We'd just walked over the Thames River on a pedestrian bridge and were headed for a subway station, on our way back to St. Ermin's, when Andy stopped short. "Hey," he said. "Look at this."
We all crowded around. It was a pole, like a lamp pole, with a dark gray metal cylindrical canister wrapped around it at shoulder height. Just above the canister, on the pole itself, was a prominent lettered sign: "GUM + BUTTS" with an emphatic red arrow pointing down to the canister. There were a few gaping round holes in the canister that begged for gum wads and cigarette butts. There was also a keyhole to a little door near the lower edge, presumably for someone to unlock the canister and empty it (not a job I'd ever apply for).
Definitely one of the oddest things any of us have seen anywhere. Maybe it's odd for London, too, because that was the only one we saw. I'm dubious about the efficacy of gum-plus-butts cans, because there sure were a lot of cigarette butts on the ground. It must work well for gum, though, because as far as I know none of us ever stepped on any gum.
There are other oddities, albeit not unexpected, such as the fact that the Brits all drive on the wrong side of the road. Naturally, the Brits all think everyone else drives on the wrong side of the road, thank you very much.
And then there are the traffic lights. Everywhere I've been except here, the lights flash from red on top to green on the bottom, and then green flashes to yellow in the middle before going back up to red on top.
Here, the lights flash from red to yellow to green, and when green is finished and flashes black up to red, it does not stop at yellow in the middle. The yellow light comes on at the tail end of the red light, so that both of them are lit at the same time for a few seconds, and then both the red and yellow go out and the light flashes green.
I get why you'd flash a warning yellow light to green light drivers so they know they need to stop soon. But I don't get why drivers stopped at a red light need a warning yellow light to know they get to go again soon. Unless it's so they can rev up their engines for a peeling rubber start as soon as the light flashes green. But if the Brits are happy with this system, that's fine with me.
There are more taxis and buses here than private cars. And the subway -- "the tube" -- is a commuter's dream. The trains are state-of-the-art, they go everywhere, they're clean and easy to use, they run every two minutes and they run on time. The Brits may drive on the wrong side of the road but they sure do their subways right.
We haven't seen many bike riders, except at yesterday's marathon. It closed several streets and subway stations, but we got out and about anyway. Andy, Bill and LInda walked over to Buckingham Palace, and then Bill and Lindo took off to find the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. Andy and I took the tube and walked to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, stopping on the way at Nicholson's Doggetts Pub on the Thams at Black Friar Bridge for a late lunch.
I ordered a rillette of ham hock and pistachios, served with toasted sourdough, and Andy got potted Devon crab with ciabatta. Both were very good but the desserts were even better. I went for a lemon tart served with blackberry curd and whipped cream, while Andy decided to try a sticky toffee pudding with custard. Both desserts were classic in the English style. My lemon tart was buttery and intensely lemony, in a short crust with ground nuts and just a hint of sugar. The blackberry curd was very blackberry while the whipped cream was the real thing. Andy's sticky toffee pudding was utter comfort food. We researched it later and found that it's usually made of crumbled sponge cake and a toffee caramel sauce. We thoroughly enjoyed every bite of that lunch.
After lunch we walked along the Thames River walkway up to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre where we met Linda and Bill (they'd walked down from Tower Bridge). The original Globe Theatre building is long gone, but an authentic replica stands in the original spot, complete with thatch roof -- the only thatch roof in all of London today. It's dwarfed by the larger, modern theatre building standing right next to it. All the performances are held in the modern building today.
"Romeo and Juliet" was playing, and I would have loved to see it, but it was sold out. Just another reason to plan another trip to London, and make time to take in a Shakespeare play.
It wasn't a bad day to get out and about -- it was cloudy, chilly and breezy, but we were warm in our jackets and when the sun peeked out every now and then, it was downright delightful. I would have thought the Thames River would brighten up some when the sun came out, but it's a dark muddy green-brown no matter what the weather does. It's a nice walk from the Shakespeare Globe Theatre along the river walkway and across the pedestrian bridge. The walkway and bridge are all in red brick and pavers, nicely landscaped and well-maintained.
It took us more time to walk over the Thames on the pedestrian bridge than it did to ride the tube from the Black Friar station to the St. James Park station. two blocks from our hotel. St. Ermin's really is in a great location for interesting sights in the neighborhood itself and easy access to good local transit to other parts of London.
Today was tour bus day. The company that operated the big red double-decker tour buses in Copenhagen that Linda and I enjoyed does tours in almost all the major European cities, including London. The buses are big red double-deckers here, too, but unlike the ones in Copenhagen, the top decks are open to the elements. This must be lovely in nice weather, but today was a lot colder, windier and wetter than yesterday. Absolutely lousy weather, in other words.
Sill, we spent most of our time up on the top deck, where the views are so much better. One improvement the London tours have over Copenhagen is that, in addition to the taped audio commentaries you can plug into with headphones, some of the tour bus drivers provide live commentary.
The live commentaries are the most informative and enjoyable. We rode past the old Roman part of town, some of the other royal palaces besides Buckingham, St. Paul's Cathedral, even past 221 Baker Street, the address Arthur Conan Doyle gave to Sherlock Holmes' office. There is also a museum dedicated to Sherlock Holmes, "the first museum in the world to be dedicated to a fictional character," our tour bus driver said. He also informed us that Sherlock Holmes often said, "Elementary," and he often said, "My dear Watson," but he never said the two phrases together in the same sentence.
We drove over most of the bridges, too. When we drove over Westminster Bridge and past Parliament, we passed very close to the site of the recent terrorist attack. Andy said there was nothing to show that there'd been an attack there -- no obvious police or guards hanging around, no police tapes or ropes restricting access, nothing at all. Still, I had a spooky feeling as we drove by.
We got off the bus at London Bridge to catch a boat cruise on the Thames. Our boat pilot gave us live commentary, too, and we learned some interesting things about the Thames. It drains into both the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, and its currents are very fast. The flows literally reverse direction every seven hours, in response to the tides. Until the mid 1700s, London Bridge was the only bridge, but there are several today, of course. Going from west to east, there are the Westminster Bridge, Black Friar Bridge, Waterloo Bridge (built by an all-women crew, and the ONLY bridge to be completed on time and under budget), the pedestrian foot bridge, London Bridge, and Tower Bridge. I've missed a bridge or two at either end of that list but Andy assures me I got it right between Westminster and Tower.
Our boat pilot told us that the present London Bridge is the fourth one. The first one fell down, the second one burned down, and the third one was taken apart, shipped to Arizona and put back together at Lake Havasu.
On our way back to the bus after the boat cruise, we passed a couple of roadside vendors advertising Cornish ice cream. Andy was curious, got some to try, and ended up disappointed. It's just soft-serve ice cream like you'd get at Dairy Queen. None of us ever found out what was so "Cornish" about it. Another popular roadside confection is roasted caramelized nuts. They smelled really good but we never got any (another thing to add to the list for our next trip to London).
We got off the bus again at Westminster Abbey, which is only a few blocks from St. Ermin's. It was too late in the day to catch any of the tours or walk into the cathedral (yes, yet another item for our next visit to London), but there was a room open to the public that was part of the original Abbey. We had to walk down three flights of stone and brick steps from the street, plus another few steps, before we reached it. The doorway walls were very thick, and the room was small, with solid stone walls, a high arched ceiling and tiny windows.
It felt old. Ancient. Not prehistorically ancient like I imagine Stonehenge would feel, but heavily historically ancient, with all the weight and power of more than a thousand years of Christianity bearing down.
Big Ben is sort of across the street from Westminster Abbey, so of course Linda and I had to do a squatting selfie with it the background. (Andy says, "Big Ben is not the clock, it's the bell." I say, "Whatever.")
We didn't hear Big Ben, but we did hear the cathedral bells. They started softly and built up into a majestic ringing crescendo that dominated the whole neighborhood. We found a little information center and gift shop, and I was hoping to find some kind of bells -- maybe something I can use in a mosaic.
But just before we followed Linda and Bill Into the shop, my CI beeped the warning that my batteries were about to give out. I'd just put new ones in the day before, too, and hadn't gotten around to replenishing my battery supply in my purse. So Andy and I left the shop to Linda and Bill, and hurried on to St. Ermin's through the cold cold pouring rain. It started coming down just as we found the shop, which would have been a nice place to wait out the downpour.
We'd been misted, drizzled and showered on all day, so I suppose we were lucky we missed the deluge until the end of the day. Even so, we were a whole lot wetter than we felt lucky by the time we finally got to our room and wrung ourselves dry.
Batteries ... I must have an old pack, because this is the third time I've had to change my CI batteries after only a day or so. I replenished the supply in my purse and checked the rest of my stash, relieved to confirm I have plenty to get me through the next two weeks. Andy checked the expiration dates on them for me and they are all new, so I shouldn't have any more problem with batteries dying too soon.
I checked my stash of eyedrops too. I'm right on schedule with those, and have enough extra to get me through some bad days as well as the usual days.
It's like I'm an addict, constantly checking to make sure I have enough batteries and drops for my next fix. Such is life in my lane.
I'm pleased that the CI has performed so well on this trip, with no hitches at all (other than batteries dying before they should). My hearing is nowhere near normal but still, my one CI gives me better hearing than the best hearing I had when I was growing up. It's still an amazing glorious joy for me to hear as well as I do and to be able to function and stay connected to the world.
As for the dry eye, I've had a few very bad days, but nothing unexpected, considering I'm keeping my eyes wide open to take in as much as I can, and straining them past their limits more than usual. Like getting so wrapped up in seeing all the tulips that I forgot to lubricate my eyes enough. They hurt all the time at home anyway, so they may as well hurt here while I have a good time anyway. Along with the drops, I've been putting Dad's handkerchiefs to good use as moist compresses on my eyes every once in a while.
The one thing that is really slowing me down right now is my feet. I think I blew out my arches on that gallop through Schiopel with my backpack on -- it was just too much weight and too hard of a pace for me, even with good shoes and orthotic arch supports.
When I was studying for the bar exam more than twenty years ago, I'd pack twenty pounds of my law books on my back and hike a couple miles from my bar review classes at McGeorge to an office downtown where I studied for the rest of the day. After a couple weeks of that my feet hurt so much I went to see a podiatrist. He told me to stay off my feet, throw away the crappy shoes I was wearing and invest in good quality shoes, always wear good arch supports, and never go barefoot. I've done all that ever since, and made sure I had best quality shoes for this trip. Still, I guess it's all been too much.
So I'm cutting back a bit. We'll see how it goes for the rest of the trip.
Walking to our "Farewell to London" dinner tonight wasn't too bad. I gave my feet a short rest and a bit of a massage (and I took a few Ibuprofen), and it was just a couple blocks. Plus, the rain stopped. We went to Bistro 51 at the St. James Court Hotel. The best way I can describe the kind of cuisine at Bistro 51 is to describe my own dinner. I had a very French bouillabaisse, a very Indian chicken curry, and a classic English dessert of apple tart with custard. I forget what Andy had, but he said he wished he'd ordered the bouillabaisse, too. It was all excellent.
All in all, British food has been a nice surprise, an interesting collection of cuisines and flavors along with the traditional British fare. Like the rillette of ham hock and pistachios along with the classic English lemon tart with blackberry curd and whipped cream, or sticky toffee pudding. Or Linda's fish and chips and my fresh greens and quinoa salad. The fresh pea and ham soup Linda and I had for dinner the first night we were here was wonderful, too.
I am totally enjoying my "palate-ary" pleasures on this trip, but I have had to make one major concession. My digestive system simply does not like bread and cheese for breakfast, no matter how fabulously wonderful all the breads and cheeses are here, or how invitingly they are presented at the daily breakfast buffets. I'm doing the organic yogurt and fresh fruit thing every morning now, and will stick to that breakfast for the rest of the trip.
Tomorrow Linda and Bill are renting a car and driving to Bath for a few days. Andy and I, meanwhile, are out of here early to catch our Eurostar train to Paris for a couple days before moving on down to Lyon for our Road Scholar French cooking tour.
Short shots:
London taxi drivers:
An interesting factoid our tour bus driver shared with us today is that taxi drivers here have to memorize 25,000 streets, and are not allowed to take more than five passengers at a time.
Honeybees:
St. Ermin's leaves cute chocolate honeybees on the bed pillows at night. The chocolate body is covered in gold and black striped foil, and the wrapping extends out to make gold wings. Andy found out from the hotel information brochure that St. Ermin's keeps beehives on the premises and collects the honey.
We would definitely love to stay here again. The rooms are lovely, spacious and nicely appointed (including plush thick Turkish terry robes), and -- yes! -- the windows open.
Nicholson's Doggetts pub:
I wonder if they're related to The Feathers pub that is close to our hotel. At least, their restrooms are practically twins, only at Nicholson's, I went UP two flights of stairs, then through a door to the little tiny cubicle to the other door, and then another door into the room with two sinks and mirrors, with the platform at the end and two toilet stalls.
This time, however, both toilets were working, the towel dispenser was full, and I was more impressed.
(There had to be at least one little toilet story here, after the last letter....)
Stonehenge:
Stonehenge was one of the things I really wanted to see, but had to accept that it was just not going to happen on this trip. So it's one of the major items for the next visit to London. Linda's thing that just wasn't going to happen was the trip to Delft that we'd planned while we were in Amsterdam. When we had to give a day to shut down time, we had to choose betwee Delft and the tulips.
St James Court Hotel:
St. Ermin's is lovely, as I've said, a very nice four-star hotel. St. James is a five-star hotel, and I'm envious of my friends Rita and John, who will be staying there later this year to do a ten-day tour of all things Winston Churchill.
We all crowded around. It was a pole, like a lamp pole, with a dark gray metal cylindrical canister wrapped around it at shoulder height. Just above the canister, on the pole itself, was a prominent lettered sign: "GUM + BUTTS" with an emphatic red arrow pointing down to the canister. There were a few gaping round holes in the canister that begged for gum wads and cigarette butts. There was also a keyhole to a little door near the lower edge, presumably for someone to unlock the canister and empty it (not a job I'd ever apply for).
Definitely one of the oddest things any of us have seen anywhere. Maybe it's odd for London, too, because that was the only one we saw. I'm dubious about the efficacy of gum-plus-butts cans, because there sure were a lot of cigarette butts on the ground. It must work well for gum, though, because as far as I know none of us ever stepped on any gum.
There are other oddities, albeit not unexpected, such as the fact that the Brits all drive on the wrong side of the road. Naturally, the Brits all think everyone else drives on the wrong side of the road, thank you very much.
And then there are the traffic lights. Everywhere I've been except here, the lights flash from red on top to green on the bottom, and then green flashes to yellow in the middle before going back up to red on top.
Here, the lights flash from red to yellow to green, and when green is finished and flashes black up to red, it does not stop at yellow in the middle. The yellow light comes on at the tail end of the red light, so that both of them are lit at the same time for a few seconds, and then both the red and yellow go out and the light flashes green.
I get why you'd flash a warning yellow light to green light drivers so they know they need to stop soon. But I don't get why drivers stopped at a red light need a warning yellow light to know they get to go again soon. Unless it's so they can rev up their engines for a peeling rubber start as soon as the light flashes green. But if the Brits are happy with this system, that's fine with me.
There are more taxis and buses here than private cars. And the subway -- "the tube" -- is a commuter's dream. The trains are state-of-the-art, they go everywhere, they're clean and easy to use, they run every two minutes and they run on time. The Brits may drive on the wrong side of the road but they sure do their subways right.
We haven't seen many bike riders, except at yesterday's marathon. It closed several streets and subway stations, but we got out and about anyway. Andy, Bill and LInda walked over to Buckingham Palace, and then Bill and Lindo took off to find the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. Andy and I took the tube and walked to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, stopping on the way at Nicholson's Doggetts Pub on the Thams at Black Friar Bridge for a late lunch.
I ordered a rillette of ham hock and pistachios, served with toasted sourdough, and Andy got potted Devon crab with ciabatta. Both were very good but the desserts were even better. I went for a lemon tart served with blackberry curd and whipped cream, while Andy decided to try a sticky toffee pudding with custard. Both desserts were classic in the English style. My lemon tart was buttery and intensely lemony, in a short crust with ground nuts and just a hint of sugar. The blackberry curd was very blackberry while the whipped cream was the real thing. Andy's sticky toffee pudding was utter comfort food. We researched it later and found that it's usually made of crumbled sponge cake and a toffee caramel sauce. We thoroughly enjoyed every bite of that lunch.
After lunch we walked along the Thames River walkway up to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre where we met Linda and Bill (they'd walked down from Tower Bridge). The original Globe Theatre building is long gone, but an authentic replica stands in the original spot, complete with thatch roof -- the only thatch roof in all of London today. It's dwarfed by the larger, modern theatre building standing right next to it. All the performances are held in the modern building today.
"Romeo and Juliet" was playing, and I would have loved to see it, but it was sold out. Just another reason to plan another trip to London, and make time to take in a Shakespeare play.
It wasn't a bad day to get out and about -- it was cloudy, chilly and breezy, but we were warm in our jackets and when the sun peeked out every now and then, it was downright delightful. I would have thought the Thames River would brighten up some when the sun came out, but it's a dark muddy green-brown no matter what the weather does. It's a nice walk from the Shakespeare Globe Theatre along the river walkway and across the pedestrian bridge. The walkway and bridge are all in red brick and pavers, nicely landscaped and well-maintained.
It took us more time to walk over the Thames on the pedestrian bridge than it did to ride the tube from the Black Friar station to the St. James Park station. two blocks from our hotel. St. Ermin's really is in a great location for interesting sights in the neighborhood itself and easy access to good local transit to other parts of London.
Today was tour bus day. The company that operated the big red double-decker tour buses in Copenhagen that Linda and I enjoyed does tours in almost all the major European cities, including London. The buses are big red double-deckers here, too, but unlike the ones in Copenhagen, the top decks are open to the elements. This must be lovely in nice weather, but today was a lot colder, windier and wetter than yesterday. Absolutely lousy weather, in other words.
Sill, we spent most of our time up on the top deck, where the views are so much better. One improvement the London tours have over Copenhagen is that, in addition to the taped audio commentaries you can plug into with headphones, some of the tour bus drivers provide live commentary.
The live commentaries are the most informative and enjoyable. We rode past the old Roman part of town, some of the other royal palaces besides Buckingham, St. Paul's Cathedral, even past 221 Baker Street, the address Arthur Conan Doyle gave to Sherlock Holmes' office. There is also a museum dedicated to Sherlock Holmes, "the first museum in the world to be dedicated to a fictional character," our tour bus driver said. He also informed us that Sherlock Holmes often said, "Elementary," and he often said, "My dear Watson," but he never said the two phrases together in the same sentence.
We drove over most of the bridges, too. When we drove over Westminster Bridge and past Parliament, we passed very close to the site of the recent terrorist attack. Andy said there was nothing to show that there'd been an attack there -- no obvious police or guards hanging around, no police tapes or ropes restricting access, nothing at all. Still, I had a spooky feeling as we drove by.
We got off the bus at London Bridge to catch a boat cruise on the Thames. Our boat pilot gave us live commentary, too, and we learned some interesting things about the Thames. It drains into both the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, and its currents are very fast. The flows literally reverse direction every seven hours, in response to the tides. Until the mid 1700s, London Bridge was the only bridge, but there are several today, of course. Going from west to east, there are the Westminster Bridge, Black Friar Bridge, Waterloo Bridge (built by an all-women crew, and the ONLY bridge to be completed on time and under budget), the pedestrian foot bridge, London Bridge, and Tower Bridge. I've missed a bridge or two at either end of that list but Andy assures me I got it right between Westminster and Tower.
Our boat pilot told us that the present London Bridge is the fourth one. The first one fell down, the second one burned down, and the third one was taken apart, shipped to Arizona and put back together at Lake Havasu.
On our way back to the bus after the boat cruise, we passed a couple of roadside vendors advertising Cornish ice cream. Andy was curious, got some to try, and ended up disappointed. It's just soft-serve ice cream like you'd get at Dairy Queen. None of us ever found out what was so "Cornish" about it. Another popular roadside confection is roasted caramelized nuts. They smelled really good but we never got any (another thing to add to the list for our next trip to London).
We got off the bus again at Westminster Abbey, which is only a few blocks from St. Ermin's. It was too late in the day to catch any of the tours or walk into the cathedral (yes, yet another item for our next visit to London), but there was a room open to the public that was part of the original Abbey. We had to walk down three flights of stone and brick steps from the street, plus another few steps, before we reached it. The doorway walls were very thick, and the room was small, with solid stone walls, a high arched ceiling and tiny windows.
It felt old. Ancient. Not prehistorically ancient like I imagine Stonehenge would feel, but heavily historically ancient, with all the weight and power of more than a thousand years of Christianity bearing down.
Big Ben is sort of across the street from Westminster Abbey, so of course Linda and I had to do a squatting selfie with it the background. (Andy says, "Big Ben is not the clock, it's the bell." I say, "Whatever.")
We didn't hear Big Ben, but we did hear the cathedral bells. They started softly and built up into a majestic ringing crescendo that dominated the whole neighborhood. We found a little information center and gift shop, and I was hoping to find some kind of bells -- maybe something I can use in a mosaic.
But just before we followed Linda and Bill Into the shop, my CI beeped the warning that my batteries were about to give out. I'd just put new ones in the day before, too, and hadn't gotten around to replenishing my battery supply in my purse. So Andy and I left the shop to Linda and Bill, and hurried on to St. Ermin's through the cold cold pouring rain. It started coming down just as we found the shop, which would have been a nice place to wait out the downpour.
We'd been misted, drizzled and showered on all day, so I suppose we were lucky we missed the deluge until the end of the day. Even so, we were a whole lot wetter than we felt lucky by the time we finally got to our room and wrung ourselves dry.
Batteries ... I must have an old pack, because this is the third time I've had to change my CI batteries after only a day or so. I replenished the supply in my purse and checked the rest of my stash, relieved to confirm I have plenty to get me through the next two weeks. Andy checked the expiration dates on them for me and they are all new, so I shouldn't have any more problem with batteries dying too soon.
I checked my stash of eyedrops too. I'm right on schedule with those, and have enough extra to get me through some bad days as well as the usual days.
It's like I'm an addict, constantly checking to make sure I have enough batteries and drops for my next fix. Such is life in my lane.
I'm pleased that the CI has performed so well on this trip, with no hitches at all (other than batteries dying before they should). My hearing is nowhere near normal but still, my one CI gives me better hearing than the best hearing I had when I was growing up. It's still an amazing glorious joy for me to hear as well as I do and to be able to function and stay connected to the world.
As for the dry eye, I've had a few very bad days, but nothing unexpected, considering I'm keeping my eyes wide open to take in as much as I can, and straining them past their limits more than usual. Like getting so wrapped up in seeing all the tulips that I forgot to lubricate my eyes enough. They hurt all the time at home anyway, so they may as well hurt here while I have a good time anyway. Along with the drops, I've been putting Dad's handkerchiefs to good use as moist compresses on my eyes every once in a while.
The one thing that is really slowing me down right now is my feet. I think I blew out my arches on that gallop through Schiopel with my backpack on -- it was just too much weight and too hard of a pace for me, even with good shoes and orthotic arch supports.
When I was studying for the bar exam more than twenty years ago, I'd pack twenty pounds of my law books on my back and hike a couple miles from my bar review classes at McGeorge to an office downtown where I studied for the rest of the day. After a couple weeks of that my feet hurt so much I went to see a podiatrist. He told me to stay off my feet, throw away the crappy shoes I was wearing and invest in good quality shoes, always wear good arch supports, and never go barefoot. I've done all that ever since, and made sure I had best quality shoes for this trip. Still, I guess it's all been too much.
So I'm cutting back a bit. We'll see how it goes for the rest of the trip.
Walking to our "Farewell to London" dinner tonight wasn't too bad. I gave my feet a short rest and a bit of a massage (and I took a few Ibuprofen), and it was just a couple blocks. Plus, the rain stopped. We went to Bistro 51 at the St. James Court Hotel. The best way I can describe the kind of cuisine at Bistro 51 is to describe my own dinner. I had a very French bouillabaisse, a very Indian chicken curry, and a classic English dessert of apple tart with custard. I forget what Andy had, but he said he wished he'd ordered the bouillabaisse, too. It was all excellent.
All in all, British food has been a nice surprise, an interesting collection of cuisines and flavors along with the traditional British fare. Like the rillette of ham hock and pistachios along with the classic English lemon tart with blackberry curd and whipped cream, or sticky toffee pudding. Or Linda's fish and chips and my fresh greens and quinoa salad. The fresh pea and ham soup Linda and I had for dinner the first night we were here was wonderful, too.
I am totally enjoying my "palate-ary" pleasures on this trip, but I have had to make one major concession. My digestive system simply does not like bread and cheese for breakfast, no matter how fabulously wonderful all the breads and cheeses are here, or how invitingly they are presented at the daily breakfast buffets. I'm doing the organic yogurt and fresh fruit thing every morning now, and will stick to that breakfast for the rest of the trip.
Tomorrow Linda and Bill are renting a car and driving to Bath for a few days. Andy and I, meanwhile, are out of here early to catch our Eurostar train to Paris for a couple days before moving on down to Lyon for our Road Scholar French cooking tour.
Short shots:
London taxi drivers:
An interesting factoid our tour bus driver shared with us today is that taxi drivers here have to memorize 25,000 streets, and are not allowed to take more than five passengers at a time.
Honeybees:
St. Ermin's leaves cute chocolate honeybees on the bed pillows at night. The chocolate body is covered in gold and black striped foil, and the wrapping extends out to make gold wings. Andy found out from the hotel information brochure that St. Ermin's keeps beehives on the premises and collects the honey.
We would definitely love to stay here again. The rooms are lovely, spacious and nicely appointed (including plush thick Turkish terry robes), and -- yes! -- the windows open.
Nicholson's Doggetts pub:
I wonder if they're related to The Feathers pub that is close to our hotel. At least, their restrooms are practically twins, only at Nicholson's, I went UP two flights of stairs, then through a door to the little tiny cubicle to the other door, and then another door into the room with two sinks and mirrors, with the platform at the end and two toilet stalls.
This time, however, both toilets were working, the towel dispenser was full, and I was more impressed.
(There had to be at least one little toilet story here, after the last letter....)
Stonehenge:
Stonehenge was one of the things I really wanted to see, but had to accept that it was just not going to happen on this trip. So it's one of the major items for the next visit to London. Linda's thing that just wasn't going to happen was the trip to Delft that we'd planned while we were in Amsterdam. When we had to give a day to shut down time, we had to choose betwee Delft and the tulips.
St James Court Hotel:
St. Ermin's is lovely, as I've said, a very nice four-star hotel. St. James is a five-star hotel, and I'm envious of my friends Rita and John, who will be staying there later this year to do a ten-day tour of all things Winston Churchill.
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