Divamensch
London: Day Two, Mon Aug 15
I woke up at 4am and got up at about 4:30am. That was six hours of sleep, which is enough for one or two nights. I took my tablet and went down to the lobby and got caught up on my travelogue. I went out at 6am and got breakfast and coffee at the bakery where I had bought dinner when we first arrived - - this is one of the only places that’s open before 8am. Even on a weekday, can you believe it? I got a sausage and egg sandwich for myself and a bacon and egg sandwich for Richard. Ketchup for him, naturally, and lattes for both of us. What a treat to have a coffee made by a professional after the Own Make fiasco from the morning before.
We watched the BBC morning news show which is much more news-focused than the Today show. No puff pieces, no laughing and false smiling. A nice change.
Our excursion for the day: the Tower of London. Here's a pic of the Tower and another of London Bridge, right across the street.
Richard has to go to The Tower on every visit to London - - he has to get his eyes on the crown jewels and make sure they still sparkle, make sure there aren’t any missing stones. It did not disappoint! We bypassed the guided tour from the beefeater (we’d both done that a few times, yawn) and went straight to the jewels. A must-do for every trip to London.
We walked over to Marks and Spencer (a local department store) and did a little shopping, then to Pret a Manger for lunch. Richard had a prosciutto and cheese sandwich and I had a pickles and cheese sandwich. I have to say Richard’s was OK and mine was FREAKING AMAZING. No judgment.
It was supposed to rain but it didn’t so we went for a walk. I asked at the front desk if they knew of an internet café in the neighborhood. The four people at the desk looked at each other quizzically. I know an internet café is very 20 years ago but sometimes you need to do something that can only be done on a desktop computer and one of those things is updating the homepage on my website. I can’t do it from my phone, can’t do it from a laptop, can’t do it from a tablet. It took us a while to find the place but when we did, oh what joy. That place is so ratty and run down, it made me smile so hard. I was very excited to go back on Wednesday.
Back to the hotel. We laid down for a little while. I don’t think we fell asleep but it was nice just to lay down with our eyes shut. We were tired of TV so we thought we’d see if there was anything amusing on Netflix. What else could we choose but *Diana: the Musical.* It got so much hate onstage and online - - but I recently read a re-examination in The New York Times which I found intriguing. We both liked it more than we had expected. It was junk but it had no illusions - - it knew it was junk and had a good time being junk. Judy Kaye got high marks as Queen Elizabeth II but maybe it’s because she was sort of the only person in the cast we knew.
Richard was craving McDonald’s and how could I say no to such a splendid idea? He had a mayo chicken sandwich with a small fries, I had a fiesta chicken sandwich with a medium fries and an orange Fanta. Quite tasty and no Buyer’s Remorse afterwards, which was a surprise. We brought it back to the hotel and ate it whilst watching *Big Bang* and then *The Great British Baking Show.* We finished the night with a TV movie from the 80s, *Sleeping Murder,* an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s last book. We missed the first twenty minutes but does it really matter?
