Friday the 13th

I moved from Castletown House to Grosvner Hotel on Buckingham Palace Road.  New York is not the only place where the cab driver depends on the passenger to help them get where they are going.  My sister Cindy can tell you from experience that is a very bad idea with me. BUT I did better this time and with my keen navigational skills, I helped the driver find my hotel.  

I had read reviews online about the hotel and again, it is apparent that mostly mad people wrote reviews.  The hotel is old, but you  walk in and it is old in a cool way with tapestry type carpets and wall coverings and lots of beautiful dark wood.  Staff was wonderful in helping me get into my room, only had to wait a little while in the Starbucks just one block away.

I have a great room.  It is a double (I'd hate to see a single) and in total size is about half the size of a Holiday Inn room, but it is quite adequate, has a great tea and coffee area and an awesome bathroom.  My favorite thing about the room - it has a tub!  I've been showering in teeny tiny showers and tonight I filled a long, deep tub with lots of kinda hot water and life was good.   

I walked about 6 blocks to get to Buckingham Palace just in time to see the tail end of the changing of guards.  Not all that exciting, but I got to see it.  Did some shopping and bought my first steak pie.  Oh my gosh it was good.  The only thing that would have made it better - some green chiles - but it was awesome.  After that indulgence, I headed back to the room to get ready for dinner.

There are 23 people in our group from the US and Canada.  Our tour guide is from Atlanta GA.  I sat across from a couple from Michigan who knew right where KI Sawyer was, the AF base we lived on (and where Cindy was born).  The base is gone, they said, and redevelopment efforts failed sadly.  With the exception of one young lady who is in her teens and travelling with her Grandmother, everone in the group is my age or older and most have done far more travelling than I have.  But everyone seems so very nice.  More single women traveling with friends than couples.  One other lady is traveling alone, but only because her friend was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly before they were supposed to leave.

We had a nice dinner with a limited but very nice menu.  I had fish and chips - had to have it at least once, with a nice tomato soup to start and vanilla bean panacata with a fresh berry compote.  I had a Stella Beer and had to laugh at the wait staff, they brought a basket of bread and announced very clearly "for people with soup only".

Tomorrow we have a city tour including a special opening of the Crown Jewels for us to see and meet with the warden of the jewels.  A tour of the city follows, then in the afternoon we're going to a play.  Pictures are separate, I've been having problems with uploads but discovered if I separate them from test, it is far more successful.