DAY 12

July 25, 2022 (Day 2 in LONDON)

After a rough check in yesterday, we were able to wake up and go down to breakfast from 6:30 a.m. Of course I must always comment on the food – we eat, eat, eat. This hotel is the same one we stayed at back in 2018. So I was eager to go down to the more luxurious-styled dining room with the large spread of food. I got down for 6:50 a.m. and the dining room was the same. However the spread was not as great. I imagine due to COVID, instead of having the food in the center around a large island, the food was scattered around the room in various stations. The full English Breakfast was available – eggs, breads, cheeses, sliced meat, beans, cereals, tomatoes, coffee, tea and juices.

John Is BACK!

We headed out on a 3 hour bus tour of London after breakfast and our tour guide was JOHN who stayed with us the full two weeks last year as our group guide. He was very informative as we drove around indicating major historical facts about building and bridges we came across. Of course interspersed with the dates and facts was the typical English humor that had us all laughing the whole time. I even wrote down a few of his quotes for later. We were able to get off of the bus to have a close look at the Tower Bridge.

Free Time On Oxford Street...

After the 3 hour tour, we were let loose on Oxford Street for about 4 hours. Oxford Street has all of the shops you can ever imagine all on one looooong street – Marks & Spencer, Foot Locker, Disney Store, Selfridges, Primark and hundreds of others. And every side street had tons of stores. You will have to pardon the lack of pictures in this section as I was on the hunt for a bathroom at first and then got so caught up in Marks & Spencer, Clarks and Primark that taking photos was the last thing on my mind. I ended up teefing a few from the internet to post here. The Clark’s picture is mine.

Catching up with Head Boy, Class of 2015

I was able to catch up for a few minutes with Rory McCarroll, Head Boy of QC’s Class of 2015 who is now working in the SOHO district of London. We were only able to catch a sandwich and spend about 15 minutes before he had to go back to work. However, it was great to see how well he is doing since graduation. We are so proud of him!

Dinner At BYRON...

We had three long rows of tables and chairs for a somewhat American style dinner. There was a choice of starter (wings, onion rings, mozzarella sticks). The entree was a choice of hamburgers/chicken burgers and either salad or fries – trying to stay a little healthy I ordered the salad. Dessert was a glass of either mint ice cream with chocolate drizzle, vanilla ice cream with cherry compote or chocolate and vanilla ice cream with poppcorn and fudge pieces. No question – go for MINT.

You would think that choosing a ‘starter’ meant that it would be the food they ‘start’ with. However, the burger was served first, then I had to beg for the drink after everyone else got theirs. Meanwhile the salad was taking long and again I got the salad halfway through my chicken sandwich. Was this a conspiracy? But – where are the onion rings? My ‘STARTER’. Well, after asking 3 waiters, the onion rings came after I had finished eating. This restaurant could do well with some Bahamian hospitality training on how to serve food. You could tell they were short-staffed with only 2 waiters for the whole restaurant. They were running around like chickens with the head cut off (pardon the Bahamian expression).

After dinner we headed back to the hotel. I stopped at Marks & Spencer near the hotel for one last check on buying some clothes for work in September.