Saturday October 10, 2009 – London Day 2

We got up on time Saturday morning and started to get ready for the day. One little snafu was that the adaptor would not work. At first I was kind of upset, that I could not use any electrical tools for my hair. I contemplated renting one from the front desk, but then just let it go – this was the whole reason I grew the layers out in my hair, so that on this trip I could pull it back if I needed to since I was not sure what our accommodations would be like. So I threw my hair up and finished getting ready.

We went down stairs to see what was for breakfast – I was not impressed. Shannon grabbed some food, but I decided to grab one of the granola bars I brought with me. Plus I knew I needed to buy some water so I would have the opportunity to grab something then. We then went back up the 6 flights of stairs to our room. Dragging our luggage up had not been a lot of fun and neither one of us looked forward to lugging it down. But we needed to check out before we left, so we did. I ended up sliding it down most of the way. The luggage room was just packed and Shannon and I did not want our stuff to be so close to the door, so we took it upon ourselves to rearrange things so that our could be in the back. We figured no one would mind a little organizational help. Then we were on our way.

As I was putting the schedule together for London, I calculated the times on the tube with a tool on their website. I noticed that when I put in Saturday’s date an error would come up. Well come to find out the reason was that the Victoria and Jubilee Lines were closed for scheduled maintenance – refitting train wheels or something like that. That meant we would have to take buses that were running the tube lines as replacement transportation.

So we headed up to Victoria station to catch a bus. There is a nice shopping center at Victoria station and we stopped in, I needed to get some bottled water, which of course I needed to get cash for, so I found a ATM and got some pounds. After purchasing some water and juice, we were on our way to Piccadilly Circus.

Piccadilly Circus is a famous road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. In this context a circus, from the Latin word meaning a circle, is a circular open space at a street junction.

We got on the bus, which unfortunately was not a double-decker one, and pretty much went past the first half of our itinerary for the day. We got off the bus and we were standing in the middle of Piccadilly. People refer to it as the Time Square of London, but I don’t think that is completely accurate comparison since Piccadilly has just this one corner with the big signs and advertisements and Times Square is huge with many buildings covered in sings.

Obviously I was not paying attention to the commercial playing when I took the pictures.

Here is Shan in Piccadilly Circus. Here is The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. Across the road is this Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum. Looking down the street from Piccadilly Circus. From Piccadilly Circus we walked down Piccadilly Street towards Buckingham Palace. On the way I needed to take a quick detour on Bond Street.

Bond Street is a famous street in London known for its high end stores. It is where Sotheby’s and Tiffany’s are located. It is where the term “bond paper” comes from and is mentioned in many movies and books, including some of Jane Austin’s books.

Bond Street is home to the most elegant and expensive shops in London. Designer clothing such as Gucci and Armani; perfume; art and antiques; and more Royal Warrant holders (suppliers to the royal family) than anywhere else in London.

Previously I spent some time wondering in some of the shops here, but we did not have time, we just took a quick picture. From Bond Street we continued down Piccadilly Street to walk past the Ritz.

Here it is from a block away. The signs – The Ritz has been in many books and movies as well – it is where Julia Roberts stayed in Knotting Hill. A close up – nothing fancy, but well-recognized. From the Ritz we cut through Green Park to go to Buckingham Palace.

The path in Green Park. Next up was the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace....