England Day 4 end and Day 5 Complete

Last night Karen’s feet were hurting because, against all advice, she wore NEW shoes on the trip and had multiple blisters. So, long about 545pm we raced via foot and tube to Lilywhite’s for her to buy new shoes. Naturally she started to buy the nice-looking ones and not the comfortable ones. What is WRONG with women? Anyway after yelling, she bought the ones that fit better but she’s mad because the colour of the navy ones isn’t as nice as the grey/pink ones she didn’t buy. :: roll eyes ::

After that we walked down through Trafalgar Square to Embankment and back through to Leicester Square. Then on to Pizza Express where the food is decent, but the service was twice as bad as usual.

Woke up and day 5 was off to the Museum in Docklands. I wasn’t sure if Karen liked it, but she did. I stopped at HSBC’s world HQ in Canary Wharf but still couldn’t get a checkbook cover to fit my English checkbook. This shouldn’t be so hard. But it is.

We took the DLR out to Greenwich and walked up to the observatory for the view. Spent awhile and walked around the park before returning to the DLR (Cutty Sark) and off to Canary Warf to rejoin the Jubilee line.

After that went down to the Jubilee Line sat on the train and nothing happened. They made an announcement that due to signal failure the line was closed indefinitely. Which is brilliant because it opened today after four days of engineering works to REPAIR the signals. The Circle line had a one-under, so it was also closed.

Because we were foobar’ed we took the DLR to Bank, popped on the Northern and went up to King’s Cross and walked to the British Library which was the back-up plan. Only I got on the train and Karen didn’t. She lollygagged and the doors shut in her face. I signalled to go one stop, where I waited for her.

Karen loved the British Library — and they had all those usual cool things on display including the original Magna Carta, works in the hands of Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel, and so forth. The original “Origins of Species” by Darwin was on display as were some handwritten original Shakespeare plays.

Back to the hotel and I called Rules because they opened today. They’ve agreed to serve us dinner at 445pm on Tuesday so we’re in there. Way too early, but that’s the choice so we’re taking it.

Today Karen is having blisters. And you’re up to date.

ADDED TONIGHT: We ate at Bunches of Grapes pub, but Karen didn’t care for the Fish and Chips. She wanted a pie but they had no pie on offer today, so she got what I got, even though she doesn’t like deep fried. Besides, you gotta’ have fish and chips at least once in the UK.

Saw Billy Elliot which remains the best play ever, though again I caution that this play isn’t for everyone. If you liked the movie, you’ll love the play. Or if you’ve got some working knowledge of English modern history and a passable understanding of English slang and accents, you’ll do fine as well. The new Billy was a fine dancer, but his singing chops weren’t quite as good and he seemed to have less singing parts. His voice broke a couple of times, so I believe he won’t be Billy for long. Still a fine performance.

The theatre was bloody hot and despite the sub-freezing temperature I didn’t wear my jacket, sweater, gloves, or hat on the return trip. Idiot me.

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