London Days (Sunday)

While Dave has been in meetings all weekend, I’ve had a wonderful time exploring London. Our hotel is located in an excellent area – it seems most areas of interest are only a 10-15 minute walk away.

Each day I’ve enjoyed a “lie in” and then met the girls: Maureen (Isle of Man) and Lorraine (Princeton, NJ) for brunch.

After brunch today we walked two blocks from our hotel to Buckingham Palace and saw the changing of the guard – it was so very crowded but I still managed to get a few pics.

From there we managed a 15 minute walk along Constitution Street to Knightsbridge where we admired the shops and did a bit of shopping ourselves at Harrods. (The picture of Harrods was actually taken Monday evening.)

After Dave’s meetings were over, we went to a pub to watch the highly touted Ireland/France rugby match. Poor Brian (Dublin) had tickets to it, but was stuck watching it with us rugby ignorant Americans while Fiona and her father got to see it in person. As we watched I found I preferred all the action to American football (gasp!) and was sad to see Ireland lose in the last minute of the match.

Finally, we gathered at Simpsons on Strand for a dinner with the whole group. While there, we were surprised to see a side order called Bubble and Squeak. Fortunately, Maureen was able to explain that it is a dish made up of fried-up leftover vegetables.

It was nice to have Pat and Ellen’s (Scranton, PA) kids with us. Every time we saw them they were all smiles, and Patrick (the 15 year old) even tried the goose pate as a starter. Harley (Lorraine’s husband) raved over his sponge cake dessert so much that our waiter, Talat, brought seconds just for him. Not to worry – we all helped out with seconds.