Dorsey (travel buddy) and I landed early, got thru customs, and are on our way to Piccadilly. That catches everyone up and makes my last post seem unnecessarily long.
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In my experience at any time, in any city, on any day, there are always shady characters on the train.
In our underground car, at 5AM, everyone was… normal. No vagabonds, no crazies, no suspicious men in oversized coats.
Just normal.
It was lovely.
I remember one thing about that ride, the woman sitting across from me.
Everyone was silent. Most people hid their face while trying to sleep.
She just sat there. She was middle aged, had a few wrinkles, and was almost smiling. She wore bright red lipstick that matched her coat and couldn’t have looked more proper.
I remember being overcome by the thought, “My god, she’s British.”
I don’t know why. If we were in Helsinki I’d probably have thought, “My god, she’s Finnish.”
I guess she made me realize we were actually here.
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Piccadilly Circus was described to me as the Times Square of London, so I was expecting insanity.
I forgot it was 5:30 in the morning.
No people. No cars. No hustle. No bustle.
In my opinion – perfect.
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In my last post I mentioned we’d slept 9 hours in the last 48 (now 49). Despite the substantial adrenalin rush, we still felt the lack of sleep, so we started seeking caffeine.
We found a little coffee shop and sat down to plan our day over an espresso (we both ordered coffee and were served espresso by a snickering barista – never figured that one out, any insight?).
We hadn’t anticipated coming to Piccadilly Circus first. We had tickets to tour the Tower of London, but tours didn’t start for another 4 hours.
So we decided to start walking.
We didn’t have a map, but we knew we were north of the Thames. We put the sun to our left and walked south.
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Like every tourist I got my standard pictures of a telephone box.
And a bus.
Aren’t they marvelous?
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As we meandered the deserted London streets we stumbled on a little park. I love parks, so I threw a hissy fit and made Dorsey skip thru it with me.
It was a picturesque morning. There was dew on the field making everything seem mystical. Off in the distance we started seeing locals walking their dogs, jogging, and heading off to early church.
We were about to the middle of the park when Dorsey cocked his head sideways.
Phil: “What’s going on?”
Dorsey: “Is that?”
Phil: “What?”
Dorsey: “I’m pretty sure that’s…”
Phil: “I’d say that is.”
We may be the first tourists in history to stumble upon Buckingham Palace.
It’s an incredible sight. And again… No people. No cars. No hustle. No bustle.
In my opinion – perfect.
There’s always a question that pops into my head when I see something so massively beautiful. “How long am I supposed to look at this?”
We walked right up to the gates and saw everything up close up.
We basked in its glory, marveled in its significance, and Instagrammed too many pictures of ourselves.
But after 20 minutes, we got a little bored.
There was so much more to see, so we continued on.
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As we kept wandering we stumbled on another little park. I threw another hissy fit, and we started to walk thru it.
We were about to the middle when Dorsey cocked his head sideways again and gave a quizzical look.
Phil: “What’s going on?”
Dorsey: “Is that?”
Phil: “What?”
Dorsey: “I’m pretty sure that’s…”
Phil: “I’d say that is.”
Dorsey: “And that means…”
Phil: “Yep.”
Admittedly I made the dialogue up, but that’s pretty much how it went.
I realized at this point we weren’t remarkably stumbling on landmarks anymore. We were just walking the streets of London, where everything happens to be a landmark.
We did get very lucky in one respect. It was nearing 9:00. We could actually hear that big clock thing ring!
Notice Dorsey’s “Huh” at the :18 second mark. It’s almost like he wasn’t sure Big Ben was actually going to ring – too funny.
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I think 3+ pages in Microsoft Word seems like enough for one post.
More to come tomorrow (plus more pretty pictures, yay!).
Here’s to the world,
Phil
Sorry, I promise that I’ll stop blogstalking, but this post made me laugh for a number of reasons – mainly, though, because it made me see London through the eyes of a tourist. I walk past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament every day. I don’t even notice Big Ben chiming. I also love that you call Green Park and St James’s Park “little parks” that you just stumbled upon – particularly the latter. It’s a bit like being in New York and stumbling across a “little park” called Central Park. Awesome.
No worries at all – love the love.
And we’re no ordinary tourists. We’re massively uninformed tourists. As I wrote this I realized just how much.