Aug 9,2019
Another sunny day, we have really had good weather. A continental breakfast in the hotel…I’m never sure what that means, but today is was hard boiled eggs, yogurt, croissants, juice and many earnest looking cereals. Then, off to find the hop-on, hop-off bus. We managed to make almost one complete circuit before boredom set in, but managed to see Buckingham Palace, St Paul’s, Trafalgar Square and the Globe Theatre as well as driving across Tower Bridge (which E, like 90% of the adults in the world thought was London Bridge). It should be London Bridge, it’s far more attractive and iconic than the real London Bridge.
Then a need for refreshment so off to a very expensive coffee shop to use the bathroom, have coffee and feed the girl. A lemon meringue tart seemed to do the trick. I always forget about the prevalence of cake in England – for every occasion and at every price. Then we walked through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace. I am always surprised that it really doesn’t look that special, although the horse guards outside are very nice. E patted the horse, and I asked the guard if the horse enjoyed it. The guard said the horse didn’t mind as long as he could stand there and doze. There was a second horse guard on the other side of the gate, but he didn’t like to be petted. In fact, from the look on his face, and the snorting and carrying on, I suspect he didn’t much like people. I talked to his rider, who said he was “just learning”. I wouldn’t care to stand there all day long and have little sweaty hands poking my nose…
Thanks to the wonders of technology, E found a YouTube video of a special watermelon ice cream dessert, and that became our mission for the day. We ended up taking a taxi from Buckingham Palace because we couldn’t figure out how to find it, and it turned out to be right behind Victoria Station, where we’ve been about 4 times already. GPS must have changed everything in London. Many streets are discontinuous or only a few blocks tucked behind something else. Sometimes you have to drive through an arch in a building to get to the street or lane behind. No wonder the people who laid out prairie towns were such fans of long straight roads.
The watermelon creation was 7.50 GBP which is about 13 CAD – definitely the most expensive ice cream I’ve ever bought. It was a hollowed-out slide of watermelon, dotted with chocolate and filled with watermelon sorbet, called what-a-melon. The thing that I thought was the oddest, however, was that there was a surcharge for eating in. Her dessert was about 1.50 GBP extra for eating in instead of taking out. My already hyper-expensive lemonade was an extra pound for drinking it there instead of take-out. Hard to understand that logic.
Our plan was to go to Harrod’s next but when we got there E was highly disappointed; she thought it was going to be an interesting store like Shoppers Drug Mart. I’ve always found it fascinating in a slightly bizarre manner. Quite ordinary looking people buying cuts of the most expensive beef I’ve ever seen, 24 GBP (36 CAD for a small box tea bags). I have always wondered if the people buying groceries are actually cooks or housekeepers for rich people?
We went to a pharmacy to get some ibuprofen, but after I asked the pharmacist for some, she wouldn’t sell me the pills because they were only for people 12 and over. The liquid for the under-twelves was strawberry flavoured; E didn’t think she could swallow it, and I didn’t think I could make her. When I asked for ibuprofen for myself, she still wouldn’t sell it to me because she knew I was just going to give it to the child. No other solution than to go back to the hotel.
After a nap and some ibuprofen, everything seemed improved, so we decided to go out for dinner. The closest restaurant was Indian, so we decided to try that because mango lassi is one of E’s favourites. No lassi; according to the waiter, the lassi was “no longer nice”. After we ate, she decided that she was recovered enough to eat some ice cream, and ordered chocolate samosas with ice cream. “Oh no”, said the waiter, “we don’t have that anymore.” Not to be defeated, we walked down the street to the corner store and got ice cream.
As we were walking around today, it was interesting to notice things that seem odd to our way of thinking. Sometimes in one building there are two hotels, or a hotel and some apartments. Figuring out the property taxes must be quite an are. The underground is wonderfully diverse – well dressed people in suits and briefcases sitting next to punk rockers. Everyone understands the body language of how much space is appropriate to use up. I think we haven’t had the LRT in Edmonton for long enough to have developed the subway culture.
We visited a public library, but I found it very depressing – it looked like someone who hadn’t been to a library in my lifetime might expect it to look. I interviewed the librarian and that was even more depressing. The non-fiction is arranged on a mezzanine reached by a very steep staircase with a closed gate at the bottom. People are allowed to go up there but only if they are adults and have a serious reason. Since the gate is behind the desk, you would have to be intrepid to attempt it. London public libraries don’t recognize library cards from across the city – they only accept the ones from their borough which is like a riding in the city. A couple of the libraries are bravely experimenting with card recognition with the borough next door. Oh, the things we take for granted…
I am always amazed to think of the number of people sheltering down in the “tube” during the war, and how frightening it must have been to not know what was going on up at ground level. E is completely uninterested in that, and has only the vaguest understanding of what a war is. That is an amazing thing, for a child to grow up without any experience of war or what it does to people. I hope that is true for the rest of her life.