Monday, May 4, 2009
London

When I awoke at 6.45 am today, the silence outside my window told me that it was a holiday. I had an early breakfast (went back to two slim slices of multigrain bread with Three Fruits Marmalade from Sainsbury and a cup of coffee–deciding to return to the carbs but go easy on them as I have reached my goal weight), then returned to my PC to start transcribing the interview I did with Dulcie Jacob. In-between I responded to email that keep trickling in as a response to the mass mailing I did yesterday to thank folks for their entries in my Golden Memories Album.

With the interview in the bag, I spoke to my parents in Bombay, then had a light lunch–a slice of pizza and an apple–and set off for Piccadilly and Knightsbridge to run a couple of errands. Holborn is such a commercial area that on a holiday there are so few residents here. Most of the businesses were shut and with some buses off the road, I entered the 242 to Holborn, then switched to a 38 that took me to Regent’s Street. I headed straight for the Visit Britain office to pick up the two London Passes I had booked for Chriselle and myself together with the 3-day Travelcards that will allow us to use the city’s transport system to get from one attraction to the next. With Chriselle’s departure around the corner, I am getting really excited about seeing her again.

I then hopped into an old Routemaster Number 9 bus from Piccadilly headed towards Knightsbridge and went straight to Harrod’s to buy some gifts for the French family with whom I will be staying in Paris next week. I know no better gifts to give people than something with the Harrod’s trade mark logo. It really seems to be very much appreciated and it so ‘London’ a gift. With that purchase safely in the bag, I got on the bus and returned home (but not before I tried out a few fragrances at the Jo Malone counter and gave myself a nice deep penetrating nectarine and honey mask with their Vitamin E and protein serum. I wiped it off after fifteen minutes with their rosemary and lavender toner. Lovely!

The Jubilee Walk–Part 3:
Back home, I deposited my buys, checked email and left my flat again–this time I was headed to Waterloo Bridge to continue with the Jubilee Walk–Part 3. It was an overcast day and the sun stayed stubbornly hidden behind a cloudy sky. The breeze was also pretty chilly and I wished I had worn a warmer jacket though my thick merino wool sweater served me well. London was left to visitors and Londoners today and it was clear to me how many numbers of people commute into the city to work. On a day when they are not required to be at their desks, the city appears empty. This was another rather interesting observation that I made.

My first stop was the National Theater Box office where I hoped to find some way to exchange some tickets I had purchased for another day. But since there was no way out, I will have to figure out some other way to resolve my dilemma. And with that, I began my walk at exactly
3. 45 pm.

The Jubilee Walk (Part 3) today all along the South Bank took me past some of the area’s most recognizable landmarks such as the National Theatre, of course, which I think is a terribly ugly building, the Tate Modern (another ugly building that is redeemed by the unusual lines of Wobbly Bridge (the Millennium Bridge), the Globe Theater which must be one of London’s most unusual structures, the OXO Building, the new City Hall (Sir Norman Foster’s handiwork that is very similar to the glass dome on top of the Reichstag in Berlin (same concept–a winding spiral staircase inside a glass dome), and Tower Bridge that is getting a new lick of paint (in preparation for the Olympics, perhaps?). The absence of the sun’s rays made it difficult to get good pictures but I did pose for a few and asked a variety of people to click for me.

One of the more interesting aspects of my walk today was the lifting of the Tower Bridge’s drawbridge that opened up to allow a sailing craft with a very tall mast to pass by under it. It was fun indeed to watch it rise and then lower itself so smoothly. Of course, all foot and vehicular traffic came to a standstill as everyone stopped to watch this fascinating and rather rare phenomenon. Needless to say, I clicked away hoping to see the drawbridge in various stages of operation.

Though for the most part, I have traversed these paths several times before, there were some aspects of this walk that were new to me. For example, I had never gone under London Bridge and I found it rather spooky and very reminiscent of the novels of Dickens. So it did not surprise me to find my notes pointing to the fact that Bill Sykes killed Nancy at this spot in Oliver Twist. The London Dungeon is not too far away and walking by it, I saw a brochure which indicated to me very clearly that this exhibit is not my cup of tea! I also passed through the Hay’s Galleria for the very first time–I had read about this place in one of my English Home magazines. Though it was less frenzied than it might be on a working day, it was fun to sit inside and rest my weary feet for a while.

A little later, I was crossing ornate Tower Bridge and finding myself on the other side where I followed the Jubilee Route that took me to St. Katherine’s Dock with its yacht wharf and its restaurants. Back in the vicinity of the Tower of London, I posed for a picture with an obliging Yeoman Guard (one of the Beefeaters) with Tower Bridge in the background and then stopped to take a close look at Traitor’s Gate and tried to imagine all the unfortunate souls who were led to their deaths through this entrance (Sir Thomas More and Anne Boleyn, for instance). How wretched they might have felt!

At this point, I passed a kiosk run by Paul’s Patisserie and since their hot chocolate is my favorite in the city and the wind was so biting, it felt good to nurse the paper cup in my frozen palms as I sipped the elixir slowly. At this point, my quest for a bus to get back home took me through a most convoluted route past the Guildhall that I was seeing for the first time until I found one that could get me to my doorstep.

By the time I reached home at 6 pm, I was starving but my email kept me busy as did a call from Llew. I was able to eat dinner (a cup of asparagus soup, Scotch egg, and my Pear Salad) only at 8 pm by which time I was dreaming of a refreshing shower and a good long and very deep sleep.