Thursday, August 13, 2009

Day 23, Wednesday August 12th. London, England

Time to head into the city!!! I got to spend a little bit of time with Rhys and Kate while I ate some cereal and I also chatted with Diana's husband Julian (he was out with work late last night). I then made a game plan, discussed it with Julian, called Buckingham Palace to get tickets for the tour and headed out. It takes about 35 mins on the train to get into London and I then had to figure out the tube lines. I of course ended up on a different tube then I originally wanted, so instead of going to the Old Baily 1st, I went to the Tower of London, it's the furthest away, so a good start. I also walked across the tower bridge and then along the south banks of Thames. I then walked back across a bridge, The London Bridge and jumped on the tube to Westminster, where I got to see Big Ben and the Parliament building. It was so exciting. I had a 2:15 time scheduled to see Buckingham Palace and I didn't want to miss it, I still had to pick up my tickets, so I walked along St. James park and headed straight for the ticket center, just in time to get in line at 2:05!! The Palace was fantastic, but I hear there are other Palaces that a little better. Oh well. So by the time I left the palace, I decided that since Hard Rock was so close, it was time to hit it. This is the VERY 1ST HRC, so it was really cool to me. The cafe and the store are in 2 different buildings, which seemed odd, but the store was HUGE in this one. Of course the novelty of this being the 1st draws alot of attention. The other cool thing to me was "the Vault", this was an area that they keep some really expensive guitars and other things from people like Lennon and Hendrix and it really was a vault for the Royal Family at one time, sweet. It was a small room, but really big for a vault and I had a couple of pictures of me taken on a couch, holding a guitar used by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and of course, I'm holding it wrong, hail the dork!

Once out of the Vault, I stepped outside to a rain storm, open umbrella, snap! LOL it had gotten a little bent in Wales, I guess and it wasn't going to make it through another storm. It worked well enough, I kinda used my hand to hold it up. Funny stuff though. It didn't last long and I headed over to Hyde Park while it rained anyways. The Diana, Princess of Wales memorial fountain is in Hyde Park and I wanted to see it really bad, it actually was quite a disappointment. The Queen, I'm sure, was in charge of putting as far away from the Palace as she could in that park, yikes it was far. It's a sad little memorial, that didn't really move me AT ALL, this, 2 weeks before the 12th year anniversary. So I slowly walked back to the tube to go see the Old Baily. I pretty much bounced around to all sorts of different spots in the city. I really did have a plan, but that went to hell, quickly. Along with the Old Baily, I got to see St. Paul's Cathedral as well. I didn't go inside either, because it was nearing 8 pm, but I enjoyed seeing them from the street. I then jumped on a tube and a train back to Harpenden to have dinner with Diana and Julian.

By now, my foot was to the point of needing to be iced, hmmm, I think I see a Dr's appointment in my near future. I did have an MRI performed on this same foot a couple of months ago, all due to an old "wedding shoe" incident. So I shouldn't be surprised by the pain. After ice, I soaked in a bath and hit the sack! AHHH

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