Day 2, Part 4: Sunday, November 4, 2001

 
    

    

The above photos were taken from inside The Eye. The top two pictures were taken looking northwest (I think). The interesting building in the center is the Embankment Place. The bottom two pictures are of the Parliament and Big Ben looking west from The Eye. The last picture of Parliament also includes the River Thames and a few bridges. Westminster Bridge is at the bottom. I'm not sure how we timed it to be at the top of The Eye when the sun was setting. We were king of running around near the Parliament Building, walked across the bridge, and bought the first tickets we could get. Then we ate at a cafe nearby.

We took the Underground back to Victoria Station. We bought one-way tickets. In order to get into the Underground area, you have to place your ticket into a slot on the front of the turnstile machine to the right. I'm not sure what their term is, but the term "turnstile" will give the general idea. There is no turnstile. The machines are fitted with paddles the top of which reaches to about four feet off of the ground. The first thing I learned was that the card is always placed in the slot of the machine to your right. I found this out after placing it in the machine on the left. When I retrieved my ticket, the paddles to the left opened up. In the meantime, Brenda was behind me and had placed her ticket in the slot of the machine on the right. When she retrieved her ticket, the paddles opened up in front of me. I went through the paddles, but Brenda ended up stuck on the other side. We showed our tickets to one of the personnel behind a window, and she let Brenda through. We never made that mistake again. The second thing we learned is that after you place the ticket into the slot, it is read by the machine and about one inch of it is exposed in another slot on top of the machine. It isn't until you retrieve your ticket that the paddles open. This was something I discovered at one point in our navigating around London. I waited for the paddles to open up, but they wouldn't. It was only after I retrieved the ticket that the paddles opened. I probably frustrated the Londoners behind me, since most of them are in a rush to get down the steps to their train.