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Tuesday, Jul 18, 2023
At the train station. It was a little confusing. I had been there many times before; however, this time I just wasn't sure which train to take. So I asked for help and people helped me. But it was still a little odd. I had to get to the Elizabeth line and that would take me straight into the city.
Oh, and ine thing I did before I left was visit the duty-free shop and got a bottle of scotch since I would be saving on the taxes, even though it might be more expensive. Hard to say. I never research these things enough.
I took the train all the way to Tottenham Court Road, and once I got outside, I was back in London again. I took photos of the surrounding area and some 360 photos. It was just fun to be back in my favorite city once more.
But I couldn't check into my place, so all I could do was walk around.
I did find a new park. I'd never been to Soho Park. It's very small, a nice little Elizabethean style building in the center, which was great for photos.
I then went to Chinatown. But while Chinatown has nice lanterns, it's not the greatest place for revisits for a long time. It's just good to do once or twice just to get a couple of photos. But I wouldn't spend any lengthy amount of time there.
After that, I went over to Leicester Square, where it was pretty empty because, again, it's about 8:00 in the morning and hardly anyone is in the area, so it's rather quiet. I went into Burger King and just got a small fries and went upstairs, sat down, and plugged in my laptop. It was mostly empty up there and I just sat for a while and played on the laptop, charged it, and was killing time.
An hour or so later, I went out into Leicester Square, took pictures of the new statues, which were very creative and kind of fun to look at.
I pondered going into the Odeon to see a movie, which wouldn't have been a bad idea, but I'm not sure they want to let me in with all my luggage.
Then I wandered over to St James Park. Always a great place to visit, but again, carrying so much weight wasn't fun. I did have a duffle bag, so no dragging around luggage, which was a smart choice since that would have made things much harder.
But mainly, once I was at the park, it was starting to get crowded. A lot more tourists were awake and walking around. I was lucky to find a bench and I just sat there for a while, checked stuff on the phone, and watched the ducks and birds and let time go by.
Then I headed over to the parade grounds, checked out some of the horse guards, and finally found a place on the old Diagon Alley street, or at least the place where it was inspired. I found a Chipotle and just sat outside there, after ordering one a burrito. I sat there for probably two hours and finally I could check in because it was 3 p.m.
Yeah, I killed a lot of time doing not much of anything that day, but it's just so hard to walk when you've got two bags with you.
The building was really cool. Location was awesome because it was right next to Leicester Square. You walk outside and you're right in front of the Hippodrome and the shows are all in the area. Probably the most optimum location in London for my itinerary.
Inside the long hallways, it was almost like going back in time. A staircase headed up to the fourth floor, which was quite a workout with the bags. There was no elevator, and plus, in Europe the first floor is not considered the ground floor.
The keys were left for me in a lock box. It was obtained through Booking.com, but it was more of an Airbnb type situation. The room was pretty nice. It had a kitchenette, which I had really wanted, even though it turns out I hardly used any of it at all except the refrigerator, and that was just to keep the leftovers cold and the liquor cold
I went to work at 6 p.m. since it was still a work night, and I had my laptop. Yup, it would be a working vacation, which might have been a mistake, but it also saved me having to take an entire week of vacation. In hindsight though, that turned out to be a smart thing to do. Those saved days were worth a fair amount of money.
And then at 2 a.m., I was able to finish work and go to sleep.