A few nights ago at dinner, while Catherine was on the phone, a group of guys came down the street making themselves noticed. As they approached, I noticed one guy wearing a short skirt and fishnet nylons. As they rounded the corner, it became obvious that the one guy had his skirt hem tucked up into his waistband, displaying his tighty widey underpants..Of course, my jaw dropped, as I made funny noises and motioned Catherine to look, while she is having her serious conversation.
Knowing a day in London was not going to allow for any real discovery I was hoping I would know if I wanted to revisit someday. Nope, not for me. Of course I am smart enough to know and see that it is a wonderful city richly filled with history and culture. The group I was with thought it reminded them of NY, while for me, it resembled LA.
Excited to go through the chunnel and speed off to London, I was walking to the metro at 6:15am, barely light..The morning was calm after the longest loudest nighttime rain I had heard since I was here. Meeting at the tour office, shuttle to Gare Nord, through customs and security, our group is ready to go. Fifteen minutes before departure, a delay announcement informs us that a train broke down blocking the track. Maybe a half hour later, they announced a 35 minute delay, which turned into a 2 hour delay. As it turned out, the entire train station was halted during this episode.
I met two couples traveling together from Atlanta. After hanging out for 4 hours, they invited me to join them for the day, and I did. As it turned out, I am glad I was adopted for the day. I even told a joke on our way home and made everyone laugh, imagine that. It had been told in French and I told it in English and remembered the punch line. We all helped each other get through our very few hours in London.
Our tour company was not there to meet us as they gave up, so we had no shuttle to our tour bus. No one had pounds or knowledge of exactly where we were headed. We gathered our steam and took a cab to Marble Arch to catch our tour bus. We gave up the Thames Cruise to have enough time to see the city and have a great pub experience.
Our lunch was yummy and I had a draft. Becca & Arthur might have guessed but ended up with the Plowman’s Lunch, complete with pickled onions & chutney, while everyone else had Fish & Chips and Mushy Peas. They were very sweet to me and we all seemed to make our hurry scurry of the city doable and fun, lots of laughs to be had.
We took 2 of the 4 city tours completely so got a good look and orientation to the city.
Because our trip delay, we missed the changing of the Guard, which happens one time a day. London is beautiful, love the river and the bridges, the fact that Buckingham Palace is right in the middle of the city and gravitate towards the big monument squares where people gather.
It is sprawling, missed the neighborhood feel of NY and Paris, with a market, café, and necessities on every street. I would have liked to be there at night when Picadilly Circus lights up like Times Square. It felt like the Louvre, crowded with people clamoring for action, very windy, not quaint, not friendly…
After an 18 hour travel day, I didn’t get to sleep until 3am and up today after a quick 7 hours of sleep. One hour better than the night before but really not enough. Woke up with parts, TMI, but most of us are girls. Very tired. Worked several hours this morning, then decided to go up to Mouffetard and find a big salad and fruit for home. My couple hours out is about the only non rainy time in the last couple days. It rained all day yesterday while I was across the English Channel and another storm is on it’s way. The couple hours of thunder and downpour has now passed.
I am tired and finishing up my corrections on my curriculum. I am trying to figure out how to spend the next couple days and I think I will let it happen after some good rest tonight. I still have a bunch of work stuff to do but will hopefully finish up in the morning. See ya’ll soon.
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