London-Day 3

Wow! Let's just say upfront that I am Ti-Red tonight and between being tired and blogging on an iPad, this probably isn't going to be the best post ever- word.

Today was really good. The weather was absolutely perfect (rain is coming tomorrow so we enjoyed it today!) and we got a lot done. We started out by visiting a grad school this morning. 

Goldsmiths is here in London. I sat on a bench on campus while Adrienne met with someone from the Linguinstics department.  Neither of us were very impressed -sketchy neighborhood, no financial aid, no help in finding housing, didn't want her resume... Really very little positive. So, she kept her disappointment in check pretty well and we went off in search of something classier.

We headed back into central London and went to Trafalger Square....

Where we took in a couple of museums and ate lunch...

Handel!!

We then made our way back to our hotel so we could wash up and rest up. FYI- London is far better than Paris or Rome in regards to restrooms! Here they are easy to find and you rarely have to pay to use them. Now if they could just get a couple of trash cans for me so I wouldn't have to carry my trash about the city and Tube, I'd be one happy spoiled American!

We set out again around 4pm. I really wanted to see Westminster Abbey close up and as it so happened we got there just in time for their nightly evensong service. What I really wanted to ask someone in charge was, "where does your congregation sit?" We sat on folding chairs off to the side and watched a tv of what was happening about 20 feet in front of us on the other side of a marble wall. I figured no big deal, this isn't regular church... But as we walked out, there was really no space for more than a few hundred people to sit. There were no stationary pews- only movable chairs... Very strange. Anyway- the service was a nice break for us. We enjoyed the boys choir and the tradition and that they love Jesus and speak English so I can understand it!

Then we decided we should find some dinner since it was about 6pm. We had mapped out his great neighborhood that we had heard about and figured we'd walk there and find a restaurant. About 7:00 we decided to give up on making it through the neighborhood and instead head towards the nearest tube stop and get on a train. 

The neighborhood was filled with beautifully lined streets of white row houses with cute little balconies... And absolutely no buses or restaurants. So, we got on the tube that was heading for Kings Cross Station, home of the 9 3/4 platform of Harry Potter!! As soon as we got to platform 9 I bought us a snack to tide us over and then we headed for the platform for a picture. We walked around and around and couldn't find it. Since this particular tube station is equivalent to a good size us airport, we sat down and had dinner (and a margarita) and hooked up to their wi-fi to see what we could google about the Harry potter platform. Turns out they had recently moved it out of the actual platform to a different part of the station, and while the photo op was now ridiculous (WHY WOULD YOU MOVE IT OUT OF THE PLATFORM???) there was a little store attached to it that brought back many happy memories for Adrienne. 

So, that was our day :) I'm ready for bed now!