Thursday Nov. 25, 2004 (Thanksgiving) View Thursday's Pictures
Last night we went to the theatre. We saw "Simply Heavenly" and it was great. It was a musical set in Harlem. I'd guess in the 30s. The time frame was our guess anyway. We're now having a discussion about the time frame. It may have been later than that. Anyway, we really enjoyed it. After the play, Susan and I had a late diner at one of the Italian restaurants around the corner from our apartment. There aren't many pictures from Wednesday because the dept stores don't allow pictures and of course, the theatre does not either. When we went into Harrods on Wednesday, we stopped and asked the doorman if Harrods had a pub. "Of course, Sir" was his reply and he gave me directions to the "Green Man Pub" located just below the men's suits. When I made arrangements with Susan for her to meet me there when she had finished looking around the store, the doorman said "May I say something to you, Sir". I said "of course" and he proceeded to ask if we are husband and wife, yes, he then said "Well, sir, may I say that you are married to one in a million!" "Me own wife would never permit me to spend the afternoon in a pub whilst she shopped" "I agreed that Susan is indeed one in a million" but didn't have the heart to ask her for money for the pub in front of him!
Laura has Thursdays off most of the time so we planned to spend the day with her. We took the 49 bus to her place then took the 11 bus with her to Westminster. We walked across the Westminster bridge to the Waterloo dock and picked up a tour boat for the trip to Greenwich. At Greenwich we toured the Cutty Sark, the fastest and last remaining tea clipper. It is a 212 ft sailing vessel that was built around 1830 and hauled tea from China to London. It was very fast and could make 300 miles in a day. It once sailed to London from Australia in 72 days which was a record. The fastest trip from China meant the freshest tea and that sold for a premium. After touring the ship we had lunch in a pub and sampled the local ale as well as bangers and mash. Both were quite good. After lunch we toured the grounds of the Greenwich observatory and clowned around the prime meridian. We then toured the Queens House and British Maritime Museum. Since we had bought the rail / river rover ticket, we took the Docklands Light Rail back into London. I insisted that we get on the first car and was surprised to see that there was no train driver! Just before we crossed into the city of London, a woman got on and opened a panel in the front and sat there and watched the train drive itself. I don't know if that was for extra safety or union work rules.
We took the subway and bus from the DLR
station back to Laura's dorm and met her room