We are slow to wake – taking our time today after a LONG day
yesterday and our sporadic sleep --
Dana still can’t sleep and she’s determined that tonight will be her
night to get in sync – we eat, get ready, and we’re out of the apartment about
10..
Our plan for the day is to get to King’s Cross and quickly do
the whole “Platform 9 ¾” photo opp, then head to the Tower of London, Tower
bridge, check out the Spitalfield Market, get back home to get ready for our night
out on the West End, eat and see Spamalot..
not bad for a day. J
The trek to King’s Cross is an endless maze of tube and
tunnels, and then even more to get to the train station from the tube. By the time we find it I’m convinced that we’ve
put in half of our daily total of steps, and it’s totally disappointing… Patti
and I were in London three years ago and we had the same quest. We had to go back twice to find it, but it
was actually in a location that could have been 9 ¾ -- and it was just there,
kind of hidden away, not for everyone to just run across, but actually had to
be sought out and found… Now, just a short time later, it’s a spectacle (I
guess it’s just surprising that it wasn’t before). It’s now out in the middle of the train
station (not actually in with the train platforms like before) and there’s a
line with attendants working it and taking pics and “assisting” in the
pics. People are given a scarf to wear
and the cart has the owl cage on it – they’re told to jump us as he takes the
picture, and he flips the scarf in the air.
Each person takes really long time to go through this process… we don’t
want to wait in a line for that – and we don’t really want to jump and have
scarves flipped.. so we get a few pics
of the cart in the wall and we head back through the labyrinth.
We’re getting pretty good at navigating the tube – knowing which line and which direction, making transfers…. we’re headed on the circle line to Tower Hill – (this next story is going to get some hearts racing – but rest assured it ENDS WELL). The platform is REALLY crowded, and the train is already well packed when it stops. We all board the train, some of us in different doors, and just as Thomas is about to step on the train… the doors close. With him on the other side. It was one of those horrible slo-motion moments with both of us face to face, both of us frozen, the doors closing between us and the train pulling off with him still on the platform. Lauren is down with me, and saw all of it happen, but the others got in a different door and there is a mass of people between us. I get Patti’s attention and tell her that we don’t’ have Thomas. I’m freaking (just a LITTLE – I’ve lost a kid in LONDON – and this was not the kid that I thought I was going to lose!)… we quickly gather thoughts and decide to get off at the next stop to form a plan – so many things are going through my head. Does Thomas know where we were going? Will he just try to get on the next train and go there, or will he stay for us to come and get him? We’re in tunnels with no service so there is no texting … we decide that Britt and I will double back and try to get him from the stop where we just left him. The others will stay here and try to watch for him flying by on the next train. Everything that happens next is so perfectly timed that it scares me – we had been talking, planning, so time had passed, but Britt and I just happen to get to the other side of the platform just as the next train is heading back to where we need to go. We get off and head to where we left Thomas and … he’s STILL THERE! But he’s not freaked at all. Of course not. He knew where he was going – Tower Hill – and he was planning on getting on the next circle line train, which luckily was just arriving as we got there. So we hopped right on the train, and as we got back to the station where we left the others, we made ourselves visible in the windows, they hopped right on, and we had it all straightened out in about 10 minutes. Easy peasy. But if we had missed that train, or the other train had arrived and Thomas would have left, then we would have had a nightmare of our group being in 3 different locations – we could have figured it out, texting would have worked eventually… but it would have been crazy. We form a plan for the future – you lose the group. You STAY. We’ll be back.
After all that excitement, we do get off at Tower Hill, the
kids and I get our tickets and wait forever for the rest of them to get through
the line. Brittany is having line issues
again – and her credit card that she set up exclusively for this trip, isn’t
working. It won’t go through, and the
back can’t even deal with the charges because they’re not seeing any requests
coming through. She is NOT happy. We look in the book and see that there are
guided tours starting every 30 minutes, we just missed the interval, so we
decide to grab lunch at a little fast food looking place that has fish and
chips, chicken and burgers. Thomas is
going to turn into a burger, I’m afraid, but I’m just glad that he’s finding
food that he’ll eat. The chicken isn’t
great (the others all get chicken) because they say that it’s obvious that it’s
fried in the same place as the fish… but the fish is the best fish and chips I’ve
had so far. Weird place to find it…
We get done and into the tour meeting area just in time and
it’s full of great info, history, and bad jokes (like when we’re ready to move
on at one point he says, “Now let’s HEAD OFF… chop, chop!”. It gets little long at times (even for me and I love this kind of stuff
with the monarchy), but he’s really good.
And these aren’t just tour guides, their Queen’s body guards
(Beefeaters), and they have to go through a rigorous training to get this
gig. We saw a PBS documentary on it
once, how they have to have specific military credentials to even be
considered, and then they have to memorize the entire script (probably a solid
hour of text) and pass the test. There
are only 37 of these guards and they live at the Tower with their families –
cool residence for sure. The highlight
for me was the chapel on the grounds where every person who was killed in the
Tower was buried – most of which in a big mass grave because traitors don’t get
to be buried with honor. But four graves
are marked – Anne Bolyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey and Lord Dudley. We
went through the White Tower, but we didn’t stand in line for the Crown jewels
– it was 8 miles long, and our feet weren’t in the mood for standing that long
only to be shuffled past a case of jewels.. -
oh look there they are. Brittany
was excited and happy because we got to see the changing of the guards there
(and you’re close to them).
 |
| The Traitor's Gait |
 |
| Where several people were beheaded |
We head over to Tower Bridge (which most people think is
London Bridge) – it’s the big one that you see all the time and served as
backdrop for the Olympics, holding the rings… We get some pics (Dana and I
photobomb Brittany like a boss), and we start walking to the tube for the
market that we want to check out. On
the way there is an ice cream truck, and we’re intrigued. We’ve been seeing them around the city, and
they boast that they’re “Cornish” ice cream, and that it’s “soft, soft”
serve.. Britt gets a cone, and the guys
working it .. are working it. They’re
flirting and joking and tell Britt that they love her accent – well she loves
their accent. They do tricks with the
ice cream as they had it back (holding it upside down above her head, flipping
it as she grabs for it) – they’re putting on a show and having a good time with
her. She says that it tastes more like a
frozen heavy whipping cream – it’s really fluffy. She got strawberry drizzle and a chocolate
stick in there too. We wanted to try it
because we’ll be heading to Cornwall soon and it would be great to compare it
to what we find down there. As soon as
we walk away, the cops pull up to our friends’ truck and force them to move –
they’re apparently not supposed to be parking there. As they drive by they honk at Britt… she’s
making friends across the globe.
We’re looking for the Spitalfield market –walking, checking streets
– but it’s not well labeled. Someone
gives us directions (kind of, but he’s pointing with his thumbs which I think
throws us off a little)… We head down a little square and find a circle of
trees with all of their trunks painted blue.
It was kind of cool looking – but odd.
We finally find it and we look
around. We heard about it because it’s
the oldest open air market in London and it has crafts and flea market type
stuff. I thought we might find
something, some trinket from “old England” that would be much better than
finding something in s a souvenir shop. They
have clothes and bags and crafty things on one side and then the flea market
stuff on the other. Brittany is on a
quest to find a British hat, like the ones that people wore at William and Kate’s
wedding, and she finds two!! She also
got three broaches – she bought two, and the person selling gave her a third
one for free (“mouse for free, ok?”).
Lauren and I both got bags – hers is really cute with an owl pattern on
it (we had seen a lot of owls and kind of joked about the deal with owls in
London.. and then she sees this cute bag – owls… ) – the guy approaches her and
tells her he gives her a deal because it’s a slow day. He pulls out another special bag for me (only
for those returning customers, he saves the good stuff – it’s a black leather
backpack, and for 15 pounds, I like it.
He even tries to sell Thomas a bag – but he’s run out of luck on that
one. It’s a TINY little backpack with
some kind of animation on it… We don’t have much time left because we have to
get back to get ready, but we quickly run through the flea market side and I found
some old keys on a ring, just a nice little trinket.
It’s starting to rain, but we’ve ensured that it’s not going
to really rain because we bought umbrellas..
It’s a little after 4:00 and we head back. This time I open the house in record time! I still don’t have any idea what I’m
doing. We get ready and try to just
refresh a bit – we wash feet, take “body showers” (Brittany’s term for a shower
without washing her hair) – change into fancy pants and dresses and head back to
the tube. We know exactly where we’re
going - we are pros at this system now
(well, maybe not “pros”, but we just went to this same area the night before,
so our confidence is pretty high). We go
back to the “fancier” Italian place and the food is just amazing – just like we’re
back in Italy. Both kids get pizzas again,
but they’re being so daring with their food choices, I’m so proud of them. Both have a pizza with gorgonzola on it and
they like it! I get the seafood risotto
(OMG)… Patti gets the gnocchi, and she’s the one that gets flirted with this
time – the waiter tried to trick her when he brought her food and asked if she
had the spaghetti… no… Oh, he laughs, “just
kidding.. gnocchi!” He thinks its really
funny (like a baby!). We had some great
appetizers too – crab and avocado bruschetta and fried calamari (that was
bigger than any I’d seen before).
We’re right on schedule – we head around the corner to the
show, and it’s still sprinkling a bit, but not even enough for an
umbrella. Brittany wants a playbill,
and it’s not like in the states, you have to pay for the play bill. The guy working says that he knows that in
America all playbills are free – but he points out that the show tickets are
twice as expensive (true) – so it evens out.
She tells him that we’re excited to see this show put on in London, and
he agrees that this is the place to see a British show.
Britt
made new friends in the show. She had a
lovely couple from Cornwall sitting next to her, and they’d seen this show many
times (7-8). They come up all the time
and spend the weekend just seeing shows.
They like to see something every time a lead changes, and if there was
something they saw in their area they come up to see it up here too. The recommend seeing “The Woman in Black” and
later Brittany says that she wants to see “the one black woman”… LOL! The guy that is now playing the King is Joe
Pasquale, and he’s in his first week of his run. Britt and her new friends had a great time,
laughing a lot and chatting about vacations – they’ve been to the Keys, going
to Orlando, rented an RV and went to Vegas to see shows (but they don’t like
seeing a broadway show in Vegas because they cut down the shows to 90 min – to
not take people away from gambling – note to self)… We tell them that we’re
going to be headed to Cornwall and we’ll be driving -- she doesn’t drive abroad
– so good luck.
We
have great seats, in the third row – so we can see all the expressions and it’s
just a great show. I know the movie very
well, and a lot of it is taken directly from all those classic scenes, but they
tie them together very well, and the music is a lot of fun. I usually prepare for a show by looking up
the music, but I’m really glad that I didn’t this time. It was a nice surprise.
Time to head back home on the tube – and Patti and Dana have a moment. Dana is zoning, or looking at her own feet (depending on which version you hear), but Patti thinks that Dana is looking at her feet. She gets all serious and gansta.. “You lookin at my toes?” – she didn’t even realize how it sounded and she wasn’t trying to be funny – but we enjoyed it immensely. Try saying it in your best “Mr, T” voice.. “You lookin at my TOES?” -- We caused a scene because we like that a lot.. Like a baby… Brittany is still annoyed by us. She says that she hates that so much because she gets hit in the face, and I point out that this is the best part, that hitting in the face is funny (and keep in mind, I’m not HITTING her – it’s a mild brushing of the fingertips on her cheek at most)…
Time to head back home on the tube – and Patti and Dana have a moment. Dana is zoning, or looking at her own feet (depending on which version you hear), but Patti thinks that Dana is looking at her feet. She gets all serious and gansta.. “You lookin at my toes?” – she didn’t even realize how it sounded and she wasn’t trying to be funny – but we enjoyed it immensely. Try saying it in your best “Mr, T” voice.. “You lookin at my TOES?” -- We caused a scene because we like that a lot.. Like a baby… Brittany is still annoyed by us. She says that she hates that so much because she gets hit in the face, and I point out that this is the best part, that hitting in the face is funny (and keep in mind, I’m not HITTING her – it’s a mild brushing of the fingertips on her cheek at most)…
We get off at our stop and we head to the food store again – we
just need to get some bagels (and I grab crumpets and butter), some bananas…. Soda..
Back at the apartment I gather everyone around
to talk about their experiences, give me thing to note for the blog and help me
fill in gaps in my notes (lots of gaps).
Brittany is being accosted by a “big bug” – it’s a may fly –
but she’s never seen one… hmm, not sure how that happened. These are big clumsy bugs that fly around and
bump into everything but are totally harmless.
Just ignore them—but this bug keeps touching her (the nerve!), and she
tries (and tries, and tries, and tries) to kill it – “I hit it a whole bunch” -
and yet, the bug still lives.
Total for the day... 22,027 steps, 42
sets of stairs, 9.20 miles
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