in Bath we were looking forward to their free walking tour which Rick Steves recommended. We were sad when we discovered that there was no afternoon tour on Saturday. Instead we wondered around the city which was bustling because of a rugby match that evening. Later we struggled to figure out how to get a ride back into London for cheap, but eventually found a bus in which we sat behind two of the grumpiest old men I’ve ever encountered. (Amy Continues): there was lady who didn’t have enough money to pay for the full fare so the bus driver was trying to call the bus company to ask for permission to let her on for a lower fare, and almost immediately, these old men were shouting out in protest, “If she doesn’t have the correct fare, then don’t let her on! We’re ten minutes late, and why??” anyway, they kept mumbling for the entire time until the bus driver said “how would you feel if someone left your mother in the middle of nowhere???” to which, they responded, “SO?” Horrible!! Okay, the story can continue with more quotations, but you get the picture.

[Show as slideshow]

Okay! This is Amy and Brian signing out from Hotel Jeddermann in Munich! More to come about our adventures soon!

Amy and Brian