A Crash Course in ...London?
London: Day 3
After the late night I was moving slightly slower this morning... But Jenn and I were still up and out, with a Tesco Metro breakfast (a croissant and TWO Krispy Kreme for me) and made it to an 11:30 mass at St. Paul’s.
The choir was quite good, and we both enjoyed hearing music resonate throughout the church. Around noon we opted to leave before the mass was over to get to Abbey Road.
For those of you who don’t know Abbey Road is quite famous for the Beetles. They had a studio on Abbey Road and of course, the famous crosswalk picture of them.
I’ll get killed for this later, but I’m not really a huge fan.
Anyways, we found our way to Abbey Road after two buses, and a walk in the wrong direction. I made Jenn stop to ask where the “famous crosswalk was” because I sure as hell wasn’t the crazy fan... (sorry Jenn)
We ended up running into a man from Chicago who was in London for business for 3 years. He was walking up the street with his daughter, and lead us right to the cross walk. Nice guy. Funny how you run into people like that all over the place- people from your country, your city, or your neighborhood; and while Chicago isn’t Massachusetts, it was still nice to talk with someone from the States.
And so began the photo shoot. We took pictures of the wall outside the studios (after Jenn tried to break in to see if she could see the place). The wall was very neat because there was names, places, dates, and lyrics scribbled all over it. Evidently (according to the man from Chicago) they need to repaint the wall every couple of months! I have some pictures of my favorite scribbles on my photos page.
Then Jennifer braved the traffic to get the cross walk picture. I opted not to risk life and limb, so I stood on the sidewalk instead of in the middle of the road, as the actual photo would have required me to.
After our Abbey Road fun we walked to a coffee shop that sold Beetles merchandise and whatnot.
Hole in the wall that tries to sell Beetles merchandise would have been a better way to put it.
Disappointed, we headed off, planning to get back into town, and out of the raw cold, but we boarded the wrong bus.
Oops.
We were on the bus for a while, before I knew that we were going the wrong way. We asked the bus drive where we had to go, and he was happy to oblige. He even whistled at us as he was driving by to let us know that we were heading the wrong way.
Everyone was SO nice in London. If we needed directions people would go out of their ways to ensure that we would be able to get safely where we needed to go. They were ultra accommodating. It made the trip so much more pleasurable... Plus the fact that they speak my language...
Anyways we took the bus to Piccadilly Circus and did some shopping at Harrods... Yes, shopping. I only spent 20 pounds, so not too bad. After which we went to head back, but we boarded the wrong bus again, went the wrong way for 20 minutes, and had to grab the opposite bus 20 minutes to get back on track. Such is life.
Did I mention that these are double decker buses?
SO cool.
When we (finally) got back to the hotel and Jenn packed up so she could hop the bus back to Cardiff after we had dinner with her friends.
So we headed off again. And walked for a bus station to get the bus that would take us to Victoria Station.
And walked some more.
And walked some more.
Finally, after asking at a convenience store, we found a bus station that would take us where we needed to go. We boarded and arrived 20 minutes later.
But we couldn’t find her friends.
We kept looking and finally came across the restaurant we needed to be at and went inside. Their bus was leaving in 20 minutes, but as soon as we walked in the hurried questions flew back and forth, a bottle of wine was hastily ordered, and even more hastily drank, and Jenn’s friends scampered off to catch their 9pm bus, while I ate more slowly with Jenn as company before leaving to catch her 9:30 bus.
We said our good-byes and I departed back to the hotel. I caught a couple of minutes of television before falling dead asleep.