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Published: October 11th 2023
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Today we decided to catch the hop on hop off bus, which is just a block from our hotel. Now I’ve ridden this bus line more than once, and had an idea of the route it should take. I noticed right off we weren’t taking any particular route. It seemed like we were just randomly driving around. Eventually the driver announced that there was a big event in town and several of the roads were closed. I honestly thought the bus company should’ve had a disclaimer on their website before people bought their tickets.
We certainly saw some parts of town that I’ve never seen before. I will say no matter where are you go in London there are beautiful buildings and gardens to look at. Actually, some of the prettiest decorated buildings are the pubs. Here, in the UK, and all over Europe they value their old buildings. Instead of tearing them down, they remodel them. So if you pay attention you’ll see a row of buildings with a few very old buildings in the middle. It just interesting to notice!
Eventually, we got to some of the main sites in town, such as the London eye, parliament,
Big Ben, what most people call the London Bridge, and the river Thames. We also drove through Kensington, Notting Hill, and Belgravia, The weather was perfect for riding around in an open bus and made for good picture taking.
We decided the best thing we could do was stay on the bus and ride the entire loop. It then gave us an idea of places we actually wanted to get off the bus and visit. The funny thing we learned was that the big event was a marathon foot race being run in Hyde Park. I’m not sure why roads were closed clear across town, when it appeared, the race was confined to the Hyde Park area.
Neither one of us took our portable chargers, so by the time we got back to Paddingtom our phones needed a good charge and we needed a rest. I also needed to work on Nanci’s phone so she could call her family at home.
This is what I’ve learned! Cricket wireless won’t work outside of the United States even if you buy their international plan. I also learned their representatives were extremely difficult to work with. So we went off
to buy a Sim card so Nanci‘s phone would work here. After installing the Sim card and buying a prepaid plan, we learned that the phone only works in the UK and cannot call United States. We will have to come up with some other idea so she can call home.
After charging our phones, and a brief rest, we walked around this neighborhood. We also walked over to Paddington Station as we were going to have our picture taken with paddington bear. Sadly, while remodeling the station, they moved the Paddington statue. However, we found one in a park nearby and had our picture taken there.
It’s amazing how quickly time can pass in the course of a day and before we knew it it was dinner time. We went to another pub around the corner and again mixed in with all the soccer fans. When the Emirates scored and won the game the sound was almost deafening.
We walked in and out of the shops, leading to and from our hotel, and called it a night. We have several stops planned for tomorrow, hopefully will make them all.
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