Advice for Travel to London?

[Jeanne]

Hi ICers-
I'm going to be teaching at the University of London for the month of July and I'm really nervous about my IC. I'll have my own kitchen, but I'm still sending over a carton of my IC non-persishable safe foods. I assume they sell Evian water there?

Other questions- How is the "finding a public bathroom" situation? Are there bathrooms on trains that go out of the city to Oxford and such? How's the food in restaurants- will they respond when I say PLAIN steak? I'd love to hear any suggestions or experiences from ICers.
Hugs,
Jeanne

[yvette]

Hi Jeanne, How exciting!!!
I believe there is a little book you can obtain. Its put out by the little Red Chef, and If I am correct it will show you many of the bathrooms thru-out the UK, Dawn from the UK IC -support boards could prolly give you lots of info. as well.

I hope you have an enjoyable trip!!!
Hugs,
y. <img src="graemlins/bunny.gif" border="0" alt="[bunny]" />

PS Have you thought of buying some of those Travel John kits from ICN--just in case you're in a pinch. [img]redface.gif[/img]

PPS I have NO CLUE what a "little Red Chef" is, sounds like its either a restarant or rest stop.


Take me to the UK Boards!

[buana1]

Has anyone tried those Travel Johns?

[Janetbb]

Hi, Jeanne,
Don't worry about the loo situation in London. All the big stores have good loos and so do a lot of supermarkets. In the UK for ICSG (IC support group) members Can't Wait cards that a lot of people have had good response to in smaller stores that don't have public loos, so you can use the staff toilets. A staff member will show you the way and hang around to make sure you don't steal somebody's purse or something. That's fair enough. On the trains, most do have toilets, but the underground trains don't and neither do the short distance shuttle trains.
As has already been suggested, if you contact the ICSG, via www.interstitialcystitis.co.uk you'll find further help there. Oh, and by the way, we do have Evian water and a tremendous variety of bottled water. What I do is drink tap water that I filter to get rid of stuff like chlorine.
Good Luck and enjoy your trip. London is great.
Janet

[peiti]

my last trip to london was back to 1997. i really enjoyed my vacation there. they have clean public toilets on the street. you just need to insert a coin into it and you can use the clean facility. i really like the city and think it is ic friendly.

[chantal nicole]

Never been there but have friends that were born there. From what they say, the food is rather plain and not terribly exciting to start with. I know my university offered a british english class. Loo is the term for bathroom. I don't know about the company you're flying with but I've had a really good experience with Air Canada with regards to accommodations with food, any assistance, selecting where I wanted to sit... If you make plans ahead, you can call the special needs or medical department of the airline to enquire about accommodation. I don't know anything about the bus and train services in Europe.