It’s my last full day in London. Sigh. I was up at 8:30, showered, shaved, watched a few minutes of TV, and was out the door a little after 9am. Then...
9:50am
I took the #12 bus from Queensway towards Trafalgar, riding on the upper deck (I always rode on the upper deck), and was it ever crowded. There was a whole gaggle of Italian (French? I couldn't makes out the words, just a cacophony of accents) girls upstairs, and the conductor was having a terrible time trying to explain the fares to them. It was fun.
Rain! It's raining again. And it's really coming down. Very yucky weather. Oh, well ... maybe it will keep the less adventurous tourists off the streets, and they won't be so crowded.
I got off the bus when I saw some Wallace and Gromit stuff in a shop window. Turns out I'd stumbled upon Hamley's Toy Store,
which bills itself as "The Greatest Toy Store in the World." But they weren't
quite open yet; it was just before 10am, and the sign said they opened at 10, so
I had a few minutes to wait.
So I explored the neighborhood a bit. I took a picture of Carnaby Arch, which is one of the "entrances" to Soho (I stumbled upon both Hamley's and Soho, what a coup!), and when I put my umbrella down to frame the picture, some student walked by and started to walk off with it! But before I could say, "Hey, that's mine," he decided it wasn't worth taking and dumped it in a near-by trash bin. I wasn't sure if I should have felt happy that he put it down, or insulted that he didn't find it worth stealing!
I milled around just a bit, then went back to Hamley's. It was several minutes after 10, but they had only just opened their doors. Apparently the British aren't too concerned about extreme punctuality! Not that I minded; even doing nothing on no schedule in London is pretty darn great.
They have a little cafeteria downstairs, and, being I hadn't had breakfast yet, I went on down. There was a breakfast deal -- Egg, sausage, beans, bacon, and tomato for £1.35, with a pot of tea for an additional 90p. I could afford that.
The tea came in a little pot that was extremely hot; I burned my fingers right away. If I'd been in the U.S., I probably could've sued them for several hundred thousand dollars, but I figured it was my fault for not using the handle, so I let it pass.
After breakfast, I went back upstairs and explored like the kid in a toy store that I was. They had so many cool toys! Models and dolls and stuffed animals and Legos and Matchbox cars and Daleks and Teletubbies and Wallace and Gromit and just about everything to keep me happy for the rest of my life. But I only had a few hours, so I contented myself with buying a bunch of Wallace and Gromit stuff (including a neat soap dish and a couple of key rings). I wanted to buy a Dalek model (from the old "Dr. Who" TV series), but it was £25, which is a lot of money in any language. Maybe next time.
After Hamley's, I walked around Soho for a bit, then...
12:38pm
I'm finally having lunch at the Cafe in the Crypt, St. Martin-in-the-Fields! It was a long, damp, cold walk from Oxford Street (where Hamley's is) to St. Martin-in-the-Fields, but it sure was worth the trip. I guess they got the water piped fixed. Anyway, I got a bowl of mushroom soup, a fish sandwich, and a glass of OJ for £4.50, including atmosphere. I would've paid the money for just the atmosphere.
I'm sitting at a table in the corner, and all around me are people chatting and lunching ... the heavy stone walls, low ceiling, and dim lighting aren't oppressive, it's actually quite cozy down here. And the food is even good!
1:00pm
The church bells are ringing! What a glorious sound! Ah, London, I do love you so.
So much still to see and do, but so little time ... sigh ... well, after lunch I walked down to Covent Garden to get a few last souvenirs from the London Transport Museum. I got a very deco Tube poster, an advertisement from the 30's, I think, plus a "T" mug ("T"-"tea" ... get it?) done in the Edward Johnston font which is the signature font for the London Transport System (Johnston created the font just for them). I also found a great Che Gueverra poster for Linda, at this little place right around the corner, inside the Marketplace. A Cuban hero on a poster printed in Switzerland and sold in England to an American who was buying it for his Latino friend. Talk about a small world!
From Covent Garden it's just around the corner to The Strand, where you find very nice theaters and very nice clothes, all out of my budget. But great for window-shopping.
I got a mocha from "Pret A Manger," which, if my French hasn't failed me, means "Ready to Eat." There are a lot of these places scattered around the city (that I've seen, anyway), but I never went into one before. But the sign advertised mochas for 99p, which seemed like a good deal to me.
The mocha was the kind of mocha you get for 99p. Enough said.
I continued on down The Strand, somewhat lost (as usual), and finally ended up back at Trafalgar Square. There is a bookstore across the street, so I went inside, both to check out what was on the bestseller list in London, and to get out of the rain. I ended up buying three books -- London Blues, an existential mystery that I read on the flight home and I really, really liked; The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, because everybody needs a good Jack the Ripper reference; and Truth, which I haven't read yet but the back cover blurb says it's "a gritty thriller set in the back streets and boardrooms of London." My kind of reading!
3:31pm
I walked across the street to Trafalgar Square, and took my customary loo stop here before getting on a bus back to Bayswater. I just now noticed a sign on the wall in the Underground station with a quote attributed to Horatio Nelson:
Britons!
Fear God, Fear Sin, and
then Fear Nothing!
Good advice.
I took the bus back to Queensway, and, being this was my last day in London, went to Whiteley's to stock up on all the stuff I wanted to take home and hadn't gotten yet. I bought shortbread for Melissa, biscuits (cookies) for everyone, three kinds of tea at Whittard's (and a couple of different tea infusers). Plus I picked up the day's issue of my favorite paper, The Evening Standard.
I'm really gonna miss this place.
5:20pm
I got back to the hotel, loaded down with stuff, and I'm supposed to meet Vij and Denise at 6pm. No time to pack, I'll have to do that when I get back.
I walked over to their place, and got there right at 6pm. We sat around for a bit, just catching up on the day, and then walked down to the bus stop for the #7 bus, which took us to Soho (we were planning on rendezvousing with their friends, a couple, at around 8pm at, of all places, "Cheers London," which is, as you might have guessed, a "theme" restaurant based on the classic American series). We were still quite a bit early so, instead of going directly to the restaurant, we explored Soho for a while.
There was a really great movie poster shop that I would have loved to check out thoroughly, but it was 6:58 when we got there and they closed at 7pm; again, someplace else to go next time!
We continued our journey through Soho, and, on one block, there were four shops next to each other -- a "sex shop," a hardware store, a poster and collectibles store, and a pub -- and I joked to Vij, "Well, there you go, you've got everything you need right here on this block." Turns out the next store was a "left-handed" store, with all sort of things for southpaws. Vij laughed and said, "I guess that covers everything else that the other four stores might miss."
By then it was getting close to 8, so we made our way to "Cheers," and got a table. This is truly a theme restaurant of the highest accuracy -- they had a U.S. mailbox, much autographed memorabilia, and a bar that is exactly like Sam's bar. And the waitresses are Americans, for that crowning touch. I came 6,000 miles across the ocean, only to end up right back home!
We had them bring us a pitcher of Samuel Adams beer (American, natch), and soon after, Ken and Lara, Vij and Denise's friends, arrived. Ken is from Trinidad, while Lara is from Australia, so between their accents, Vij's Indian accent, and Denise's Singapore-London accent, the conversation was simply delightful to listen to, even if I didn't know what the heck they were all talking about!
But I had a great time of listening, and just being there, so I was totally enjoying every moment. I really liked Ken and Lara right off the bat, they were just smashing.
I think I had a sandwich for dinner; I can't really remember, it was decent enough food, but nothing spectacular, and mostly I was paying attention to the conversation. Again, it was a lot of fun.
After dinner, it was still pretty early (not much past 9pm), so we decided to go walk around a bit. We headed on over to Leicester Square, where they were having the London premiere of the animated film "Anastasia;" I'm not sure, but I think some royals were in attendance, although we didn't see any of them because the show had already started and everyone was inside. All that was left outside was the barricade fence, to keep back the crowds, but the crowds had all gone home.
We snuck though the fence anyway, just for the heck of it. Living dangerously, that's us.
But it was pretty quiet, nothing much really going on besides a bunch of people just hanging out, so we walked on down to Covent Garden, and went to the Punch and Judy Pub. It's a neat pub, upstairs in the marketplace, but it was full of Americans. Loud Americans. Loud, dull Americans. I apologized to Ken and Lara on behalf of all quiet, interesting Americans, and they laughed and bought me a pint of Old Newcastle Ale. Very nice!
After a pretty short time, we got bored (we couldn't hear each other talk over the noisy pub conversation either), so we went back to Leicester Square and got ice cream at a Haagen-Daaz store. I think I got Rocky Road. One scoop, sugar cone.
Then we just sorta walked around the streets, wandering, and Lara and I talked about "Red Dwarf" and what makes a good TV series, and the conversation just went sideways in all directions like it usually does when people are just having a good time together. It was just a lovely, lovely evening.
But then it was getting late, and everybody
(including me) had a pretty early morning. So we found a bus, and headed for
home. We said goodnight to Ken and Lara somewhere along Bayswater Road, then
Vij and Denise walked me back to my hotel. We exchanged hugs and warm
good-byes, and all looked forward to meeting again in June, for Simone's
wedding.
Then I went inside, around 11pm, and packed. And packed. And packed. Until 1am, when I finally got everything to fit into my suitcases. Amazing, how much junk I'd managed to accumulate in the six days I'd been here!
Finally, I was done ... and it was strange and sad to feel everything coming to a close. But it was also very, very late, and I had to get some sleep, at least, so I set my alarm, fell onto the bed, and ...
