The last day we’re all together (for now) London, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

It’s not our last day in London, but it’s the last day in London that we’re all together.
After a relatively slow morning we went back to one of the casino’s we’d visited earlier, where I witnessed a peculiar phenomenon I’d never seen before. There were a number of people frantically tapping on and/or rubbing the screen every time they had a spin. I believe it’s meant to give good luck, or totally convinces these non-existent ‘reels’ on the screen to actually stop when you top on the screen in the right spot. Who knows, but it was a bit odd to witness. It’s the homeopathy of gambling – so much effort involved but it makes absolutely zero difference to the outcome. We’ll have to try it in Sydney and see if we can get it to catch on. Maybe we can sell our secret to the gullible for zillions of dollars (heck it works for homeopathy, right?!)

We went to ‘Costa coffee’ – the scourge of all London coffee-snobs, I believe. It’s basically like the lovechild of Starbucks and Gloria Jeans.

In the afternoon Perry had an afternoon nap and I went out for a wander around the streets and a bit of a shopping mission. In my travels I saw (for the millionth time) tons of beautiful old buildings… in the end I gave up taking photos of them just go to Google Street View and choose Regent St London and you’ll have the same kind of view that I did. Anyway, it’s beautiful, and always makes me wonder who has visited these buildings in the years gone by. Who has walked these same streets. Like, last night’s theatre for Bend it like Beckham, Noel Coward debuted some of his plays there, and also acted in them … there’s so much history it can just boggle the mind.

I also walked past homeless people, as one does in any large city. However when he asked “got any spare change any spare change, I gave my usual “sorry mate” … but was then quite surprised by the terribly (dare I say) English reply “Oh that’s ok not to worry have a lovely afternoon”. I had to chuckle to myself (which does make me sound awfully heartless, I know).

My shopping mission was accomplished – I bought a cheap GPS for when we pick up the car next week when we leave London. I wasn’t about to pay £15+ a day to hire one from the rental company. Crazy.

On a whim yesterday we bought tickets to an event at the “London Wonderground”. As far as I can tell, London Wonderground is a little bit Festival of Sydney in a pop-up event space at Southbank on the Thames. After a lovely jug of Pimms (I can see why it’s the unofficial English drink of Summer – so lovely!!) it was time for the show.

The show we saw was called ‘Briefs’, taking place in the ‘Paradiso’ Speigeltent. Very nice. Briefs is basically a bunch of Australian gentlemen (yes we travelled half way around to world to go see some Australians), who put on a kind of drag / cirque / burlesque show. It was really impressive – amazing acrobatic skills, bloody funny, and of course the performers were not terribly difficult on the eye either.

Plans didn’t exactly work out for a last dinner all together, so we had a terrific dinner with Steve & Michael at Muriel’s, where we had breakfast a few days ago. Very tasty, and finished with the largest slice of carrot cake that I have ever seen. But it has carrot in it, so it’s a health food. 🙂

Tomorrow we farewell our other 5 friends as they leave London and head off on their own adventures to Paris / Berlin / Copenhagen / Ho Chi Minh etc. We’ll be the ones running down the train platform as they leave on the Eurostar, tearfully waving our handkerchiefs like they do in the movies. Or something like that anyway.

We’ll also be leaving our little Soho neighbourhood, to try a different hotel a whole couple of blocks away, closer to Leicester Square. It’s been a great little neighbourhood, and not far away to return to (for the next week at least).

So, for now, goodbye from Soho!