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Published: June 16th 2017
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Saved my life
these signs painted at the crossings have saved my life probably 10 times already. You can't tell which of these streets are one way and which way they are going. Until a bus comes at you. Geo: 51.5002, -0.126236
We had a full day today. We were up early and of course there was no place open for breakfast before 8 am. Even the restaurant that was supposed to be open at 8 am was running about an hour late. Crazy place. Dot got about 2,000 steps before breakfast because we were walking around killing time.
Once that was out of the way we headed out for our adventures, which started with the Tower of London. Yes, we have been there before, but we love it. We saw the Crown Jewels – just love looking at them. We were talking to one of the guards who was actually from Georgia. She filled us in on some English history. Went through the armory and the prison. Saw the Ravens and Traitors Gate. Always fun stuff.
We knew we had our bicycle tour at 3:00, so next we rushed over to the Imperial War Museum. It is in the building of the old Bedlam insane asylum. No souvenirs from that time period. It is a free museum and is very well done. They have a new WW1 exhibit that is very impressive. They also have a huge holocaust section. After a while,
Underground Bathroom
Anyone brave enough to go underground to a public bathroom in the center of the street? We weren't. we couldn't take any more war, and headed out a little early to meet our bike tour. We only made it to 2 out of the 5 floors of the museum and didn't really cover those very well. It needs a lot more time. We never had time to eat lunch.
Our guided bike tour was through "secret" London, so it was off the beaten path. We saw a lot of different sections of London and heard some fun stories. Our legs were so tired from walking all day, it felt great to be on bikes. We loved it. We biked across the Tower Bridge, which was really cool. The fresh air woke us up. We were a little tired today – the neighbors were partying last night.
Our bike tour lasted till 6:30pm, by which time I was STARVING. We had a little snafu with the Underground – one of the lines to our place was down, so we took a strange route back. Finally stopped at a pub in our neighborhood for dinner. We left our hotel this morning around 9 am and got back around 8:30 pm. We were pretty much on our feet all day, except for the
Graffiti
During our bike tour we went through this tunnel that was full of graffiti. It is the only place in London where it is legal to graffiti. There were several guys there when we rode through. they just keep painting on top of whatever is there. 3 ½ hours when we were on bikes. Dot logged 23,000 steps on her Fitbit. I am beat. Of course, I GoPro'd some of our bike ride, so when I have some time I will put together a short video. We had so much fun. Our guide was great – he works part time as a guide and he is an actor in King Lear at The Rose theatre.
Mary Ash: you won't believe this, but we have met and talked to so many people.! And we are giving away the American souvenirs we brought. Don't you wish you were here?
Had one minor mishap on the Tube (Underground). We were finally on our way back to our hotel. It was kind of crowded, so we were sitting in these "jump" seats. You have to push them down to sit on them, like in the old theaters. I was so tired, I wanted to lean back and relax so I stood up to take my backpack off. When I went to sit down again, i ended up doing a very deep squat because the seat had bounced back up. I didn't quite hit the floor. I am SURE no one noticed.
Couple
Dot on her hokey bike
Taking a little break on the bike tour things from yesterday we forgot to share. Our Miss Saigon experience was like Sensaround. We were so close to the stage we could smell the marijuana when they lit up. And when the helicopter landed, there was a breeze blowing. Also, the streets around the theatre were full of pedestrians. We only saw one car on the street – it was a white Rolls Royce, chauffeured, that stopped in front of the theatre and let out some rich couple.
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Mary
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OMG, what are you giving away this time?!?! Embarrassing!!!