Europe 2009 - Monday May 4th 2009

Monday, May 4th 2009

My second day in London started off on a very good note. Naph, Gretchen and I decided to go for a morning walk in this little park that was a block from the hotel. We all got dressed in our athletic gear and headed off to the park. Gretchen is super athletic so she wanted to go for a run, while she was running, Naph and I took a leisurely stroll through the park. We had great conversation and he would occasionally walk and do leg squats while we were talking. Gretchen lapped us several times and we eventually gave up and sat on a park bench engrossed our conversation while Gretchen finished her workout. I am not sure if this was considered "encouragement" or not.

After we had breakfast and got dressed for the day we headed off to the British Museum for a quick hour visit. We were able to see some of their highlights and the most notable was the Rosetta Stone. I kept us on a strict time line and after our hour we started walking towards the tube. We all were in need of a beverage and snack so so we stopped in this quaint little coffee shop. When we finished we again headed toward the nearest tube and then splat.

I had fallen down on the cobblestone sidewalk. I let out a huge scream and I found myself lying on my right arm with my left ankle in extreme pain. Gretchen and Naph immediately came to my aid and started probing my ankle to determine if it was broken. I sat on the sidewalk for a few moments stunned that this had happened to me. I got up and was happy to discover that I could still walk. We hobbled forward and I tried to decide if I should go back to the hotel or continue on our day. With encouragement from my friends and Motrin I decided to say FU to the pain and we continued our journey.

We decided to head off to the Knotting Hill section of London to visit a Winston Churchill museum. We got off of the tube and started wondering around looking for it. We kept consulting the map but the museum was nowhere to be seen. We ended up at another large park and we saw a cute boy playing soccer. Gretchen wanted to get a photo with a local boy, so we walked over to him and tried to make friends. He was young and very muscular. We said Hi and found out that his name was Edwardo and he was from Brazil. The local boy we approach turns out to be a tourist. Just our luck! We pose and take a couple photos of him. As we were posing with the soccer ball I grab on to his muscular arm when I almost fall over. Naph was very impressed over my groping of this boy.

We say our goodbyes and head out to find the museum. We start to walk up and down these very lovely streets that have very nice buildings. We encounter an older local man who has lived on the street for the last thirty years and he has never heard of the Winston Churchill museum. We realize that we are going to have to give up soon. We try one more avenue. We spy a small hotel and decide to step inside see if they have any information. After a fifteen minute discussion and Internet search we left with no more answers and decided to give up. This was very difficult for me as I like to accomplish what I set out to do.

We couldn't resist taking a photo of this storefront.

It was time to eat again so we stopped by the local McDonald's and grabbed some fatty but tasty lunch. While I was waiting in line for my food a local women asks me if I know how many zeros are in one million. I am sad to say with my fancy accounting degree and MBA it took me three tries to get it right. FYI, there are six zeros.

Our next destination was to visit the inside of Westminster Abbey. We caught the next tube and headed in that direction. We arrived and wondered around for a bit and found the church at 4pm. As we got closer to the sign we realized that the church closed at 3:30pm. I was so disappointed as I really wanted to see the inside. A passerby said that we could go inside if we wanted to pray so I went up to the guard and asked him if we could go inside to pray. He told me that the next church service started at five pm. We were denied! We did feel a bit guilty trying to lie to get inside of the church as we had no intention of praying.
We decided to give up for the day and head back to the hotel. I was in a great deal of pain and I was over it. We got back on the tube and traveled to our exit. I am sad to say we got lost on the walk back to the hotel. My ankle was throbbing but I think that we took a two mile detour. It was very annoying to get lost at that time.

When we finally arrived back we took a half hour rest period and went to dinner with some of our new traveling friends, Marcus and Jason. We ended up at a French restaurant and found many of our other traveling companions eating in the same restaurant. We had a lovely dinner and great conversations. We headed back to the hotel and ordered some drinks at the hotel bar. I thought alcohol would help dull my ankle pain. It did! But, we were soon kicked out of the bar as it was closing, so we smuggled out our glasses of beer and took them to Marcus and Jason's room to hang out for a while.

Even though I sprained my ankle and we missed out on two of our major destinations, I had a terrific day wondering about London.