Sunday Aug 15, 2004

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Mellow day this day. Slept in a bit, till about 7. Had very few concrete plans as we were still pretty tired from York. We hung around the flat, drinking coffee and writing postcards. Did a few loads of laundry now that we've found a workaround for the broken washer knob. Decided to head down to the Tower Of London in the afternoon then do the Jack The Ripper London Walk at 7:30 that evening, which starts at the Tower. Left the flat at about 1:00 and the plan was to walk down to Tottenham Court Rd. tube station, looking for a place to eat between the flat and the underground. The Circle and District line are shut down this weekend so they can work on the tracks which makes getting to the Tower Hill Station difficult. We were gonna take the Central Line from TCR to Bank and walk from there. Found a pub, The Rising Sun, on the way and it looked like a decent place for lunch. The pie of the day was Beef and Guinness. We ordered 4 pies, plus drinks then settled down for a nice leisurely lunch. The bartender wasn't from around here.. very American :-)

Well after eating our enthusiasm for walking around the Tower had depleted and decided to have another round. Decided to blow off the Tower and go the next day. We'd hang out at the pub then walk around the neighborhood getting a few errands done. We hit the Boots chemist, and the Tesco for some supplies. Got back to the flat at about 3:30. We all took a nap.

At 5:30ish we got up. Adri made a couple calls. One to our friend Claire and one to our friend Matt Drees. Both former co-workers at Netopia who live here. Made plans to meet up with Drees at our local pub at 6:00pm Monday and Claire, who has a job, at 8:00 down at the Goodge St. Station. Those calls made we now had to make our way to the Tower Hill Station to meet up with Donald, our London Walks guide, for the Ripper Walk. I already explained how we had to get to that station above. The walk from Bank station to the Tower was not too bad once I decided to trust the map. Got to the Tower Hill Station at about 7:10 and saw the mob standing around waiting to pay. Had a minor bummer moment when we saw Molly was the only guide taking money. Kel and I had her for the Ripper Walk 4 years ago and we vowed at that time we'd never do another walk with her. It looked like it was her or nothing and we really wanted the kids to go on this walk, so we bit the bullets and handed over our 4 pounds each.

Donald showed up about 5 minutes later. We made our way over to his side of the mob as the crowd grew bigger and bigger. By the time 7:30 rolled around there were at least 150 people on the tour. Donald split us up between himself and Molly and luckily it was voluntary. We stuck by him, about 50 folk went off with her.. suckers. That left about a hundred with us. A HUGE number for a walking tour as far as I'm concerned. The walk itself was good. Donald is MUCH better than Molly. He's a good story teller and has a nice booming voice, easy to be heard from the back of the crowd. The group seemed to grow as we progressed through the sleepy East End and City of London,so that there were close to 150 by the end. He was very good about not starting a story until we were all within earshot. We got to the last stop at about 9:30 and dispersed into the night.

By dispersed I mean half the group moved en masse to the nearby Liverpool St. Rail and Tube Station. We let the crowd all head down to the tube while we picked up sandwiches in a shop for our dinner. Hopped on a pretty crowded Central line train heading West. Tottenham Court Road was 4 stops away (Chancery Lane Station closed on Sundays). Transfered there to a Northern Line train for a one station hop up to Goodge. Got back to the flat about 10/10:30. Ate. Watched Firefly:Trash. Got to bed at about 11:30.