This morning I woke up and walked to Tesco supermarket to pack a sac lunch. The British have these great little sandwiches that are freshly made each morning and are quite cheap. It was humorous to find an older couple counting out the sandwiches in their cart that corresponded to the day of the week in a thick British accent. “Monday, ham & cheese, Tuesday, egg and rocket, Wednesday, chicken and bacon, Thursday….” Man, what an exciting variety!
After grabbing my lunch I headed to meet the others and we made our way to Southbury station. After an hour, we arrived in Central London ready to explore. We first went to Piccadilly circus and walked around trying to find the Spanish Embassy for Cristobal, and then walked to Buckingham Palace to eat our lunch. On our way to the Palace we found a guard outside that was keeping watch over a back entrance. You can see us standing next to him in the above photo. Usually the guard's guns are not loaded and are there to provide meerly a ceremonial decoration - the police would be in charge of dealing with theifs and intruders to the palace, but after the 7/7 London terrorist attacks, all of the guard's guns are now loaded. There is also a noticable increase of police and security at all underground stations.
After eating in front of the Queen’s residence we headed back onto the tube towards Notting Hill Gate. Notting Hill is a small little neighbourhood that is know for its Portobello Road. The road houses numerous antique markets and shopping booths along the street.
Imagine a small winding street that contains houses of each different colour and you will get and idea of what Notting Hill is. Being fans of the popular movie that was shot in this part of town, we made our mission for the day to find the Travel Bookshop that the film was shot in. We asked numerous street vendors, some just pointed down the street saying “Its down that way love.” Others said “I’ve never seen it, It doesn’t exist.” But after heading into Starbucks I found a map on their bulletin board that described how to get to the shop. We arrived at the small store and it was in the exact condition that is was for the filming. We walked in and looked at the books, it was actually a great store with a ton of cool travel books, and the old man that worked there was happy to help with any questions we had. We all headed back to to Ted Lewis after taking the tube back to Picadilly Circus.
No comments:
Post a Comment