Steps today: 23 459
It was a rainy day today so we did not plan much sight seeing – and by extension, didn’t need an early wake up call either so I recovered easily from my late night.
Our room is great, we have all the room we need, we’re not in each other’s way, the beds are very comfortable… we only have 2 complaints:
1- IT’S FUCKING A FURNACE!!!! OMG it’s so stuffy! My husband would HATE it. I am finding it though myself, and I am thanking God daily that it’s not humid outside which would make it worse!! As it is, we keep the windows open all night and since we are on the 5th floor it’s pretty quiet. We also have a fan to help circulate that bit of fresh cool air which is helping enormously. We are sleeping like logs so overall it’s ok.
2- The shower doesn’t drain… or rather, takes about an hour or so. I turn the water off between soaping up and rinsing which helps, but the threat of the shower overflowing is ever present if we take our showers back to back.
We were on the road this morning by about 9:45 (crazy late by my standards, but acceptable given the late nights) and walked from our hotel to Notting Hill to explore the neighbourhood. The weather forecast called for rain in the PM so this was a good destination for a morning outing.
From there, were went to Portobello Market which was a first for me – this is my 5th visit to London but since I am not a shopper I never bothered before. It was CRAZY PACKED!! but worth a stroll through.
Vesna who is a shopper (and who LOVED the market) described our visit as a whirlwind tour while I was impressed with how slow I was going! ha! Still, I’m sincerely glad she liked it – the whole point of this trip is to introduce her to The Wonders of London. Needless to say I didn’t by anything… she bought a sweater.
As we were walking along, we noticed a huge glut of people all taking pictures of a particular store front. It think it was the book store that Hugh Grant owned in the movie ‘Notting Hill’ with Julia Roberts… but I barely remember the film so I can’t be sure; still, I took a picture too!
We had lunch at Harrods – I wanted her to see it because I was sure it would blow her mind… and it did! Her head was on a swivel and her jaw was on the floor. The food halls really are impressive.
It was a nice lunch but I am upset with myself over a stupid incident. The waitress asked if we wanted water and because I was distracted I replied “still” instead of “tap” and we were given 2 small bottles of Harrods water…. that cost 9£!!!!!!!! I drank every. last. drop. London is expensive, I should know better than to order while chatting.
Ironically, we had lunch at the same place and sat at the very same table as my husband and I did when we had lunch there last spring.
After lunch, we rode the Egyptian Escalator and went to see the creepy Diana & Dodi display at the bottom.
Since it was raining, and because Vesna wanted to do some shopping, and because Harrods’ prices are prohibitive, we set off to check out Selfridges. It was a mad house – SO SO SO many people and so crowded and busly… it wasn’t pleasant. We gave up and went for a walk.
(Royal Arcade)
It was on and off rain, so I didn’t stop all that much to take pictures and although I did have an umbrella I was too lazy to bring my rain jacket so I got pretty wet - I hope my shoes are dry by tomorrow!
We stopped at a French café to recharge our batteries and afterwards since the rain seemed to have stopped we started walking home (it was around 6:30PM by then)
Unfortunately the rain started up again and so we gave up on the walk and just took the tube directly to the pub near our hotel to finish off the day there.
The sun is back in the forecast for tomorrow, so I’m excited to get back to some good sight seeing! It’s almost midnight now, so I have to get to bed.
Bye for now!
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