This is a continuation of my memorable trip to London, England! Originally it had been one long blog post, but all that I put together erased itself by accident, so I’ve journaled my trip into several blog posts.
This particular blog post covers Saturday, April 1, 2023.
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The next day, Saturday April 1, 2023 was a big day for us, since I'd arranged to get together with someone I've known for years online named Annabel Smyth. Annabel is a Methodist minister and also an adult figure skater. I have no idea how we connected, but it was probably through Facebook and skating.
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| Jo Ann and Annabel finally meet and here we do a skating pose |
Annabel and her husband of 44 years (they were married on March 31, 1979 only one week before my husband Dan and I were married) 44 vears ago, live in Brixton, so we took The Tube (ike our American New York subway) there. Annabel met us at a coffee house near the Brixton Station and then we went on a scooter-walk together to the famous indoor shopping area in Brixton. It was all quite fascinating and I think my girls wanted to just stay there and explore for hours, but we had plans to go to lunch together, so we pretty much just walked around and looked.
It was a bit of a walk to the Jamaican restaurant called Katakata that Annabel chose, but once there, we had a wonderful lunch together.
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| Annabelle and Annabel finally meet! |
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| Robert and Annabel Smyth |
At the end of our meal, Annabel's husband Robert joined us. We then walked over to the church where Annabel is a minister and got a private tour. The land the church was on was so large!
After our tour of the Brixton church, Robert and Annabel took us on a short walk and bus ride to a stop that would take us to a double decker bus that would take us to Buckingham Palace. I wanted to go the "slow way" so I could observe London sites from the top of the bus. We gave both Robert and Annabel hugs and went on our way! It really is fun to see London from a local's point of view and it was great finally meeting Annabel after all these
years.
When we exited the bus we still had a bit ot a scooter-walk. I enjoved seeing the city of Westminster very much since I've been a PBS Upstairs-Downstairs fan most of my life!
These are buildings I have seen for years of television and in the movies.
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| The Setting of My Favorite PBS Series Upstairs Downstairs |
The bus ride was quite fun and finally we made it to Buckingham Palace! My daughter
Annabelle’s friend Daniela met us there and helped us take a lot of photos.
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| Buckingham Palace! |
After our Buckingham Palace "photo shoot" we headed for a scooter-walk to The Green Park.
It was fun to explore the park next to the palace but it was very cold, so we didn't stay
as long as I would have liked since Rebekah really needed to get warm.
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| The Green Park! |
We then began a walk through the area near Green Park. We enjoyed seeing paintings along
the way which reminded me of Mary Poppins!
We originally were going to eat at one of the restaurants in the area, but decided to head for Soho where there were places less expensive. On our way, we passed The RITZ and the doorman didn't want us to go in because royalty sometimes goes in The RITZ, but said we could warm up inside the lobby. We decided to skip going inside altogether, but I did get a
"cool photo of me with the very well dressed doorman!
As we walked to Soho, Rebekah spotted a Whole Foods Market and said, "Whole Foods! I
haven't been there in months! Can we eat there?"
So...we had our dinner after Buckingham Palace and The Green Park at Whole Foods! It was delightful to have Daniela join us and get to know her better. I think it is so wonderful that my daughter Annabelle has friends from all over the world!
It was really fun and easy to eat at Whole Foods since everyone could just choose what they wanted to eat. I had a big bowl of pea soup and carrots! I think both Daniella and
Annabelle had pizza and Rebekan had a lot of veggies and salad.
After leaving Whole Foods, we headed for the Piccadilly Circus train station. It was beginning to get dark and. Annabelle got a wonderful photos me in London's equivalent of Times Square.
We said our good-byes to Daniela and headed for the Tube train. I think it is really nice that in London all one does is scan a credit or debit care to enter and exit the trains.
We were very tired on our way back to East London, but I recall we a nice conversation with an American who was back packing through Europe while we were on the train. We all
observed that the British are not as onen as Americans and rarely make small talk on trains
and buses. so our conversation was pleasant for all of us.
We got back to our Airbnb exhausted and pretty much went straight to bed. Annabelle's plane was scheduled to leave in the morning, so she packed her things and we were all off to bed.
What an amazing Saturday April 1, 2023 we had!
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