Waking up on Saturday meant it was time to take our daily misting (shower), avoid the wet spot and eat a “yummy” English breakfast. Breakfast consisted of tea, toast, lumpy yogurt and cereal. I really missed my daily waffles. As nice as England and its people are, the food isn’t worth crap. I dropped a few pounds on this trip.
The Tower of London was the first site to see. Close to the Tower is Tower Bridge, which spans the River Thames. After lunch we saw Agatha Christie’s “The Mouse Trap,” (St. Martin’s Theatre) which has been running for over 47 years, making it the longest running play. During dinner we discussed finding another hotel to stay at. We couldn’t take another night with “the wet spot.” After many phone calls, we found the Prince William Hotel in Kensington. I was volunteered to call the owner of the guesthouse to tell him we would be leaving. I would make the phone call on Sunday offering some bogus excuse.
After dinner Natalie opted to stay at the guesthouse and sleep while Juilea and I were going to hit the town. We ended up at The Hippodrome “the world’s greatest discotheque”. Housed in an old theatre, the multi-level club was filled a young crowd drinking Budweiser and listening to bad American music. After a few hours of drinking and dancing, Juilea and I boarded a bus for the hour ride back to the guesthouse.
Since we got in at 4:00 am, we slept late, which is my favorite thing to do on a cold, rainy Sunday. Natalie went to church while Juilea and I went to Buckingham Palace. We took tons of pictures and headed off to Kensington Palace. It was so sad to see all the flowers people had left for Princess Diana at the gates of the Palace. What was an even sadder site were posters of the Spice Girls all around the city.
Somehow we ended up at Parliament and Big Ben again (“Look kids, Big Ben, ParliamentÂ…”). Juilea and I walked around Parliament and crossed the Westminster Bridge over the River Thames. It was freezing and windy on the bridge as the big hand reached the 12 and the bells of Big Ben rang through the night. It was very exciting for me to hear Big Ben chime live. We walked along the river and took some pictures of Parliament from across the Thames (more dark pictures). We crossed over the Lambeth Bridge heading back towards Parliament.
From Parliament we walked to Trafalgar Square to meet up with Natalie. On the way, we stopped at Westminster Abbey and had the chance to go inside. The Abbey is massive, reminding me of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in New York. We must’ve spent about 40 minutes wandering around inside.
Juilea and I didn’t realize the National Art Gallery was right next to Trafalgar Square. There was one hour until the gallery closed so we tried to see as much as we could. Saw a few famous paintings, of which their names escape me. Closing time came by fast and we found the guards shooing us back into London’s cold night.
The three of us met up in Trafalgar Square and all agreed it was time to eat dinner. Looking through a tour book, we agreed upon a pub in Hampstead Heath, just south of Golders Green. The pub was as nasty as the bathroom in the guesthouse, so we left and found some other place to eat. Time to get back to the guesthouse, pack up and move out.
Monday morning we made the move to the Prince William Hotel at 42-44, Gloucester Terrace W23DA London (tel: 44 (0) 171 724 74 14 / Fax: 44 (0) 171 706 24 11). The hotel was a few blocks from the Lancaster Gate Underground Station. Our room was very nice, much smaller than the guesthouse, but nice. We didn’t care that they crammed 3 twin beds into the room. We didn’t care that we had to walk on the beds to get across the room. This bathroom didn’t have a wet spot. It had a very old tub that didn’t spring any leaks. We dropped our luggage on the beds, since we couldn’t find the floor, and headed out to enjoy our last full day in London.
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