London
December 10-14th, 1998

We arrived Friday morning at 8:30 am local time. We flew over on British Airways which was a welcome change...Both Kev and I got about 5 hours sleep...which was a nice break from the usual fare on airlines. We stayed at the St. Giles which, while small, was clean and in a GREAT location!! The first day I didn't take many pictures...I think I was too busy ooohing and ahhhing at everything. It took us over 2 1/2 hours to get from Heathrow to the hotel..I wouldn't recommend Airbus to anyone!! Total waste of time..even though our transfer back to the airport was paid for we got a taxi on the return trip..sometimes time is worth money!!

Anyway...more story..:-)After we checked in we headed to the Applause office to pick up our tickets to "Whistle Down the Wind", excellent show...great score..just goes to show you that everyone has an opinion and I don't always side with the critics. We also picked up our passes to the "tube". What a great system..we never waited more than 3 minutes for a train all weekend long...clean..upholstered..and they go everywhere..NY could stand to take a few lessons!! Then it was off to Harrods for lunch in the food halls...all I can say is WOW!! shop, shop, shop!! Everyone is getting Harrods' Bears and Christmas Pudding this year..:-) The Toy Department makes FAO Schwarz look like K-Mart. Then we browsed down Charing Cross Road...absolute heaven..more bookstores than I believed existed in all the world. First Editions of Dickens and more in my own hands...Back to the hotel for a short nap..then off to the show. After the show we grabbed dessert, espresso and cappucino in Covent Garden..(Covent Garden turned out to be one of our favorite places..seems like everytime we turned around we found ourselves there...do all roads lead to Covent Garden? :-) I am sure you are saying "Where are the pictures?? Aren't there supposed to be pictures??? Be patient..they are on their way..you are almost there....in fact, here are a few from around Leicester Square, including the Hippodrome, Long Acre Road...Covent Garden

The Hippodrome

I love the Theatres in London..I took pictures of several. In the middle is the Swatch store decorated for the holidays...I love all the Christmas decorations in London. London truly is a magical place to be at Christmastime.

No trip to London is complete with out a visit to a pub or two...some of the names just cracked me up! "The Lettuce and the Slug" and the "Rat and the Parrot" are two that caught our fancies...We saw a Santa convention at the "Lettuce and the Slug", actually it was a group of youths dressed in Santa suits making their way around singing (or yelling..) Christmas Carols. We ran into several groups while we were in London..it looked like lots of fun!

These windows were incredible!! They were at a costume shop called Angels.

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