London: Day 2
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What a busy day! We got up at 8:30am and made it down to the breakfast room just on time to have the continental but not the full English breakfast. We’ll have to get up earlier tomorrow.
We had a beautiful walk through Hyde Park. It was a crisp, sunny morning with a little frost on the ground, and there were several runners in the park. We came out by Buckingham Palace. We took a few pictures and wondered around a bit, then we walked through the beautiful St. James Park to the Horse Guards, and 10 Downing St. We took some pictures of the duck pond and the bridge crossing it with a view of the Palace in the background, and Horse Guard. There were actually Pelicans in the pond, so we took pictures of them too. I fed a squirrel some nuts from a nut bar I was eating from Harrod’s and the squirrel actually ran up my leg!
When we had walked all the way through the park, the guards on horseback were coming down the street for the changing of the guard ceremony in front of the Horse Guards building. We got some great pictures of the guards coming down the street and in front of the Horse Guards.
We then walked to Westminster Abby and Big Ben and the Parliament Buildings. We took some great pictures of all the grand buildings, then waited in line to get into Westminster Abbey for abut 45 minutes before we realized that the charge to get in was 5 £, and they’d just let in a tour that was going to take an hour. By this time we were chilled to the bone, so we gave up on getting in.
We set off towards Westminster Cathedral and Harrod’s, but got lost along the way and ended up getting very cold. My teeth were chattering when we came across the Speaker’s Pub, the “pub that has no beer”, only Guinness. We ordered tea, just to hold on to, so we could warm up. We spent about 30 minutes just sipping tea, holding the cups to warm up. We finally figured out where we were on a map, and set out again, only semi warmed.
Just two blocks from the pub, we came across Stutton Place, a little square with a fish & chips shop called the Laughing Halebut. We sat and had fish and chips for lunch and tried to warm up a little more. The food was great, and another lady was seated at our table. I offered her some chips off my plate while she waited and she seemed genuinely surprised. The diners who had been seated together didn’t even acknowledge the others presence. She accepted some chips, and gave us some helpful advice on how to select a safer certified cab in London.
We left the fish & chips shop and bought a roll of film across the street. We finally got on track and found Westminster Cathedral. We spent about 1/2 hour wondering through the Cathedral and looking at its chapels and mosaics. There were a surprising number of gold mosaics juxtaposed with a brick ceiling.
We left the Cathedral and found an Army & Navy Store with all kinds of great home decor and furniture fashions in it, that I’d seen in British Home magazines. I wanted to buy half the store.
We stumbled across the Victoria Theater on our way to Harrod’s and Geo bought us tickets to see Fame on January 1st. I’m excited!
We kept going to Harrod’s and found the real exclusive shopping streets by accident. We were lost in Eaton Square, or Park, or something when a helpful man offered us directions to Slone St. He offered his father’s theory on the British along the way (incidentally he was Austrian). He said his father’s theory on the British was that any of them who had any gumption or brains, had all left the country and gone to the colonies, like Canada, so that all the people who were left were either too lazy or stupid to leave or gay. He said the stupid lazy ones were populating the country, and the gay ones were running it. His delivery of this theory was pretty humorous. With that, he left us and we headed down Sloan St., where we found Jo Malone’s, the perfumer, and Partridge’s, the gourmet food store. I tried some lovely perfume and Geo bought some shortbread.
When we finally got to Harrod’s I bought some theater tickets to see Mama Mia! on Jan 2nd. We’ll get to see two shows. I’m happy. We spent some time looking for a leather bound journal for Geo and Heathcote & Ivory bath salts for me, both to no avail. However, we found some wonderful shaving soap for Geo.
We decided to take a break at Max Brenner’s Chocolate Bar on Harrod’s 3rd floor. We were both exhausted, but the orange flavored hot chocolate and mocha we ordered zipped us up like a cafe noir in Paris. We also had a selection of chocolate covered nuts that were great? It was expensive, but worth it. The energy we got from this snack sustained us for the rest of the day. The hot chocolate glasses were interesting, they were oval shaped, without handles and were meant to be cupped in two hands.
From the Knightsbridge Tube outside Harrod’s, we went to Covent Garden and wandered around the lovely clothes, toy and food shops in the glassed in market. I loved it. There were some incredibly talented buskers in the food court area that we listened to and took pictures of.
We found an exclusive tea shop in the market, called Whittard’s, where I almost went nuts buying things. I bought a tea pot for myself, some English Breakfast Tea, and a tea cloth for mom, some really yummy dream time tea (they had samples, I had 3!), and a green tea ring for Geo. It was fun. I could have bought more.
From Covent Garden, we wandered several pedestrian shopping streets, and stopped in some book stores and stationary stores. There was a fair in Leiccester Square, and I checked out the Manchester United merchandise at Lillywhite’s sports store in Picadilly Circus.
We ended up back on Regent Street where we checked out a toy store for about an hour. I spent a lot of time admiring the stuffed teddy bears.
We decided to take a rest at Borders book store and cafe, where we had cafe au laits and brownies while reading books and magazines we weren’t going to buy and catching snippets of conversation from other tables like, “She’s put on so much weight, what do you expect when a Capricorn dates an Aquarius?, What was she thinking? …” Are other people’s lives more amusing, or is it just me? I found a paper back copy of Bridget Jones, “The Edge of Reason” that I’ve been looking for and Geo got a Sci-Fi book.
With out feet and legs so sore we could barely move, we took the tube back to our hotel. There’s actually a lot of great pubs really close to us, good to know for New Year’s Eve. Geo had a shower and shaved with his new soaps. Tomorrow we plan on hitting Notting Hill market and getting up on time for our full breakfast.
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