Following the ceremony, EN and I made our way down the Mall,
passed the Horse Guards Parade, and on to Big Ben and the Palace of
Westminster. (EN had yet to capture any photos of either of these places, hence
the stop-over—rumor has it, I may have snagged another photo or two myself!)
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| Clark Kent says: "Boy, the way you blowin' up my phone won't make me leave no faster, put my cape on faster, leave my gays no faster!" |
From there, EN and I crossed the Westminster Bridge, and proceeded
to head northeast along the Thames, passing such things as the Millennium Eye
and the National Theatre. It was a fun little walk (albeit a touch cold). We shared a cup of roasted peanuts from a street-vendor (couldn't help it--they smelled so good!), and visited an open-air book market
stationed under the Waterloo Bridge, before making our way back across the
bridge and on to Covent Gardens.
Covent Gardens is a charming little neighborhood! One
website described it as follows:
"Covent Garden, London
is famous for its shops, street performers, bars, restaurants, theatres and the
Royal Opera House. Covent Garden is an Italian-style piazza packed with
restaurants, bars and fashionable boutiques. Surrounded by Theatreland, in the
heart of London's West End, the area is recognised as the capital's premier
entertainment and leisure destination." ~ Covent Garden Life
Now, I wish I could say that we hung around to enjoy the
shopping and take in some street-performances or theatre but, alas, my growling
stomach protested too loudly. So, we tried to find a reasonably-priced,
not-too-busy pub in which to get our chow on. What we instead found was a place
on New Row. This place was about the size of mine and Nic’s studio apartment,
had ‘Italian’ décor, paintings of Paris on their menu, and items on said-menu
that were all prefixed with ‘Texas-.’ It wasn't quite the atmosphere we were looking for, but we settled
in out of necessity. (For the record, I had a ‘Texas-Egg Burger’ and an unnamed
German lager because they didn’t serve Guinness.)
It…sufficed.
From Covent Garden we moved into Soho, which is somewhat like the
Boystown equivalent in London. It was the middle of the day, though, so there
wasn’t much to see or do. But I can say I was there! (And I was there again on
Monday—hence yesterday’s hangover and the story for later.)
Brief stopovers in Piccadilly Circus—in certain respects the
Time Square of London—and along Regent Street were next. Not too much to say
about that bit, though EN and I did work on our ‘Texas oilmen’ personae as a
means of gaining access to some of the exclusive, overly-priced stores on
Regent Street (e.g., one shop wanted £12,000 for a silver spoon). I mean,
seriously, these were the kinds of shops where you couldn’t enter unless
someone buzzed you in. Something tells me that no matter how well-perfected our
‘Hello, m’am, we’re wealthy oil men from Texas’ spiels were, they still wouldn’t
have allowed EN and I entrance…
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| Mind the...Gap? |
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| The shops of Regent Street |
Most of this time was spent in-transit, walking around. Following our visit to the shops on Regent Street, dusk was nearly upon us...
TO BE CONTINUED...
