Ceiling detail in the Great Hall at Harlaxton College.
We said good bye to the Earl Howe and found the Enterprise car rental. It was another grey, dreary day, but it seemed the rain had moved on. After turning the car in, the Enterprise folks gave us a ride to the train station. Thank you, Enterprise!
We had coffee at the train station while we waited for our train to Grantham. Once back in Grantham we took a taxi out to Harlaxton Manor and retreived Chelsea's luggage. There were 3 other students that had been touring Europe and had spent the last night at Harlaxton. It was fun hearing Chelsea and her friends swap stories, but I felt sorry for those students that had gone to Italy on the school sponsored trip and were now stuck in Italian airports since the Italian airport workers had gone on strike. I hope they all make it home by Christmas as many had connecting flights in London upon return from Italy.
Chelsea showed me around some of the rooms at Harlaxton Manor, but most had been cleaned out and locked up for the holidays. We phoned for a cab to take us back to the train station after re-packing Chelsea's luggage so she could fit everything into her two bags.
We had to kill about an hour and half at the Grantham train station before catching our train to London. The cheapest tickets on that Saturday were on a Hull City train so we didn't have the luxury of catching anything earlier than the one we had purchased tickets for. The train was crowded and we ended up sitting in the connecting area between two cars, but we had jump seats for the hour and ten minute ride to London's Kings Cross station.
London felt like a different world than we had been traveling in. It was warmer and there was a definite rush of holiday travelers, many from foreign countries. Our hotel was about a half block from Kings Cross and Saint Pancras stations. Many of the row houses have been converted into "budget" hotels since their location is so convenient to the rail stations! Our hotel, The Alhambra, was clean and well run. A "budget" bargain at 70 GBP per night, but that included a full breakfast.
We used lastminute.com to purchase tickets to "Lost and Found Orchestra" a new production by the creators of "Stomp". We settled into our hotel and headed down to the Royal Festival Hall theater. The area around the theater was jumping with Christmas fayre booths and rides. This is also where the London Eye is located. We ate at Wagamama before the show.
"Lost and Found Orchestra" is an amazing show and one which I'd highly recommend seeing if you ever get the chance. The Royal Festival Hall is also an amazing theater and we had awesome seats in the 14th row, center for 10 GBP!
After the show we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed some "down time" lounging on comfortable beds and a TV that actually worked!
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