Saturday June 21, 2014 Portobello Road, Houses of Parliament, and Oxford Street

It was especially difficult to get everyone going this morning. We ate and were up quite late last night; the ballet then dinner. Andrew was especially reluctant to put his feet on the floor. Luis had to call him several times before he mournfully pulled himself to a standing position. Showers and breakfast of eggs on muffins were the order of the morning. Then we cleaned the place up real quick before Jennifer Millspaugh arrived. Ann didn’t want her to see the place with dishes on the table and clothes laying on the floor. She arrived just a few minutes after 9:30 because we wanted to get to Portabello Road before the crowds became impassable.

It is not easy to describe Portabello Road in a few words but I will try – it is an antiquer’s paradise. The road (really a street) is lined with small antique businesses selling everything from ancient silver pieces to early 20^th century cameras and radios. Between are scattered plenty of boutique fashion stores, pubs, and assorted restaurants. On weekdays it is a relatively quiet street but on the weekend its character is completely changed to a place to see and be seen. The sidewalks are replaced by vendor stands in front of the more permanent businesses (of course there is space to get to both). The street becomes the sidewalk with people flowing in both directions. In places progress almost comes to a dead stop and you have to struggle to work your way from one square foot to the next.

We arrived with the most ardent shoppers. For the first half hour you could walk and look at the displays but by 10:30 the streets were packed and getting into a booth or store was problematic to say the least. I visited several old book dealers but the atmosphere was not conducive to searching for the kind of book I hoped to find. I tried another stall but with little satisfaction. However, I did spend a few minutes at a CD record stand where the man was hawking music from the ’40 – ’60 in a collection of 5 CD. The I got to thinking about having to carry that box the rest of the day and that dampened my interest. I do, after all, already have much of that music, not just in a nice compact collections like that.

We lost Andrew and Jennifer M. for a few minutes but later found them at Santo’s, a Mexican food restaurant that Jennifer thinks the best in the city. Seemed like a good idea to me. We could use a jalapeño fix since we have been away quite a while now. The music and atmosphere was almost like being in Austin. I told Jennifer it was pretty good for London and good that it wasn’t perfect because she wouldn’t have anything to look forward to when she returned to Austin.

After lunch we headed to the tube station and had a round of good byes with Jennifer M. as we were parting in separate directions. Ours took us to the Westminster station for our scheduled guided tour of Parliament at 1:20. Getting into Parliament is worse than getting onboard a plane these days. The security check process involves questions and scanning. I had my little pocket knife in my pocket (didn’t know this was going to happen) and didn’t want to lose it. I put it and my glasses, camera lens, and other things together in the tray hoping it would go through (it has before) but not this time. The guard was quite upset with me for trying to “smuggle” it through their system but ended up giving me a card with a number and said I could retrieve my knife if I came back with the card after the tour. Wasn’t sure the knife was worth the embarrassment.

We collected for the tour inside Westminster Hall. There were about 22 in our group and our guide was a nice lady, about 60 years old and knowledgeable about the sites, able to answer any of the questions that were asked from our collection of tourists. The tour took about hour and half with little or no time to stop and sit. Sitting was absolutely forbidden in the two houses but there were a couple stops in the lobby areas between the houses that had benches. We were standing in the lobby area that connects the House of Lords and House of Commons looking up at the ceiling when Luis looked my way and said, “Everything is so opulent, we don’t have anything like this.” Well said. After the tour Luis and I went back through the lobby areas to read inscriptions under some of the large frescos and paintings that line the walls. The rest of the family waited for us in the café next to Westminster Hall. When Luis and I joined them they smiles. “We’ve had afternoon tea”, said Ashley. Containers of clotted cream and jam were scattered around the table between tea cups.

Outside people were milling around and filling the street. Loud music and voices came from Parliament Square across the street from the Houses of Parliament. “What’s going on over there?” I asked one of the security guards. “Protesting a planned change in the welfare system and new austerity measures. That speaker is Russell Brand, a very rich comedian, complaining about losing some welfare”, he replied. I walked across the road into the crowd to take photos of the Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln statues that stand in the park. Several people tried to give me pamphlets and signs but I turned them down.

We arrived at Oxford Circus around 5, a very busy time of the day, but then, Oxford Street is always busy. From there we walked down the street to see Selfridge, the largest department store in London. Ann and I especially wanted to see the store again since we have been watching the PBS series, “Mr. Selfridge” which is about the man who started the store and its history. Very interesting series. Of course, the store is much different today than it was back around the first of the century when he started business here in London. We walked around the ground floor to the escalators and took them up, spending a little time on each floor.

Since we were about halfway between the Marble Arch and Bond Street stations, we walked to the Marble Arch station where all but Luis and I took the tube back to our flat. Luis and I walked across Oxford Street and under Marble Arch, a large triumphant 19^th century arch that was originally intended to be an entrance way to Buckingham Palace but somehow relegated to this rather obscure small island at the intersections of several very busy streets. After taking a few pictures we found the bike rental stands, pulled two out of their mounts and peddled our way west through Hyde Park. That is not as easy as it should be. There are plenty of paved paths but a lot of them are marked NO CYCLING so we did our best to avoid those. But we soon ran out of pavement and I decided to disregard the signs as were other people. But we came to another sign that explained that the fine for cycling in those out of bounds areas was UK 60P so we decided it was better to use the sidewalk outside the park. I wasn’t about to get into the street with all those cars and busses even if there were other cyclists out there. No me. Finally we made it to the end of the park, found stands to return our bikes and walked back to the flat.

Ever since arriving I have suggested we try Indian food for dinner. Tonight was the night. Everyone wanted to say in so I agreed to get “Take Away” Indian food. Luis and I walked over to the next street where all the stores and restaurants are located in this neighborhood and went into the first Indian restaurant. “Do you do take away?” I asked and he motioned to the back of the restaurant. The man showed me a menu with an assortment for 4 and agreed to increase the portions for 6. Luis went for some wine while I waited for the food. When it came I had 4 plastic bags full of food, enough for a dozen people. I think the kitchen doubled the order for 4 since we had 8 of each kind of food when we unpacked the bags. The was a lot of moaning and groaning. Andrew just didn’t try. Ashley and Jennifer agreed that they preferred other kinds of food. Ann and Luis were both sort of ambivalent. “My dinner has been a failure” and made a big wailing cry to go with it. “Well, we tried” was the general consensus. What to do with all this food was the question. Ann suggested we package it back up and take it up to the hostel up the street to give to the young people so we did. Luis took it up there. When he returned he said, “They looked at me like I was from Mars or something but I told them it was good food and unless they took it we were going to throw it out.” They took it and thus ended our day.