Touring London

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We got up this morning and went down to the free breakfast buffet at the motel. It was amazing all that they had. Delicious sausage that tasted like we make at home, eggs, hot pork and beans, croissants with chocolate chips in them, toast, yogurt, grapefruit already peeled and sectioned (Linda says the best she ever had), juices, and a coffee machine with cappuccino, latte, mocha, etc. We took the subway to Camden Market to see the throngs of people. This is a street lined with shops on both sides that spill out onto the sidewalk. A lot of things weren’t our taste at all – tattoos, piercings, etc. but there was an area called the horse tunnels that was full of antiques and other things. Food vendors were all over offering free samples of food from all over the world. I think that was the only place we saw Mexican food on the whole trip. Most places had the food in big piles on a counter so you could see what all they had. I had heard of Camden Locks before but never knew what or where they were. There was a river flowing through the area and about 200’ either side of the bridge were pairs of locks- probably about 80’ long and 10’ wide that lowered the boats about 10’ each. They were totally manual. There were long narrow boats carrying tourists up and down the river and the captain would have to jump out and operate the locks. Next we took the subway to Hyde Park. There is an area there called Speakers Corner where anyone that wants to can get a little something to stand on and tell the people gathered there what they think of it all. If they speak loud enough pretty soon they will have a crowd gathered – some listening and some heckling. One muslim man was standing on a box and saying how that Christ was not God and an older white gentleman with a big white beard calmly goes about setting up a little stand to stand on just a little to the side of the other man – it was a weekly thing for him – and the muslim was calling him Santa Claus and other things. Finally the white man got his stand built and got up on it and in a booming voice drowned out the muslim. He was pretty pointed in his jabs at the muslim, too. He said the Muslims were all going straight to hell. The whole thing was quite interesting to see! There were other people here and there speaking about education and other things, but a lot of it was religion. Next we walked across the park to the Princess Diana Memorial fountain. It is a big circular marble flume with grass in the middle– 200’ across or so. As the water flows down there are calm areas, areas with bubbles coming up in it, turbulent areas, and places where the water runs fast and goes from side to side. At the bottom is a calm pool. I guess it was supposed to represent different times of her life. Signs said feel free to paddle your feet in the water, so Linda did that for awhile. The weather was quite nice – mostly cloudy, 65 degrees or so, but a little breezy. The water was very, very cold as it said it was constantly being refreshed from the aquifer. There were children walking around in it, but Linda says she doesn’t know how they could do it. Next, since we were in the area, we walked to Harrod’s Dept. store. That store up to about a year ago was owned by Dodi Fayed’s father. Dodi was Di’s boyfriend that was killed in the accident with her. In the middle of the store is what they call the Egyptian escalators – very elaborate! They went up and down to all 5 floors. At the bottom of the escalators is a tribute to Dodi and Diana. It looked like the Arabians really all wanted pictures of that! It was a carved marble background with both of their pictures on it and a marble stand in the front with a glass pyramid and 2 large candles burning on it. Back to the store – it had everything, with prices from reasonable to outlandish. Clothing (of course), furniture, childrens toys (including a childrens toy car that was 9995 pounds – about $15,000) (but there were employees flying radio control helicopters just like in the malls at home, too) and food – restaurants, rooms that were dedicated to one thing like cheeses, bakery, meats, chocolates, coffes, teas, and other groceries. Some say it’s the store that has everything! Leaving Harrod’s we found a McDonalds, so stopped there for some supper. They have some different food then the McDonalds do in the US. The large sandwiches (1/3 pound angus burgers, double quarter pounder) were not on the menu. Again you had a choice of potato wedges or fries, and a large drink was like a medium in the US. From there we hopped the subway to the London Eye. That is like a great big ferris wheel that goes around real slow – about 30 minutes a round. It has 32 glass ‘pods’ on it – each pod can hold around 30 people. So if it was all full it could hold close to 1000 people! They weren’t real busy so the one we rode in only had 19 in it and that was real comfortable – plenty of room to move around. The pods were air conditioned and had a large oval bench in the middle. It’s located on the bank of the River Thames and it was after dark, so it was a very beautiful ride. I am not sure of the height, but if I remember correctly it is around 430 feet. After that we subwayed back to the motel and called it a day!

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