Monday in London

Monday started in my favourite way, with breakfast at a patisserie. I’d seen other Maison Blanc stores around town and was delighted to find that there is one in Ben and Michelle’s neighbourhood. After indulging in coffee and various pastries we strolled along Chiswick’s High Street, stopping to buy Cadbury turkish delight chocolates and decent spray deodorant – both of which are unavailable in NY.

Now here’s something really paradoxical about London. The High Streets are supposed to be the main shopping districts in each suburb. Here we are in London – not out in the ‘burbs, but in London proper – one of the larger cities of the world, and the main shopping streets look to me like… well like Bundaberg. They’re small and quaint with one or two storey buildings, but alongside the Ma and Pa stores you find big chains like Gap and Marks and Spencer. As hard as I tried to equate it to something familiar, the set-up was just unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

Anyway, commentary aside, we enjoyed a little journey along the High Street before taking to the Underground once more and venturing out to the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and London Bridge to take some happy snaps, then moved on to Fleet Street. Here we visited Nelly’s Uncle James at the Tipperary for a half pint of Irish beer. We crossed the street to another pub in search of barmaid Guis, an old friend of Gerrod, Ben and Michelle’s from Coles. Guis no longer works there but the girl who told us that turned out to be an ex co-worker of mine from Big W. Bizarre. Here we ate one very average pub meal (4 day old chips etc), which is apparently an authentic and essential part of any visit to London.

After a quick visit to Somerset House, Trafalgur Square and 10 Downing Street we were pretty much exhausted and had a quick GS (good sit) at home before heading out to dinner at an Italian place called Est Est Est with the usual suspects (as G calls them). All in all, another awesome day in London.