My Second Day in London... Another BUSY ONE!

Well, we couldn't have asked for better weather this weekend. It hasn't rained one drop our entire trip to London, and I am so thankful because that is pretty much a miracle for England. We started our morning off by going to Buckingham Palace and watching the changing of the guard. We got there early enough so we got right up front. This ceremony was very cool to see but kind of long. I got some good pictures and videos. I thought it was really interesting how official this ceremony was in respect for the Queen's protection and her palace. The British really seem to have a devout respect and admiralty for the royalty of England. I also noticed this in walking around the town because there are many streets and roads named after past and present monarchs. We also saw a beautiful gate near the Marble Arch, which was given by the queen to her mother on her 90th birthday. In relation to this idea, I learned during our bus tour yesterday that a new hotel is being built which was supposed to be the tallest hotel in London. When the plans went to the Queen she wanted the height of the planned hotel to be reduced by half because the top floors would be looking into Buckingham Palace. Our tour guide said, "The plans were greatly reduced and although the company would be losing money we wouldn't want to upset the queen."

Next, we took the tube over to Notting Hill to get to the market. It was a quaint little neighborhood, but then the market on Portobello Road was pretty much what you would expect, very diverse and busy with some common bartering going on between market men and customers. When I was looking interested in various items, the salesman would come up to us and try to start making a deal to try and get me to make the buy. When I was looking even more uninterested he would go further down with his price. One man who was selling London hats, told Amy and I that he would give us a deal on two hats, as 2 for 10 pounds. Well, we noticed that the hats were 5 pounds each and we pointed that out to him, and asked if he would give us a better deal since he really wasn't doing anything to help us with his "proposal." He changed his mind then and said, "no deal." At another vendor I was inquiring the man about a dress. When I approached him he was sputtering about people not wanting to pay for anything around here, and EVERYTHING was 15 pounds! I started to ask him about the dress and he cut me off saying, "It's 15 pounds!" I said "No I have a question about the dress itself." He said, "FIFTEEN POUNDS." I got a little firmer and said, "What size it?" He softened up with me a little, and walked me over to the dress. He took it down and said, "One size." He untied it off the hanger, tied it around my neck and held it up to me. He said, "This will fit you." I took another look at it and decided it was worth it so I bought it. I was really shocked though, at how rude this man was to me at first, when I could be a potential customer. I guess I'm very familiar with American customer service (having some experience in retail myself), where the customer gets treated with nothing but kindness and respect.

After that we went home to get ready for our Broadway dinner. We bought our Broadway tickets to include dinner, so we went to a pretty fancy restaurant, and then went to the show. We saw "Wicked" and the show was AMAZING! I have fallen in love with Broadway... I was getting chills as I sat in my seat and watched. We had really good seats, only about 10-15 rows away from the orchestra, dead center. Our original tickets were a few more rows back and to the side, but when we got to our seats other people were sitting there... they over booked my seat. So the usher hooked Amy and I up with even better seats. So although, we were split up from the other three girls it ended up working out even better for us. I really enjoyed the musical and can't wait to go see another one!! (I don't know when but I will).

After the show, we went down to South Bank to walk along the river and see the city lit up at night. It was really pretty and relaxing. There were a lot of couples around at this time and one musician woman who played some pretty good music that really set the tone for our last night in London sitting on a bench watching the river and the city. We bought her CD as a memento to take home and remember the night.

Now, I've just finished packing to go back to Plymouth, and going to bed because we have to leave on our train at 11:00. I think we are going to try and go to one more site in the morning before we have to be ready to go. i can't believe my weekend in London is already over, it went by way to fast. I didn't get to do everything I wanted, it was pretty much impossible, but I guess now I have an excuse to come back :)