Story time
I wrote this piece for our honeymoon album.
The July 7 Bombings
The second day we were in London, we got up with the intention of visiting the Tower of London. We went to the Underground station, but the stop for the Tower was closed, so we had to take a different route. When we got off the train at Oxford Circus to change lines, the PA announced that the Underground was closed due to a London-wide power failure. Along with everyone else in the station, we made our way to the surface. It was slow going at times, and everyone was quiet and patient. It was almost unnaturally quiet, now that I think about it. Maybe everyone knew, somehow, that this was no power failure. This must have been right after the bombs went off at four locations around the city, one only three stops from Oxford Circus.
We bought a bus map and figured out how to get where we were going—now the Tate gallery instead of the Tower—and boarded a bus. We did not know that a bomb was exploding on another bus at the same time we were riding ours. We spent the next few hours exploring the Tate. Although the gift shop employees told us that the buses had been shut down as well, even they did not know about the bombs. Then, we went over to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for the matinee show of A Winter’s Tale. The show was canceled “due to today’s events.” It was only then that we started to suspect something was wrong—it was about 1 pm and the bombings had happened at 8 or 9 in the morning. We decided to go back to the Tate because there was more we wanted to see. On our way in, we asked a guard if he knew what was happening. He was surprised that we didn’t know that “there were bombs going off all over London.”
We immediately found pay phones in the museum. I remember seeing a high-school age girl sitting with some friends up against a wall and crying. We called Derek’s house and told them that we were okay. Luckily, they were just getting up and watching the news, so they hadn’t worried for too long. We had lunch and began the long walk home.
The walk took quite a while and it was eerie. There were little or no cars on the streets of London, but pedestrians everywhere. Because the bombs had gone off in the morning, many people had already arrived at work by Underground or bus by the time it was shut down. Now they had to get home with no other means of transportation. There were extremely long lines to get on boats that were traveling down the Thames—the only means of public transportation remaining. People were quiet, stoic, patient. We passed several police officers and saw some with large automatic weapons.
Once we returned to our hotel, we set about making arrangements. We were supposed to leave by train from King’s Cross the following morning, but King’s Cross had been hit and we weren’t sure if the trains would even be running. We were supposed to pick up a rental car and drive to Stirling after arriving on the train. Derek called our travel agent and arranged for us to rent a car at Victoria Station (we were staying nearby) just in case we couldn’t make it to Scotland by train. Then he went to an Internet café to e-mail our friends and relatives to let them know we were okay.
Luckily, we were okay. We feel lucky to have been spared that day. We did catch our train the following morning, and were grateful to make it to Stirling, where we felt our honeymoon could really begin. But what a story we have to tell.
The July 7 Bombings
The second day we were in London, we got up with the intention of visiting the Tower of London. We went to the Underground station, but the stop for the Tower was closed, so we had to take a different route. When we got off the train at Oxford Circus to change lines, the PA announced that the Underground was closed due to a London-wide power failure. Along with everyone else in the station, we made our way to the surface. It was slow going at times, and everyone was quiet and patient. It was almost unnaturally quiet, now that I think about it. Maybe everyone knew, somehow, that this was no power failure. This must have been right after the bombs went off at four locations around the city, one only three stops from Oxford Circus.
We bought a bus map and figured out how to get where we were going—now the Tate gallery instead of the Tower—and boarded a bus. We did not know that a bomb was exploding on another bus at the same time we were riding ours. We spent the next few hours exploring the Tate. Although the gift shop employees told us that the buses had been shut down as well, even they did not know about the bombs. Then, we went over to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for the matinee show of A Winter’s Tale. The show was canceled “due to today’s events.” It was only then that we started to suspect something was wrong—it was about 1 pm and the bombings had happened at 8 or 9 in the morning. We decided to go back to the Tate because there was more we wanted to see. On our way in, we asked a guard if he knew what was happening. He was surprised that we didn’t know that “there were bombs going off all over London.”
We immediately found pay phones in the museum. I remember seeing a high-school age girl sitting with some friends up against a wall and crying. We called Derek’s house and told them that we were okay. Luckily, they were just getting up and watching the news, so they hadn’t worried for too long. We had lunch and began the long walk home.
The walk took quite a while and it was eerie. There were little or no cars on the streets of London, but pedestrians everywhere. Because the bombs had gone off in the morning, many people had already arrived at work by Underground or bus by the time it was shut down. Now they had to get home with no other means of transportation. There were extremely long lines to get on boats that were traveling down the Thames—the only means of public transportation remaining. People were quiet, stoic, patient. We passed several police officers and saw some with large automatic weapons.
Once we returned to our hotel, we set about making arrangements. We were supposed to leave by train from King’s Cross the following morning, but King’s Cross had been hit and we weren’t sure if the trains would even be running. We were supposed to pick up a rental car and drive to Stirling after arriving on the train. Derek called our travel agent and arranged for us to rent a car at Victoria Station (we were staying nearby) just in case we couldn’t make it to Scotland by train. Then he went to an Internet café to e-mail our friends and relatives to let them know we were okay.
Luckily, we were okay. We feel lucky to have been spared that day. We did catch our train the following morning, and were grateful to make it to Stirling, where we felt our honeymoon could really begin. But what a story we have to tell.
posted by Suzy at 8:41 PM
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