Day 11: London

We got up in plenty of time, but it was a day of mess-ups. We were supposed to leave at 9:00 a.m., but the bus did not show. It ended up that they (EF tours or the bus company) changed the time to 1:30 in the afternoon and did not let Alessandra know. She was peeved that she had to tell 41 people that they wasted their morning.

We bought an all day ticket on the subway and went down to Leicester Square to shop. We met at a rendezvous point at noon and had lunch. I had fish and chips. The meal did not quite agree with me. I think it was because it was the first fried thing I had eaten in quite awhile.

Tyler, Mary, Amber, Ted, Stephanie, Jenny, and John posing in London

The group got back in time for the 1:30 meeting for the bus. Unfortunately, it was more than 45 minutes late (because of traffic) and so the group decided to go again and shop. We took the subway to Piccadilly Square and walked most of the street to get to the Hard Rock Café. The line was one half hours long. Afterwards, we walked around London a little. We ended up taking the subway to Covent Gardens. The subway even broke down for a few minutes.

We explored Covent Gardens, their shops, and the entertainment there until we ate at 6:30. It was great food. The Louisiana and Michigan groups started to say goodbye to each other.

Eating Fish and Chips in London, Barb and Frank Fitzpatrick with Taylor Miller

I took Tyler back to the mall in downtown London while the others went back to the hotel. We walked around Trafalgar Square and got to see a bit of the London nightlife. We took a different route to the hotel (via subway) and almost got lost.

Tyler Card at Trafalgar square

The kids were pretty good in going to their rooms, though there was a late night toga party and Donna and I had to play cat and mouse with two of her kids.

During the evening, I got to talk with Alessandra about the day’s events. I could tell that she had a stressful day. She had picked the wrong day to hand out the evaluations for the tour.

My bedtime was 2:35 a.m.