Cruise, Tube, and Fish and Chips

First stop today was the British Museum – I again enjoyed relaxing outside with travel books while Melinda explored the areas of the museum which interested her. Our next stop was Westminster Abbey for Evensong at 3:00 p.m., then a two-for-one cruise on the Thames River.

Melinda and the London Eye as viewed from our tour boat.

The cruise dropped us off near the Tower of London so we walked around the outside of the site before catching the tube to Harrod's. As we walked along the river we passed two girls just as one of them exclaimed, “Yes! There is a God! He still has no social etiquette whatsoever!” I love overhearing random comments like that.

When we went to get on the tube, the next train was packed full of people. We squeezed into one of the cars and stood in the aisle. A few seconds after we started moving, Melinda gave me “a look”. I glanced around and was shocked to discover we were standing right next to what I assumed was a homeless guy with his bags piled around him and covering a couple of seats. We had crammed ourselves into the car in such a hurry that I never even noticed as I walked past him. The tube was unbearably hot and within a matter of seconds the odour was unbelievable. I'm not going to start describing it. I looked at Melinda and said, “Um, I think the next stop is ours” and she just gave me a knowing nod. At the next stop we jumped off and hopped into the next car.

Since Melinda was in England, home of fish and chips, for only a few days, we figured we should eat the classic meal at least once. I asked a woman in a shop for a restaurant recommendation and a woman behind me suggested we go down a nearby street to an area with a few great places. We followed her instructions and I started to wonder about the area (for people who know London, we were at the corner of Brewer and Wardour) when we saw a few lingerie and “toy” shops with interesting window displays. I soon saw a club with a sign out front reading “London's Premier Gay Club” and my suspicions were confirmed. Although the scenery was definitely interesting, we never found any fish and chips restaurants so we moved on and found a place to eat a little closer to the train station.



Tonight when we tried to catch a shuttle to our hotel near the airport I realized too late that they don't accept credit cards, neither of us had any cash, and we barely made it in time for the last shuttle so we weren't able to go find a cash machine. Thankfully the driver didn't have any other passengers and she was kind of grumpy after getting called away from her vacation to fill a shift so she let us just give her whatever cash we had and catch a ride without paying the full fare.