TechnomadicsVagabonding Europe

Waking up the morning after we arrived at Tiff’s place in Islington, I was feeling pretty sick, so we were working with the theory that I was going to be absolutely useless. This really sucked, because it was Katherine’s birthday, and the last thing we wanted to do was be stuck inside while I sneezed, wheezed and coughed my way through a cold. Anyway, we figured it wouldn’t be a total loss — we’d do some motorhome hunting online, and do a proper birthday thing later.

Then the power went out.

So, faced with staring at blank walls for the rest of the day, I had a to hell with this moment and we went forth, cold be damned. Out in the sun, I actually started feeling better (let that be a lesson to me — wallowing in sickness isn’t helpful).

We decided to see a show, and caught the tube to Leicester Square, where we’d heard one can buy inexpensive show tickets at the last minute. Sure enough, there was a ticket booth right in the tube station, where we bought tickets to Chicago that night, for half price. Brilliant.

Now that's an entrée Spirits high, we picked a nearby pub in which to have lunch — lured in by the maple syrup infused camembert with pine nuts and hot crusty bread, we had that to share and fish & chips (with mushy peas), which turned out to way too much food, but highly satisfying. I tried to order a pot, instead of a half pint, of lager which was very hick of me.

Squirrel! Really getting into the swing of things, we started walking, originally for Green Park (which sounded promising when I read it on the map on my iPhone), but took a serendipitous wrong turn in a moment of GPS inaccuracy and ended up in St James’s Park which was just beautiful — very clear pond with lots of ducks and geese, weeping willows, squirrels; we sat on the grass by the pond for a while and watched amorous pigeons chase each other around.

St James's Park

Buckingham Palace

Me at the palace

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A brief amble around the palace (we didn’t see the Queen) and into Green Park, packed with sun-deprived Brits sprawling in the sunlight, then the tube back to Islington for a very quick change of clothes before we sprinted out the door again to catch a double-decker to the Cambridge Theatre to see Chicago.

Brilliant, aside from having to play peek-a-boo around the huge head of the guy in front — live band on a stepped platform on stage the whole performance, with a very excitable-looking conductor waving his arms around wildly. Jazz hands, unnaturally-awesome bendy poses, and an all-singing, all-shuffling Jerry Springer.

iPhone’s battery ran out just in time to get us back to the bus stop with some idea of where we were going, made me a little panicky. Katherine’s Nokia thinggamy helped work out where to get off the bus. Whew.

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