London--Day 5

Well, we're starting to wear down. Today, our plan was to leave at 9:30 a.m. I didn't want to get out of bed at my normal 5 a.m. Then it was 6 a.m. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, thought for a moment and promptly laid back down. When 7 a.m. rolled around, I figured that was enough lolligagging around. I got in the shower, then told Butch that I wasn't going down for breakfast today. He makes my tea every morning, so I had that and a couple cookies that the maid leaves us as part of our executive suite experience. That was enough as we were planning to have an early lunch. More on that later. 

We headed out at 9:30--it was only about a mile to The Old Curiosity Shop so we decided to walk.

As I look at this, something tells me that they've updated it since Dickens times. I'm pretty sure it was "Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe"---at least that seems how I've read about it in Dickens books. Oh well, the old ways are disappearing.

Our next stop was the John Soanes Home and Museum. We didn't stay very long for a couple of reasons: 1. I never heard of John Soanes before and 2. I'm not really a museum person. There were tons of antiquities to see, but we just weren't that interested. We made a hasty exit and headed on to the Leather Lane Market. If you recall, we went to The Borough Market on Saturday but didn't eat there because it was too crowded with no place to sit and enjoy your meal. This market was much smaller, with a wide variety of interesting foods. But, same thing--there were no crowds, but also no place to sit. It's an art to be able to balance a plate, drink, purse, etc., and eat at the same time. I am not that talented. I've never claimed to have any artistic talent! So we opted to find a pub or cafe closer to our next stop--The Dickens Museum.

That set us up for our next disappointment---nothing opens before noon. We're used to eating at 11:30 a.m. sharp!! At home, we eat breakfast around 6 a.m. and this day, we hadn't eaten at all. It was only about 11:30. We really couldn't wait around because our tickets for Charles Dickens were at 12:30. Soooo, we ended up having an okay sandwich at Costa--a coffee place similar to Starbucks. Oh well. Dessert was the best part. I've grown very fond of this:

It's shortbread with caramel and chocolate. I've had it in the US, but it doesn't come up very often. I'm sure I could make it, but then, I cannot have stuff like this around! I'm way too weak!

After lunch, we went to the Dickens Museum. I had actually been there on my first book club trip 5 years ago. Butch hadn't and I knew he would enjoy it. We did. This time, they had another feature--they explored all about the London Fog. I found that particularly interesting because I always thought that the fog was from actual weather. I just thought England had misty, foggy weather, although, in my five trips here, I'd never experienced it once. Today, I found out that the fog was caused by the dark coal smoke in the air that permeated every nook and cranny leaving behind an oily, black residue over everything. And the smell---turns out breathing that was also a health hazard for Londoners. Very interesting!

Next up was London's smallest street.

You can see how narrow it is. As Butch was trying to get this picture, I had to move because some man was actually using this very narrow passage. We just love unusual things and look for them everywhere we go!

From there, we ubered it to the British Museum. Butch wanted to see the Rosetta Stone. He said that what we saw in Egypt was a copy. He said there were all kinds of Egyptian antiquities in the museum. I quipped, "Well, I wasn't very interested in those antiquities in Egypt, so don't really care about them here!" Remember I mentioned that I'm not really a museum person. My plan was that I would just find a place to sit with my book. As it turned out, when we got to the museum, it was so huge that we didn't really know where to start. We should have planned ahead and figured out what was there to narrow it down. So, we decided that since we've been hitting it pretty hard we were going to call it a day--it was already 2 p.m. We headed back to our hotel and got out of the Uber at St. Paul's Cathedral where I immediately went into the garden with my book. Butch went off to do a little geo-caching. He met up with me about 45 minutes later. It wasn't quite the experience I'd had 5 years before when I had the garden almost to myself. This time, it was crowded. I didn't really care as the weather was beautiful again! 

Miles logged today: 4.9

Unusual  and interesting things:

While in the Leather Lane market, I saw these most unusual peaches. 

They looked a little more like pumpkins, but they were fuzzy like a peach. The label didn't give any clues--just said "fruit." And then these:

They were clearly marked plums, but I've never seen green ones before. 

I don't think a restaurant called "Tongue and Brisket" would make it in the US. Tongue just isn't a common thing to eat. I remember having to eat it as a kid because my parents bought our meat by the whole cow. That way, you get everything which meant we had to eat everything. I didn't like it At. All.

I was further intrigued at the other side of their store:

I'm happy to know that they are the home of "real" salt beef--even though I have no idea what that is! We just salt it ourselves.

I'm adding this picture to the ones I need to decide about blowing up and framing.

I just love it--right down the street from the Dickens Museum. It's so pretty. I'm going to have a hard time deciding.

Here it is--the Rosetta Stone.

Yeah, I wasn't that impressed with it either. I know, history and all that stuff. I find that although I'm not a museum person, I prefer particular exhibits. I'm sure the British museum has an Agatha Christie or Beatles exhibit. That's what I'll look for the next time we're here.

One of my favorite things is the different and fun names of the 100's--maybe 1000's of pubs. 

This one caught my eye. If we hadn't just had lunch, I would have liked to stop in. It's so pretty too!

This was pretty interesting--although we didn't go in. As you can see in the window, it's full of silver. Under the Woodhouse & Son part, it says: The Silver Mousetrap established 1690. OMGosh! That's impressive!

Even more impressive is that they are still selling silver. Nobody here seems to want that stuff anymore. Our kids certainly don't! But 1690--amazing!

I've already mentioned about how when wandering around we stumble on such cool stuff. This is no exception:

This was the head office of W.H. Smith--the book publishers started back in 1828. It was interesting to see this building that was actually damaged by a bomb during the war. We still have some of these stores in our airports.

And, then there's this:

An adorable elephant bronze sculpture. I don't know who "baby Tembo" is, but he sure is cute!

Speaking of cute--how cute is this:

I love the little potty on the bathroom door!

I remember that during  many of my other trips thinking there were no Mexican restaurants here. At home, there is one in every shopping center---probably 5-10 in every square mile. Very popular. Instead, here there were always so many Indian restaurants where we have few. Then I came upon this:

Good to know it's "kick ass!" I wonder if it's the same sort of Mexican we're used to. 

I don't believe I've ever seen an Ethiopian restaurant before. I've certainly never eaten Ethiopian food. I'm not even sure where Ethiopia is--probably Africa. It that's the case (too lazy to look it up), then there is sure to be lots of cumin involved!

What I did observe this trip was so many Italian restaurants. We had a delicious meal on our first day. I don't recall seeing very many on any of my other trips. Also this time, I don't seem to see as many Indian restaurants as I recall.

We went to The Seafood Bar for dinner tonight. It was all very good. I had a watermelon martini. It was pretty good--watermelon and lemonade. Tasty. 

We had planned to go to our hotel rooftop bar, but when we got up there, the outside roof part was all full up. So, we opted just to go to our room and chill. So, here we are!

Well, that's it for today. Tomorrow we head to Nottingham and looking forward to meeting up with Diane and Gren. Until then...