(this narrative began from when I first landed in London on September 3, 2016)
Tuesday
September 6, 2016:
Today, we finally met as a tour group. I met some really nice Aussies (people from
Australia): Maree, Kitty, and
Jeremiah. They are the Hurleys. There are many others in our
group, but I met these three people almost immediately at our hotel. We went on the group city tour organized by
Globus Tours. It involved pretty much
the same thing I’d already done except that we went into some areas of London
not covered by the tour I was on yesterday.
During this tour, we stopped for an hour at St. Paul’s Cathedral, a very
special place to Brits because Diana Spencer was married there to Prince
Charles in July 1981. That was just one
month after my first visit to London in June 1981. Apparently, that is the only marriage that
has ever taken place at St. Paul’s, but it was Prince Charles’ choice.
Since the group city tour only lasted till 12:00
noon, we all had the afternoon and evening to ourselves. I tried to use the hotel’s ATM machine,
without success, and after asking for some help from the guest relations guy, I
tried again at an external ATM and this time, I got some money out. After that, I needed to get some lunch, so I
started walking down the street towards Hyde Park again. Not only was I looking for a place to eat
lunch, I was also looking for that Lebanese man’s store. I didn’t know what his store’s name was – all
I knew was that it was black on the outside with white writing, the writing was
in Arabic, and it sold electronic goods.
After meeting that very nice Lebanese man, I found myself deciding, for some reason, to eat at a Lebanese
restaurant. Perhaps I was subconsciously
thinking of that man. After having a
very pleasant lunch, which was more like dinner (there was so much food), I
continued walking down the street and finally found his store. We introduced ourselves – his name is Alex –
and his store is called iStore
(strange name). He told me that he
didn’t have any suitably-sized cell phone cases, but he did recommend that I
get some help from a company called Vodephone and get them to set me up with
pay-per-use Internet access. I don’t
really understand why I need this service, but apparently making phone calls,
sending texts, or sending emails from England to Canada still requires Internet
access. Why free Wi-Fi does not provide
that capability, I don’t know.
After I saw Alex, I headed toward Hyde Park to try
and buy a ticket for a river cruise.
I’ve never been on one in London and I wanted to do this today very
much. After buying a ticket for a Big Bus tour from a vendor on the street, a
tour that combines a city tour with a river cruise, I was ready. It meant I had to go on one more city tour,
but this one promised to be different than the ones I went on both yesterday
and this morning. And it was. Eventually, the bus would arrive at the
Thames River and I could get off then and go on the cruise. It was supposed to last about forty minutes
in total and there was a lot to see. I
took lots of pictures, some of which I’m sure I will have to delete. But, I hope that enough of them turned out
that it’s worth having them. It was a
very pleasant city tour and, I was right, it was different than the other ones
I’d been on already. But, what I really
enjoyed today was the cruise. It was
definitely worth doing.
We’re leaving London tomorrow morning by 8:15 am and
we won’t be back until the end of September again. On Wednesday, we travel from London to
Canterbury then to Brighton on the east coast of England. On Thursday, we travel from Brighton to
Stonehenge and then to Plymouth. On
Friday, we spend time in Plymouth and Cornwall - an excursion is available to
us if we choose to participate. And, on
Saturday, we travel from Plymouth to Glastonbury to Bath, then finally to
Newport, Wales, which means we will have left England. That takes care of the first four days of
touring; we have twenty-one days to go.
copyright 2016 - Anne Shier
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