Moving Right Along… Whimventuring part 1

Last week at this time I was brain dead after a flight from Indianapolis to London. I’m much better now as we begin our third part of our Whimventure through Europe. We had hoped this wouldn’t be a “It’s Tuesday it must be Belgium” kind of trip but no matter how you try, sometimes that can’t be avoided.

The first part of the trip was in London and coincided with the Geocaching Mega Event London Calling. Mega events consist of a number of side quests (events) before the main event. This was no different with our getting off the plane and heading directly to an event at Paddington Station. If you’ve never been to a geocaching event it basically consists of people standing or sitting around talking about geocaching.  There’s a log to sign and most times people might drop off travel bugs (tractable items) to discover or have another cached move on.  This was no different.  Afterwards we headed to our hotel with the hopes of checking in… nope. We dropped ofc our bags and headed off to find the near by caches and get an idea of the neighborhood.

We stayed near the Tottenham Road Tube stop near the Dominion Theatre (The Devil Wears Prada- The Musical). Our first say consisted of hitting a few high points like the multi-cache at the British Library, a few virtual caches, and just tiring ourselves out.

The Hotel

When we checked in we got our first look at our “room.” The official term was a “Cocoon.” You see this being a Whimventure I decided to try out an underground hotel.  Basically perfect for a short stay, and especially for someone who wants to sleep.  The room consisted of a double bed, and a bathroom. No other furniture.  Since it was 5 floors underground it was quiet. I’m not sure we’d do it again.  Mostly because it’s nice to have space to spread out.  It got a little old crawling out each other and having to dig through our bags.

Our “Cocoon” for our stay in London.

Day 2: “Yer a Wizard Cecil”

We got up kinda early to head off to the Warner Bros. Studio and a tour of the Harry Potter sets.  This was a bucket list item from way back and it was interesting since our other visits I kept commenting about how England had not embraced the tourist opportunities in a blockbuster film franchise.  They gave caught up.  The number of stores focused on wizards as well as spots that had become focal points for tourists.  The day before we waited in line (and finally abandoned the line) to get our photo taken at “Platform 9 3/4” at King’s Cross Station.  On our first visit to the station nothing was there.

The tour was wonderful highlighting the sets, props and costumes used in the films.  Focusing on the craftspeople who made us believe a boy could fly… on a broom. As with a few other parts of this trip you have to have a certain mindset. This is a theme park so understand that things are designed around separating you from your money.

That said, dinner was very nice, the butter beer was good & they had plenty of Remus Lupin’s wands in stock.  I’m just trying to figure out what the future will bring the franchise.

The next day we took it easy bouncing between a few places and Geocaching events. I made it to the LEGO Store at Leicester Square and picked up two figures from the minifig factory.

Saturday brought us two big events- one was Free Comic Book Day and the next was London Calling the UK mega caching geocaching event.

Free Comic Book Day

Free Comic Book Day is an annual event supported by comic shops and publishers in hope to bring new people into reading B and collecting comics.  Every store does things differently, but mostly it’s an event surrounding a table full of new comics that are free.  Some stores bring in cosplayers, others bring in local artists.  I’ve been to a few, all different.  This time after a preliminary expedition to the closest comic shop (Forbidden Planet) we headed off after breakfast to queue up.  We had been advised that it wasn’t really necessary, but decided to go ahead, just in case.  There ended up to be a rather sizable line one they opened the doors at 10:00.  In Indiana, and for most shops not in a major metropolitan area, you go in, and choose comics.  Some shops will limit

How many.  Here you were given a bag.  It contained 5 random comics.  The choice was if you wanted an “Adult”

Bag or an “All Ages” bag.  Sue, got one, I got the other.  I still don’t know which bag is which.

London Calling & Wandering the City

After Free Comic Book Day we headed to Westminster for the event. Our experience with Mega Events has been limited to those in the United States so we thought we knew what to expect. Not really. We’d preordered SWAG and figured it would be in an area large enough to handle everyone. Things are different in the big city. The event was not designed for everyone to stand around and mingle. That said, the had set up an amazing Adventure Lab for the event with stages around the meeting hall each set up to give you a clue. The hardest for me was a series of candles that lit up to reveal a number that you converted to a letter which in turn spelled a word. It was binary. I haven’t fiddled with binary since fourth grade. Others were a lot easier, but still amazing in the ingenuity of them. Basically these were like the string of gadget caches in play at mega events in the States except tied to an Adventure Lab. It was different than other mega events I have attended but not in a bad way, just different.

The rest of the day we wandered the area picking up caches ending up at the closing event outside of St. Paul’s.

We spent the days after London Calling hitting a few other places on the “Tourist List” many had caches or Adventure Labs included. Trafalgar Square is always on my must visit list with the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery I tend to get myself in trouble. Being a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast I always like to visit Baker Street and with a Web Cam cache at Abbey Road we had to pop over and walk the walk.

Tuesday morning had us up bright and early as we headed to the next portion and a trip on the Eurostar in the Chunnel.

More to come.