In London town...

Regent St., SwindonSwindon streetAvebury stone circlesAncient horse carving, Avebury
The Red Lion, AveburyBig Ben from Trafalgar Sq.

Real tubeUnderground

The National GalleryPiccadilly Circus
Beautiful rowDowning St.

Westminster AbbeyBig Ben
London Eye (half)Buckingham Palace/The Mall

... to see the Queen put on her crown. No, not really. It was for work. Of course, it's all about work these days (I mean, weeks, months... whatever, feels like ages now). It's all consuming - I need a vacation!

I needed to get to the Swindon campus first, so I decided to fly in by Sunday morning & have a day to adjust. Bad idea for someone who can't sleep even during 19 hour flights, but hey, I have workaholic/masochistic tendencies, I think. I did manage to fall asleep on the ride to Swindon from Heathrow - therefore missing some good Wiltshire countryside scenery ;-(

Hung around the hotel a bit before deciding to check out the town center. Cab dropped me off at the Regent Street pedestrian walk/strip mall area & all that shopping took me about an hour, tops! Was starved by then but pubs stopped serving at 4 pm & restaurants don't open for dinner till 6 o'clock - what is a famished tourist/workhorse to do?! (Was regretting decision not to call Jeremy at this point.) Back to The Ivy & managed to keep awake for dinner service, then crashed. Encountered an English curiosity here - what's with the separate hot & cold water taps?! I either had to scald or freeze myself & felt a bit silly swinging my hands from side to side in the sink.... but the strong water pressure (therefore made a really great shower experience) that pelts you made up for this.

Had dinner up at Bath on Monday night & was taken around the GORGEOUS town. The very sad fact was that all this ooh-ing and ah-ing about the architecture, Abbey, Pulteney Bridge & Bath Weir, cobble stone streets with overflowing flower pots, wonderful shops & restaurants etc. occured after dark. Therefore no pictures. I have to come back some day. The bunch of overworked us were in each other's good company though. Even when we almost ran out of gas & was banking that Chippenham's gas station was still open.

Tuesday was the first time I was really a drive-by tourist - Jeremy driving & me snapping pictures. He took me to Avebury, famous for its own ancient stone circles, mounds, crop circles & giant carvings into limestone hills. Had a pub lunch in supposedly haunted The Red Lion (where Harley bikers congregate at certain times), back to work till 9:30 (!) and had dinner in Old Towne.

An early Wednesday morning pick up (missed breakfast) to the Hammersmith, London office was a killer. Meet & greet, work work work.... Met up with Elaine in the evening & thank god for her taking me around to Oxford St., Marble Arch, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Sq., Trafalgar Sq. & Chinatown.

A miscommunication Thursday caused us an hour's wait (each separately, she at the tube ticket counter & I on the street) at the Piccadilly Circus station. So off I went walking blindly towards Pall Mall and oh, nice arch.... and oh, that speck at the end looks like a mighty lot like Buckingham Palace. But I was too lazy to actually make it there.

So I doubled back towards Big Ben (having seen it from Trafalgar Sq. & what I now know is Whitehall) and walked & walked. Hey, there's the London Eye; hey, why are people staring into a gated area (found out today that is Downing St. where the PM lives, duh); Houses of Parliament (I knew) and hey, that's Westminster Abbey! By then I was walking in an almost circle & exhausted. Hopped onto bus 25 back to Trafalgar & got lost again before getting underground (no air conditioning - how do people get by in the summer?!).

Checked out at 6 am & thankfully found Niall's chocolates at the airport (not at Tesco). Oh that reminds me - I couldn't find Gerardo's Tesco white chocolates & cheese biscuits either (Cadbury ain't bad, right?). And I forgot to get his money from JD. I am a bad, bad travelling 'saleswoman'.