London! Day 5

After being out late the night before, we actually let ourselves sleep in until 8am.  We had decided that Friday was shopping day.    We had breakfast, and headed out to Oxford St. to see what bargains were to be found. 

We bought a miniature tea set for my mother-in-law, some pashima scarves for various friends, stuff like that.  Steve had some apple strudel at a small cafe.

Then we headed for Covent Square Market, kind of like an open air flea market.  I got a hand-painted silk scarf.  We also found a Build-A-Bear workshop, and bought the girls some British outfits (Welsh guard, kilts, etc) for their stuffed animals. 

Lunch was (go ahead and laugh) Pizza Hut.  It was sooo good. :)

We had seen a Neal's Dairy Yard in the London book, and thought that would be neat to see--big wheels of cheese for sale and such.  I should point out here that I hate cheese.  I thought we were looking for an open-air stall.  Nope, it was in a little shop, and we barely got through the door before the smell drove us out.  Oh well.

(Let's take a short intermission while Steve and I have our only fight of the trip.  It isn't worth discussing the why's or what about's, and I was just happy when it was over.)

We decided to go to a movie our last night of the trip.  We're not much for pub crawls, we hadn't gotten theater tickets, and we never get to go to the movies at home.  We checked with the front desk, and left early so that we could get some dinner.

On the way we finally go to see the US Embassy--made me want to salute & pledge allegience to the flag.  Security up the wazoo.  I hadn't brought my camera, though, so no pics of that.

So, to make a very long story short, we ended up looking for a place to eat in what turned out to be a very uncomfortable area of town, so we turned around and went back to the movie theater--where there was a sign that said "Cafe".  We bought our tickets, had them ripped as we entered the theater, and went to the "Cafe".  Which was nothing but a cheesy concession stand.  There we were, stuck with nothing but stale, gross popcorn, British soda (which tastes nothing like our wonderful Diet Coke), water and ice cream.  For almost 2.5 hours.  That's how early we were.

After an eternity, we got to see the movie, George Clooney's new flick "Leatherheads".  After all we had been through, I was hoping for the best movie that I had EVER seen.  Oh well.  It was entertaining, though, and it was nice to see some REAL football. LOL

I was never so happy to go home, well, to the hotel.  We had to be up at 5am the next day to get ready to go HOME.

Here are some misc. pics from the trip:

A street performer

 

Telephone booth!

 

The hotel room--we still sleep on a mattress on the floor, so a bed frame, with a box spring AND a headboard--that was some hifalutin' accomodations!  We also had a flat screen TV!

 

On the Jubilee Bridge

 

Outside of a "Movies Made in England" Museum:

 

Steve, so excited to be up in the London Eye (NOT--he hates heights!):

 

I wonder if Mr. Brown was in?

 

On Saturday morning, we were on the bus by 6:45 to head to Heathrow.  We did a little bit of shopping--some gifts, and jackpot of jackpots--some Bionicle Lego's for Eli.  He's a boy of limited interest, and was beyond thrilled to get these! 

The flight home was fine.  Seven hours with 3 crying babies in our section, but nothing some earphones couldn't block out.  The melifluous tones of Barry Manilow, Michael Buble & Josh Groban soothed me.  :)  Some guy freaked out, and had to be taken to the back of the plane, but we were fine.

I'm actually quite the homebody, so by this point, if I could have gotten out and PUSHED the plane to go faster, I would have. :)  But we were soon home, and now I'm just dealing with some residual jet lag.

It was an amazing trip--I think Steve and I would both love to visit England again!