Teatime in London...still Day 5

The next item on our agenda was tea. I may have mentioned this before but we were careful not to skip any meals and we almost always had a snack or two available for Sara in case her supply ran out.

Our London Pass entitled us to a tea for four at half price so all we had to do was hop on a tube and take a bit of a hike.

This tube was deep below the city of London...at least we didn't have our luggage to haul about on this particular trip!




We walked past this. Not sure what it's all about but it looked fantastic!

Our tea shop was actually on one of the upper floors of this department store. Very American-like to me, just a lovely upper-class store. If I actually liked to shop, I would have liked to have shopped here.

                                            

Cheerfully, patiently, waiting for the goodies. Drinking our tea and waiting for the goodies.




Notice the twinkle in these girls' eyes...
they can hardly wait to eat.

The goodies have arrived. We restrained ourselves while a couple of us took the requisite photos of the yummy food.   A nice hot pot of tea.  Finger sandwiches:  cucumber, egg and salmon. Scones with clotted cream. And the dessert pastries...oh, the dessert pastries--three different kinds!

During this tea party, we determined that tea parties were going to become a tradition of ours once we got home.  

The scones were amazing and the finger sandwiches were delish but the little chocolate mint pastry thingies were quite tip-top!

Please note the three-tiered tidbit tray. I decided at this point that I needed one of those...getting it back to the states, however, might be an issue...

                                            Someone is sorely tempted but still restraining herself...
                                                   (I'll give you one guess as to who it is...)

Someone else is just cute...

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Thames River Cruise...

After our hasty exit from the Tower of London, we made our way to the Thames River Cruise boarding area and soon found our seats on the boat. I am going to be brutally honest here...the Thames is NOT a lovely river. It's just not. It is located in the middle of the largest city in the UK making it an urban river, and urban rivers are, well, urban rivers. But the history and scenery on the cruise were eerily familiar, like a barely remembered dream. Or more likely familiar because we had seen much of it a day or two before from a bus or tube.




Our tour guide was a typical Brit--with tongue in cheek humor--laughing quietly at us because we were going to be stuck with him for the duration of the boat ride. We were ok with it until he started throwing a few insults at us, again, in a friendly sort of way. Obligingly, he told us he would speak slowly since we were Americans. Cheeky bugger. At this point, we didn't have too many options so we decided to grin and bear it. It's a good thing these girls all have such cute grins...

Behind us was the Tower Bridge--ahead of were, well, more bridges...and a few other interesting sights, which our tour guide pointed out to us, slowly, which was good because the boat was slow, too.  (by this point, he was totally not getting a tip from me)

               This, my friends. is the famed London Bridge. Personally, I was a little underwhelmed.

The London Millennium Bridge, sometimes known as the Millennial Bridge or the Wobbly Bridge. (I am totally not joking here)  When it was opened to the public it swayed in a very disconcerting manner as traffic and pedestrians crossed over it. So they closed it for the next couple of years while they attempted to fix it. Happily for us, this problem had been addressed and corrected 'way before we crossed it.

The Westminster Bridge with Westminster and Big Ben on one side and the London Eye on the other.

I pretty much love this picture because of the strategic appearance of the double-decker bus.






And I love this picture of the same bridge with its more dramatic lighting and you can clearly see the lampposts. What you cannot see are all the locks that are attached to the bridge, the custom of which is explained in this post:
http://mythotfulspot-karen.blogspot.com/2014/06/uk-trip-day-4b.html










View of the city from the port side of our boat. I am sorry I cannot tell you which side of the Thames this is but I have a well-deserved reputation for being directionally challenged.




                                                 Modern architecture in London...

                         And some historical buildings, none of which I can confidently identify...

Old and new juxtaposed:

Several views of the Eye of London...to this day I am not sure whether I am disappointed or relieved that we didn't choose to take a spin on that ginormous ferris wheel, since I am both a bit claustrophobic as well as afraid of heights.

 

The Palace of Westminster which houses the Parliament. Big Ben is located outside the picture, to the right. Westminster is really big, just sayin'. And isn't it gloriously ostentatious!

And here is where we disembarked, ready for the next adventure, which had a little something to do with refreshments, as it was nearing teatime.

day 5aa

Sooooo Sara...

No one can meet Sara and come away from that meeting unaffected.

One of the first things I noticed about Sara was, well, food. I met Sara for the first time at a banquet, not even dreaming that this would be a sign of things to come and that in the days to come, we were to share many meals (and snacks)...

Then we got to London and the first thing she said was, "When's dinner?" or was it "Do you have any snacks?"   I am totally kidding here, she did not say this. But pretty much the first thing those girls did together after we all met up at our hotel was to hop on a bus and go to McDonald's. Oh, they may say it was just to take advantage of the free internet but I do have my suspicions. 

Sara has an amazing sense of style. She had at least seven scarves in her suitcase and she bought a couple more while in London and at least one in Dublin. At least that is what I am remembering. It could have been more.. And Sara was the owner of the dress, the lovely black lace dress that the girls took turns wearing.  And not only does she have a sense of style, she is model beautiful...

Another pic of my girl Sara. You may have seen these pictures earlier in this blog. That's ok; they are lovely photos.

Sara pensively reflecting on life inside one of the towers.  Sara does a lot of musing.   Soooo Sara...

She thinks a lot about life, love, personal responsibility, justice, honor and the American way.  And many other deep things. And the one thing about Sara is that she DOES things about those deep thoughts she has.She is my role model; I wanna be Sara when I grow up.

Sara did her homework before we ever set foot on British soil. She knew all the little ins and outs of etiquette in the U.K.; she knew what we should never say and what things we should never do in order not to offend. In fact, one of  her biggest worries was that the owner of  a random pub might feel hurt  because none of us bought any drinks so I came up with a plan...all the girls were to say they were expecting or trying to get pregnant so they couldn't have strong drink and I was to be the designated driver so I couldn't drink either.   And the funniest thing about this was that Rachel really did get pregnant about a month after we returned and Heather got pregnant about 6 months after that.  I like to think that I put the idea in their heads but somehow I don't believe that I really did.

Back to Sara...
Sara is deeply curious and likes to learn things. She liked self-guided radio tours. I believe she took advantage of them every place that had them available. But really I think she just has a thing for radios.
Soooo Sara...

Sooo Sara...learning about the Bloody Tower...on her self-guided tour radio.

She also liked to document the things we did each day. However, I don't think she ever took a picture of our food. Apparently that was my job. And her job was to make sure we got our meals on time. And snacks. I  may not have mentioned this about Sara. She gets hungry. Often. So we took turns throwing granola bars or peanut butter crackers at her. But she was always sweet about it. She never threw a tantrum or got cranky when she was hungry. And here's the thing about Sara:  she was just as skinny when we left the U.K. as when we got there. I cannot say the same about me...

Sara likes to read and learn. I believe she is an avid reader. But I cannot prove it. We didn't have time to do much reading.







Notice how Sara is listening intently to her tour guide radio in this picture? 

I think she is learning about the White Tower. Or hatching a plan.

Soooo Sara...







Notice that no radio is visible in this photo. She has tucked it away somewhere, that cheeky little thing. (Notice how I am using British slang now, like "cheeky.")  We had seen everything we wanted to see at the Tower and our feet were getting knackered (tired) (British slang) and Sara was thinking about food...again...or still...

As the four American women exited the tower walls, something began beeping like crazy. The ever-observant Heather looked at her travel companion and exclaimed,  "You STOLE it!!" when it became obvious the beeping was Sara. Fear filled our hearts as we considered our probable arrest and possible beheading, right then and there. (it might be that Rachel was the only one who had this thought) An amused smile crept across the tower guard's lips and he rolled his eyes as Sara hurriedly returned the item, profusely apologizing. Other guards, tourists, and natives in the area observed the incident and were highly amused in their particularly stoic British way. Nonchalantly we sauntered off in search of an eating establishment before the next adventure which may or may not have involved the river Thames...