LONDON

We did spend some time in London so I should write something about where we went and what we did in addition to my reflections and impressions.  I will say that at this time in our jouney we had pretty much run out of steam - we just couldn't find that magic potion at the drug store even though we had visited many.  

On that first day Sharon and I trekked to the St. Pancras Station to get our tickets for Amsterdam with plans to meet JoAnne and Ginger for lunch and than visit the Churchill War Rooms.  We thought we would just meet at the Clive Steps near the war rooms.  

Task accomplished at the train station and we started toward our meeting placre. We asked directions from two policemen who assured us that they knew the city.  They didnt tell us however that today was the official celebration of the queen's birthday and many, a lot of, most of, almost all, a great deal of the streets we needed to get to our meeting place were closed.  We did hear some marching music and ran over to join a crowd of people and saw the military marching units ,etc.  We squeezed in and I got a few pictures of what I coud see.  

When the parade was over and people started to disperse we made our way down the steps to get on the street which woud take us directly to the war rooms, our meeting place.  Oh , not so quick!  Everywhere we looked there were structures placed restricting us from our route.  I found a police woman and we were informed  what was happening and she assured us that everything woud be back to normal at 3:00.  We weren't sure that Ginger and Jo Anne would wait that long so we decided that we would find an alternate route.  We were like salmon swimming upstream.  It was so crowded but we did see people dressed to the nines, tails and top hats, women in formal afternoon attire with hats, etc.  Kind of fun although a little tense as well although we figured Ginger and JoAnne probably were running into the same difficulties coming from Westminister Abby.  We finally arrived and our friends were there and all was well.  We definitely decided we needed to eat before starting our tour of the war rooms.  A very nice policewoman directed us to the street where we woud have luck finding a restaurant. 

We were perusing the menu on one of the restaurant windows when a man came out and said please come in.  Why not.  We were hungry, weary travelers.The restaurant at that time around 1:00 was empty.  The question on my mind was why?  He seemed to know what I was thinking and informed me Monday's were slow.  OK, then☺️!

At any rate it was a pretty setting and the menu was interesting.  And as it turned out the food was good and so was the glass of wine.

We weren't far from the Churchill war rooms so we worked our way over there and stood in a line for awhile but not too long.  The rooms are the original Cabinet Rooms, the wartime bunker that sheltered Churchill and his government.  It is well worth a visit if you are in the Londxon area.  The Churchill museum which is part of this exhibit is so well done and interesting but for us it was at the end of the day and we were tired ( I think I may have mentioned that before) so we really didn't get everything out of it that we would have if we had done this first thing in the morning. There is so much to see!!

If you go allow penty of time!  It's well worth it.  We met up outside the War Rooms and decided we only had the energy to flag a cab and head home.  In route, I just happened to notice this wonderful Sombrero. 

Sorry,I can't give you all the particulars.  It was black however i think velvet, had silver trim and beyond that I can't tell you much else.  I was in a cab you know!

As it turned out we found out that there was a pubic demonstration in which many nude and semi nude individuals riding bicycles were protesting the use of oil dependancy and car culture.  Wouldn't you know we missed the demonstration.  Had we only known.