c9 | A Weekend in London, Next Part (Reply)

As the night progressed, we ended up rather far away from familiar territory, and we wanted to get back to the hotel. We made our way to the bus route we needed, but realized we had no valid bus tickets. We were also perplexed as to how we should buy them: in downtown, every bus stop had an automated ticketselling machine. In suburban East Dulwich, not so much. They look much more like the bus stop you probably used most recently. And at 5:00 AM on a Saturday, nobody selling bus tickets is actually open yet. So we walked. The bus route was easy to follow, and it quickly brought us to a train station (the "Overground," I'm told). Unfortunately, it was also closed. And the ticket-selling machines at the station were broken and vandalized. Timing is everything: the security guard appeared to reopen the station for the day while we were standing, staring at the gates. But once inside, the schedule explained away our relief with a jaunty little "06:59" in the first row.

So we kept walking. Beautiful warm dry weather, thank god. Later that day it got right chilly, but it was nice for us at dawn. Beautiful to walk through quiet London at dawn, btw. Eventually reached another National Railway station, with working ticket machines, and bought a travel card for the day. A bus trundled up, and we got a double-decker top-floor tour of the South Bank as it headed into the city, as they say. Very nice.

We were a little tired by this point though, having been up all night. Eventually we reached a tube station we knew, and it was late enough for the tube to be running, so we hopped aboard and made our way back to the hotel.

skaughty ignores knocks while sleeping, so Vin had to get the front desk to call. He let us in, then passed out again, as did we. A few hours later we were all awake and ready to start another fun day!

We saw part of the British Museum (just the fun Egyptian and Greek stuff, not the boring British stuff -- which is what most of the crowds were there for as well). We hit a pub for a drink, then a tacky gift shop for some mostly-non-tacky gifts for our intrepid catsitter Becky. Next, Covent Garden Market. This place is a zoo. Buskers, crowds, quite riidculous. But neat to see. Had some expensive but tasty cookies. Toured the gift shop of the London Transport Museum (not the museum itself, pricey and we were getting museumed out by this point). It's common at Covent Garden to see signs being held by people, sometimes with arrows pointing at their heads indicating that they can provide further information: "DOC MARTENS SHOP THIS WAY, ASK THIS MAN."

Now that we were getting into touristy mode (and running low on time left in the city, the obvious next stop was Buckingham Palace. More pics coming!