London - Six Years Later, Part 1

Here it is! The much-delayed recap of my lovely trip to London.

I left for London on the May 11th out of JFK airport on a morning flight. The flight itself was delayed TWO HOURS because they were waiting on a piece of paper to be signed by the powers-that-be (or so they told us). This meant I watched an entire movie on the tarmac: Did

You Hear About the Morgans? (Trust me, skip it). Once we were finally off the ground the flight went smoothly. I was able to stretch out as I had a row to myself and I watched two other movies: Extraordinary Measures (with Brendan Fraiser and Keri Russell - it was pretty good.) and The Messenger (with Woody Harrelson - which was excellent!)

I arrived in London much later than I had anticipated and because I do not have a fancy phone, I could not call my friend. She and I had planned to meet on the platform at the Earl's Court tube station, however, I had emailed her to tell her I was delayed. Turns out that e-mail never got to her. To make a long story short, I ended up using a pay phone and finally got a hold of her after I took the tube to the Hammersmith stop and we agreed that I would take a taxi to her flat. I arrived after 1 am. Poor girl! She had to go to work the next day and since it was 5 hours earlier in New York, I hung out downstairs with her roommate's cat and perused my guide books while watching British telly.

May 12th: Southbank

Fast forward to day two. I rose bright and early because I couldn't wait to get back out and see London. I decided to take the Tube to Embankment and walk along the Southbank by the Thames. I crossed the Jubilee Footbridge, walked down past the Globe Theatre, Millenium

Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral and then across the Tower Bridge. I walked along the opposite side

of the bridge toward Big Ben and Parliament but had to head up Oxford Circus instead to meet my friend after she got off work. We then met some of her friends to play Pub Trivia. We were a team of Americans, an Australian and one Welshman who didn't arrive until 3/4 of the way

through the game. Needless to say we lost as we weren't exactly up on our British pop culture and trivia.

Books along Southbank. No surprise that this is one of the first pics I took.

The view from my restaurant table during a stop for lunch at Gabriel's Wharf.

Apropos

The Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral

The elephants are on parade all over London. This guy, who had a tube map on him, was my fave.

Walk along Tower Bridge

Best pub name ever

London Eye in the background

View of the Thames from South London