London Calling: Part The-Queen-The-President-and-El-Presidente-Walk-Into-a-Pub

None of us realized that the G20 summit was being held while we were in London-town. On our (private) walking tour for the changing of the Calvary guard (which was supposed to be the changing of the guard) we saw the President of Mexico and his wife heading away from Buckingham Palace and later saw President Obama’s motorcade heading to see the Queen. It was surprising. I never thought I would see a president’s motorcade pass me on the street, let alone in another country. The changing of the Calvary guard was pretty lame. Our tour guide was so interested in the sound of his own voice that he kept us from seeing the last part. He walked us through the park, which was bursting with gorgeous spring flowers, and we all stood in front of the Palace while the guide went on and on and on. Cait rolled her eyes a lot. I really wanted to smack the guide. He was so arrogant.

I adore this picture of us.

After our long walk Grandmother & Ron were suckered into buying discount fish and chips vouchers from the tour company. Grandmother would comment regularly for the rest of their visit about making sure the fish was cooked to order next time. The rest of the afternoon we rode the tour bus around. I fell asleep in the back. Oh, come on. This is like the 10^th time I’ve taken that tour and you try waking up at 5am for people who have no plan and can’t stop bickering. Anyway, eventually Grandmother & Ron decided to ditch us because Ron had work to do on the computer and Grandmother was just plain cranky. Hard to believe they were on vacation at all.  So Matt and I took Caitlyn to the London Aquarium, which was severely disappointing. It was something different to do, but for £16 I really thought there would be more. Matt had fun putting his Shark Week knowledge to use.

I'm totally asleep here.

It was late in the day and for some reason Matt and Cait kept going on and on about Harrods. I really don’t understand the draw. I wasn’t exactly thrilled because my knee was bothering me quite badly, but I didn’t want to be a total party pooper. We were told by a ticket salesman for one of the tour buses that we’d missed our last bus (which was correct) and then he gave us directions for getting to Harrods by the Underground (which were utterly incorrect). He’d told us to get off at a stop that was much too far away from the store. Granted, it was on the same street, but I thought I was going to die on our trek.  Between stifiling what would have been horrendous cries of pain I could only imagine the ticket sales-guy laughing his ass off  about telling us the long way.  It took us so long to get there that we only had time for Cait to take a picture and then we rounded the corner and got back on the subway (where we should have gotten off in the first place). We met back up with Grandmother & Ron at the Hard Rock Café. I was hoping they might be late so I could get drunk, but they weren’t and according to the bartender there was too much sugar in my Pickled Tink to taste the vodka.  Thank God for enthusiastic waitresses who fetch extra vodka shots for crabby little redheads.