ATW in 45. #46

There it is. All in the title. I miscounted. See the cashier for a refund. But, remember, tomorrow is free beer day. And if u get your refund today u miss out. Your choice.

It’s the penultimate (look it up) day of vacay. What to do? Well, eat breakfast. For the first and last time we had morning eats at the hostels downstairs kitchen/bar. Only £2.50. Worth about $1.50. Not bad but definitely not good either. Limited food and what was there not tasty. Too British. They have a rep for bad food. And it’s deserved. I think back to Madrid where the hostel had the same deal @ €4 and it was excellent. It’s wondrous how one place can be so awesome and another so bad. I am assuming a lack of care.

This trip to London, remember we started here, reminds us what we need or want to do. The inability to easily come back focuses what you do. So we went to Whitehall for the changing of the guard. Something I did 45 years ago. It’s better in one sense than Buckingham Palace because you can get very close to the guard and horses at Whitehall and there is no crowd to deal with. Also, you can check it off ur to do list. It’s something people always ask about. And? I will admit, it’s not very exciting.

We wandered to Westminster Abbey to just take a look. It’s .2 miles from Whitehall. Another old church. Enough of that for all.

Marika has an online class. She had an assignment due today. So what to do? Well, go to Starbucks for WiFi. Which we did. And we all sat there for an hour while she finished it. The Starbucks has no toilet so we all had to pop across the street to do our business. Some more than others. Thanks to the pub, The Feathers, for free use of there facilities.

After her scholastic achievements were done it was time for lunch. One thing, while sitting in Starbucks I tried to check in for my and Em’s flight Thursday. I got mine online. Sadly, Emily’s was nowhere to be found. I had to call Icelandairs customer “service” slowline. Those of you familiar know that Icelandair is the antichrist. Unfortunately tickets are non refundable. So I gotta deal with the devil. I called. Last time was a 2 hour hold. I got on hold, I was #32. Sounds good. So Marika finished up. We walked off to find lunch. I am on hold.

We found a street market with several food stalls and decided to each find their own food. I didn’t, I’m on hold, hard to eat and handle the phone. Everyone else got food. And ate. I’m on hold. After only 55 mins I spoke to a nice lady about my ticket. Seems there was a misspelling on her name. So sorry. Fuck you. I did not say it. Out loud. Got it all checked in. She told me they would prob try to shake me down for 24€ for my awesome exit row seats. Fuck them. 15 min call with them tells you why there hold time is so bad.

Off the phone! We went to a small park and I ate my lunch. I felt good.

What to do now? Well, Borough Market was a must see according to many. I have noticed that every town we have visited has a central market like this. Florence, Madrid and Rome. Probably built for tourists I am sure. Though, as a tourist, I enjoy them. It’s loke the one night of the week in Sacramento when all the food trucks park in one place. Only every day. Of course, I’m not here every day so it seems special to me.

We spent much time wandering the market. Lots of different foods and we had sadly just eaten our “late lunch with airlines” at the street vendors. But, there were a few things which were a must. The kids found a cider vendor and his cider, apple, was not sweet. Mostly dry and sour. A much needed change. Another distiller has some rhubarb ginger gin. Win!! Can’t buy a bottle. No room in the suitcase and too much liquid for carryon. They will ship. I have the perfect cocktail for it. Reminded me of the rose gin with strawberries I had in duty free the other day. Actually taste good. There were quite a few bakers, brownies 3 for 5, and meat vendors with sausage and meat sticks. Like Slim Jim heaven only good. A few dry goods stores, we even found a place selling green egg BBQs and accessories. That was weird. All in all, was worth the trip. The open air market shuts down promptly at 5, security actually told us time to go. Just like the Tower. Twice in one trip. We are rule breakers. Well, I am. Emily is a rule follower.

We had decided earlier this week we should go to the movies. 3 of us wanted to see the new Mamma Mia. The fourth tagged along. He can see MI Tom cruise another time. We Ubered from the market to a cinema (not theater) that was close to our hostel. It has taken a full day to figure out how to track down theaters and showtimes. These people are crazy. But we got there. Well, I must say, this was a bit of a shock. The place looked normal, like any movie house. But there was a significant difference. In the US I would normally pay $35-40 for four adults. Here £75.50. That’s $99.13 after conversion. Holy hell. One hundred dollars for a movie?!!?! My god. They could have at least pre lubed with that yellow Pennzoil they put on the popcorn. Wow. The silver lining? Snacks were a little less than back home. And they had ice cream (31 flavors even) which was also fairly priced and generously served. So I wasn’t totally hosed. Only 90%. The movie was a 7 out of 10 if you are an ABBA fan. If not, maybe a four or five. When I was here 45 years ago my Dad took me to a movie in Piccadilly Circus. Starring Lee Marvin and Gary Grimes. Which I still remember clearly. So I gotta go do it with my adult children. Never know what you will remember.

We got out around 10. Had not eaten dinner and I figured home to bed. Then Michael says hey we haven’t had dinner yet. Really. So off to Dishoom Indian. Yes, Indian food. Bowel loosening magical food. This place is the one I wanted to pick when they picked the last place. The one that caused all of us to look for restrooms all day long. Dishoom was .1 miles from the theater. A quick comparison, it’s not run by Indians, it has a bar, and today I don’t have the runs. That’s a win win. Food was great. My cocktail was great. As was Emily’s. Gets no better. This whole past month I could not find a decent cocktail save my daily, almost, Aperol spritz. So this place made me happy. At the end of a fine meal we got kicked out nicely. They close at 11. It was 1130. They had turned off a few lights.

We called for Uber on a cold deserted London street at damn near midnight. It came up, 18 minutes to pickup. So we wandered. Hung with drunks and homeless. It was cold. And waited. Uber did finally show up. And he complained about having to have driven so far for a nine minute fare. To which I say, to myself, too bad dickhead get a different job. Wait, that’s mean. But on point.

Quick drive to home and we really all just passed out. We used up our final day of the Grand Tour from beginning to end. Tomorrow, we all start the big move home.