Our visit to London-UK, travel ordeals and the kindness of strangers

With a two week stay in Paris, and London only a 2-hr train ride away, it seemed like a fantastic opportunity to visit London over the course of two days (less than two days really). Tuesday morning we left Paris on the super-fast Eurostar and arrived at St. Pancras Station for 10am GMT. Using the android app for the London Underground, we had purchased the Oyster card and then rode the Underground to St. James's Park where we got off and found our hotel just around the corner.

The Sanctuary House Hotel is situated above a Fuller's Ale & Pie pub and is a gorgeous little boutique hotel. They kindly allowed us to store the bags we brought with us so that we could fit in some sightseeing before actually gaining access to our room. In this time, we walked around the corner to Westminster Abbey and stood in line for tickets. The Abbey is stunning--I so wish I could've taken photos to post because it is really just an incredible place. To walk amongst the tombs of kings and queens is such a strange feeling.

After the Abbey, we took a bus to St. Paul's Cathedral which I had wanted to see since Princess Diana married Prince Charles there in 1981. All the buses are red and doubledecker, and I was so bemused by seeing all the classic red telephone boxes! At St. Paul's Cathedral, I was constantly looking up at the arched and dazzling ceilings and again--could not take photos. We went through the Crypt in the basement as well. Given a choice between the two, I would revisit Westminster Abbey in a heartbeat.

We headed back to the hotel to fully check-in and then had lunch in the pub. I would also recommend The Sanctuary House Hotel to anyone who wants to stay in London-UK because it is cozy, it's extremely central and they look after you.

Next on the list was the London By Night sightseeing tour to start at 7pm from Victoria Grosvenor Gardens. We found our way there and ended up being the only two on the bus, however at 7pm it's not really "night" and I was kind of hoping for an "illuminations" style tour showing London in its lit-up glory.




If you've held any disdain towards humanity today, let this portion of the post renew your faith that there are good people out there.

In preparing for this trip, I did a lot of research and thanks to Wolter's World on Youtube, became aware of what to do when you lose or have your passport stolen. After educating myself on that and other travel security tips from his channel, I had made a detailed itinerary available to several family members, including the names and numbers of the hotels we would be staying at and scanned images of each piece of identification we both had, stored safely on the internet.

We rode the London By Night tour bus and got off at the stop for the London Eye. According to the schedule, the driver was to return back to the same stop at 9:49pm but just in case we talked to him before we left and said we would be waiting for him when he came back around.

Our ride on the Eye was great fun, but it had gotten quite cold in the evening; colder than what we were prepared for. We wasted as much time as we could drinking hot chocolate and hanging out in souvenir stores until we headed back to the bus stop hoping that his bus had remained empty and maybe he would be there early. We hung out in a bus shelter (it's really just a half-shelter) and when his time came and went, we started to wonder. It was then 10:20pm before we angrily set off towards the next Underground station a short distance away.

Cold and tired, we had to make a connection to another train, so we stepped off and looked at which direction we needed to go, just then the doors shut on the train we got off of and it was at that moment that Molly looked at me and said "oh God, where's my purse??"---the train left. 

My mind started to race, panic and try to problem-solve at the same time; her purse had all her cash, credit card, all her ID and passport in it. We went up to the nearest security person and told them of the situation. He brought us into a control room where there was a dispatcher. She called ahead to each station and alerted the other security personnel who would then each board the train and look through the cars for the purse. Of course everyone reported back that no bags were found or turned in. She said that her next step was to call the British Transport Police and then handed the phone over to Molly.

I started bawling because in preparing for this situation I had heard that as soon as a passport was reported, it was invalidated and had to be replaced by the Embassy which I believe is not an immediate process. Later, once I had my wits about me, I realized that it was only the passport-owner who could report the passport missing to the Canadian Embassy and it's at that point that it would be invalidated.

While Molly was on the phone with the BTP giving them details, I was a sobbing mess and the dispatch lady was very kind and caring and tried to calm me down. All I could think of was how expensive this was about to become for Molly and that we may not be able to leave London, UK to get back to France to get back to Canada on time. Molly's Oyster card (the one we used to use the Underground each ride) was also in her purse, so they kindly just let her through so we could continue the ride back to the hotel.
I have to credit my grandmother for being cool as a cucumber during all of this kerfuffle, believing that it would work out.

Our plan was to go to Canada House for 9am the next day to start the process and I tried to get something done before going to sleep because I was still on "red alert" mode. I left Molly in the room to get settled and I came back out to the reception desk with my dead cell phone which I hadn't been able to charge because I didn't have the appropriate adapter to work with English outlets--I thought the ones that I had for France would work there. The person at the desk was far more helpful than the person we had earlier in the day and as I was explaining the situation and started to ask for help to print off the copies of her ID, I was sobbing at the desk. He kindly let me charge my phone using his own USB charger and kept my phone overnight to charge it fully. But it was just then that the phone rang and he looked up and said "Molly B?"

I blinked---"yes??" and he passed the phone to me. My Uncle Mike (her son) was on the other end letting me know that he had been contacted by a lady named Jane who had picked up the purse and wanted to get in touch with us. Fortunately Molly kept a little contact book in her purse in case of emergencies and this is how she got the phone number. How serendipitous that I was at the reception desk when the call came in trying to deal with the problem.

I called Jane and she was extremely nice and she had explained that she didn't want to turn it in to the train staff because she was worried that all of Molly's money and ID would not be left in the purse once we were able to get it.

Jane had said that her husband worked at the British Council, right behind Canada House and they were thinking of leaving it there the next day so we could pick it up there. I asked her if we could pick it up from him at his work instead because if the purse was dropped off at Canada House with a passport in it, they might consider that passport as "lost" (since it had been in someone else's possession and turned in) and then we may have had problems. So her husband agreed to do that. Molly, who had been pretty level-headed the whole time taking it in stride was thrilled and thankful to know that someone trustworthy had picked up her purse. I went back out to the same fellow at reception and asked if the pub was open downstairs because we really needed some wine before bed. He said that it wasn't, but he took me down anyways and then helped me pick a nice wine and added the wine to the room bill.

This morning, we took a cab to the British Council and picked up her purse with all of her cash, ID and other items in it. I also got my cell phone from the new reception person this morning since it had been tucked safely away in a drawer once it was done charging.

I can't even describe the relief!


Soldiering on with the rest of our plans, we turned back towards the Admiralty Arch and walked up The Mall to Buckingham Palace hoping to see the changing of the guards. We had a great position and the police were wrangling tourists behind barricades preparing for the parade and the ceremony when a light drizzle then turned to "rain". The ceremony was cancelled--meaning that there would be no big procession with instruments being played. However I did see them marching to the side entrance of the Palace and saw sentries standing at their sheltered posts.

From there we took a taxi back to the hotel to dry off and check out. Then we rode the Underground to Tower Hill to visit the London Tower. By then it was cold, raining and windy and after seeing the Crown Jewels, we decided to leave because neither of us was happy about being cold and wet. I know that we missed a lot but it also looked like a place with lots of stairs and Molly had already been doing a lot of stair climbing. I hope to go back someday soon anyhow to fully take in London and that will be on my list on a sunnier day.

From Tower Hill we rode to Bond Street to visit Selfridges, specifically because we've both been watching the BBC series and because we wanted to be indoors in the shopping district. Selfridges was fantastically huge and expensive with an overpoweringly fragrant first impression as you enter through the old revolving doors.

Anything you see in a Vogue magazine was there. Prada clothes hung in glass cases! It was immense and sensational. I saw a mother dressed in haute couture pushing her stroller around with bags on her arms.

Once we finished at Selfridges, we decided to take our last ride on the Underground before the real rush hour hit and left for King's Cross/St. Pancras Station where we arrived with plenty of time to sit and have a beer and reflect on the madness of the last 30 hours.

On our way home to Paris we saw a huge double rainbow as the sun set and we are now cozy and warm with a red wine glow for each of us as we look forward to a real night of rest and a very late morning which of course should involve the reward of croissants.