Wild day and Wicked night in London

Trip Start Jul 06, 2007
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Trip End Aug 06, 2007


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Saturday, August 4, 2007

The plane was only an hour late to London because the pilot somehow managed to make up some time.  We left the huge bag in the left luggage office and took the tube into town.  The room wasn't ready and there was no water as they were doing maintenance but they promised the room would be ready by 2pm-normal check in.  I was pissed because we had made this booking aged ago and since I have gold status at that hotel's program, I should get early check in.  We didn't have time to waste so we got the tube to St James' Park and Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard.  It was packed of course and we didn't have a great view, but thanks to 32x zoom, I still got some pics and videos.Ina wondered why they didn't put a fresh coat of paint on Buckingham Palace!  LOL! 

So after that, we had lunch at a Pizza Hut buffet and stuffed ourselves silly, then walked over to the south bank for the London Eye 01 St James Park
01 St James Park
 .  Once again, it was packed, probably because it was such a beautiful day.  It took over half an hour to queue for tickes, than about an hour to queue to actually get on the Eye.  I could have booked online but then just my luck it would have been raining or something to spoil the view.  It was really a great view, you can see for  miles all around London.

Then we got a bus to the Tower of London but by the time we got there, it was going to close in an hour and since the tickets aren't cheap at 16 GBP each, it would have been a waste to only go in for an hour.  I got a shot of Ina with the Beefeater who was taking the tickets at the entrance.

Time for shopping!  Harrods was a bit rich for us, but fun to look aorund.  The King Street Mall in Hammersmith was more our budget and we got to a few shops before they all closed at 6pm.  Then we had to change into our new clothes and rush over to Victoria station and the Apollo Theatre where I had prebooked tickets for Wicked, a musical based on the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz, but told from her point of view.   She isn't wicked, she was an animal rights activist who got on the wrong side of the gov't!  Great acting and singing, we loved the show!  Last stop was a quick look at London's West End nightlife and dinner at a burger joint before heading back to the Holiday Inn.  This was another drama as they still had the wrong room but they eventually got us into a room.  The hotel was full because there was some kind of conference going on, but I had made our booking first.  We finally got much needed showers and a few hours sleep.
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