Athanas Asia Adventures: London

Joe, Peter and Stella after the Chelsea Europa League soccer game.

Joe had a business trip to London in early October 2018 and Peter had never been, so Stella, Joe and Peter went to London. Unlike Peter, Spiro didn’t have the week off school and had to stay at Indiana University. The flight from Hong Kong to London is 13 hours. Due to the time difference, if you leave Hong Kong around midnight, you arrive in London first thing in the morning. The morning we arrived, we walked through Hyde Park and St. James Park, and passed by Buckingham Palace, the Parliament Building and Westminster Abbey. Big Ben, the famous clock tower above Parliament, was covered in scaffolding and closed. Peter said “I always wanted to go to see the parliamentary building. It was unfortunate that one of the coolest things to see in London was closed down.” We went to the War Room, the underground bunker beneath the Treasury Building that Winston Churchill used as a headquarters during World War II, and we went to the Portrait Museum. The second day we took a trip to Cambridge and visited King’s College. The third day we went to the Imperial War Museum. The Imperial War Museum has a fabulous exhibit on World War I and an equally good exhibit on the Holocaust. In the evening, we went to see Hamilton, the musical, which was outstanding. The fourth day Joe had to work in the morning and attend a work dinner at night. We also had to change hotels from the Churchill on the west side to the Andaz on the east side near Joe’s office. At Liverpool Station next to the Andaz, Peter discovered Krispy Crème donuts and was in heaven. In the afternoon we found time to see the inside of Westminster Abbey. One of the original Magna Cartas was displayed there in the upstairs museum. The fifth day, Joe had to work all day, but Stella and Peter went to the Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the National Gallery. In the evening, we attended a Chelsea Europa League soccer game. Chelsea won 1-0. Peter found the Chelsey game “very cool.” On the last day, we went to visit the British Museum and checked out the many antiquities looted by the British during their years of world domination. Peter referred to the British Museum as “the national museum of we stole your shit and don’t think you’re getting it back.” On the flight back to Hong Kong, while Stella and Joe lounged in Business Class, Peter sat in the back next to an elderly woman who he claims pounded seven shots before take off. She seemed very relaxed after that.