Chapter 12 Our own personal guide

Today was the day we were going to meet the man who was going to give us our own personal tour. We were waiting for him when he came into the hotel. He introduced himself and asked what we had done already in London. Right away we all could tell we were going to get along well.

We decided he would show us St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. So off we went to the tube station to get to our first destination. Mind you, we were heading out at 9 in the morning. We were hoping the rush hour commute would be over, but we caught the tail end of it. We were packed like sardines in the tube. I couldn’t believe they let that many in at one time. Our guides name was Peter and he was charming and very funny. He is not originally from London, turns out, he was born in Wales. As we were getting to the tube station, Peter told us that it is so weird how no one talks to anyone on the tube. He never could understand why and he is so full of energy and life, he always gets on and says Hi! He said everyone always looks at him like he’s lost his mind!

We got on the tube and talked the whole way between the three of us. We did get strange looks, but I agree with Peter, people should be nice and friendly. I guess I am opposite of the people in the big cities, I don’t trust those that can’t look you in the eye and say Hi! and the people in the cities don’t trust those that do look at you. Just another reason why I am probably not cut out for city life.

We got to our destination at St Paul’s Cathedral. I let Sam and Peter get to know each other better, as they may see each other again, and I most likely will not. They had the same sense of humor and got along famously. He took us all over the Cathedral and explained everything so well. He is very knowledgeable about London and its history. The Cathedral has a book of all the soldiers’ names from the USA that lost their lives in WW!!. They turn the page to a new one every day, so they could remember the soldiers that died saving their country.

This is also the Cathedral where Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married (I think, I’ve seen and learned so much that it all starts to run together and today I saw both Cathedral’s the royals use). This Cathedral has a dome and is much more colorful than most of their Cathedrals. It reminded me more of the Churches and Cathedrals of Italy.

We left that Cathedral and went for a walk along the river to the next destination. We crossed the Wobbly Bridge, so named because when it was first opened as the only pedestrian only bridge and the people started to cross it, it started wobbly so much, people fell off it. That was in the year 2000. They were going to name it the Millennium Bridge, but the Wobbly  Bridge stuck. Peter pointed out the theaters and showed Sam the hotel where the company uses.

We stopped for coffee and a chat and then continued on. The walk was beautiful and it was nice to have someone with us that could explain everything to us. We saw the Eye again and Big Ben and the Westminster Abbey. We just looked at the outside and did not go in. Peter was very knowledgeable in this as well.

He took us to our bus stop where we bid farewell to him and got on one of the double Decker buses. I sat in the top, just because I thought it would be cool. We got off at our stop and ate lunch at The Crypt. It’s kind of creepy how the English like to build café’s in the crypts. After lunch we went to Harrods of London. This is a very posh store. But it was fun to look in there. The whole neighborhood by it is very posh (ritzy and expensive).

After Harrods we decided to go to the V and A museum (Victoria and Albert). Inside we looked at the exhibits for awhile. There were a lot of marble statues from Italy and I really enjoyed that. We were trying to get everything done, as the strike was due to begin tonight and we wanted to get to our area before then.

We were pretty much tired and headed back to the hotel to freshen up. We went souvenir shopping and then came back and dropped everything off. We had to be selective as we don’t want to go over in weight for our luggage.

We went looking for a free house for Sam’s particular beer that we haven’t found yet. We tried one were told that we would only find it on the other side of the river, so we said we would just stay there and eat and had several pints of other local beers.

Tomorrow we will attempt to take the Express train to the airport and catch a shuttle bus to our next hotel. The strike is going to cause massive disruption and we have no idea how hard it will be to make this journey. We have tickets to go see The Harry Potter Studio, and this is going to be a long day spent on the transportation system of London. Wish us luck!