Today was a lazy day. After crashing for a couple of hours in the hotel, we went about the neighborhood. Although I want to be immersed in the culture as much as possible, we stopped in to Starbucks for a coffee and a couple of ginger snaps. That was lunch. Neither of us was relay hungry, and we didn’t know the neighborhood that well. It’s a nice neighborhood, South Kensington. Think Back Bay. There’s a ton of row houses and small alleys. Instead of red brick, though, it’s all white or yellow brick. The scale of the buildings is small, too, and it reminds of Newbury Street. There’s a Lamborghini dealership and Morgan dealership in the neighborhood, so it must be really swank.
After coffee, we crashed again for another nap. This is against my best judgment, because I wanted to avoid jet lag, but it was unavoidable since I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane. We woke up for dinner, and it seemed like we were living the Life of Reilly. We picked a pub, because I was dying to eat in a true pub, from the tourist book I have. We stepped out of the hotel, hailed a cab and £4.40, plus tip, later, we were at a nice pub in Chelsea known as Copper something or other.
Sue and I sat at the bar on stools. I ordered a pint of Guinness, which was poured correctly and served at the right temperature. I’ve always heard that a pint in the US doesn’t compare to one in GB or Ireland. It’s true. It was sweet nectar, and it went well with the bangers and mash. Susan’s steak au poivre was served in some kind of sauce, which she braved her way through. I was very proud of her.
Before the meal came, there was a small floor show created by the argument of an elderly Brit couple. The wife got severely cross at her husband after he stabbed her wit his fork. After she scolded him rather loudly, he kicked her under the table.
As were were finishing, a rather pushy woman hailed the busty bartenderess, and barked a drink order at her. After the pushy woman delivered the drinks, she returned to pay and put on a scene about getting some napkins this instant to clean up some spillage. The bartenderess kindly told the pushy battle axe that she would do it straight after ringing up a customer. The battle axe, got near hysterical saying to do it “right now. Right now!” We all made fun of her after she retired to her table.
Instead of hailing a cab, we walked several blocks along some street named for a king, a queen or some other dead person of significance to Sloane Square, which is named after the man who started a museum with his vast collection of old crap. I think it was either the National Gallery or the British Museum. From Sloan, we hopped the Tube home for a nice, long sleep. Tomorrow is Discovering London!
Peaks and Lavallees 