Office Visit and Church Services

The plan today was to visit colleagues in our London office.  We got up late, dawdled about breakfast, were not bothered by the cranky neighbor and headed off to the office.

Coming out of the Tube, it started to rain.  Christi had opted not to bring along her backpack with supplies like an umbrella, so I tried to shelter us both with mine.  She got a bit damp.

We finally found the office (no thanks to my faulty memory), dropped off gifts (queso ingredients and Hershey's chocolates), and took a tour of the offices (which had expanded since I had been there).  Then, Luke (friend and colleague across the pond) took us out to lunch.  We demanded fish and chips, so we found a pub.   Lots of stories were traded over lunch.  Luke had to go back to work.

This is the pub.   Atmosphere was good and food was tasty.  

We came across protesters on the way back.  They will show up again later.

Went back to the office, said goodbye and headed out for more sightseeing.  I was insistent on taking Christi to my favorite place in London, Westminster Abbey. 

You've seen me take photos before of the Abbey.  Photos are not allowed inside of the church itself, so lots of outside.  

A lovely thing happened while we were there.  There was an announcement of a prayer, then an invitation to join a brief worship service in the Shrine of St. Edward the Confessor.  Now, that area has been closed off for tourists for some time and is only open for worship.   Christi and I made it in the nick of time and got to see the shrine.  Cool beans. 

We then toured other areas of the Abbey where it appeared that photos were not prohibited, so we took some.

Including some cool medieval floor tiles.  We then tried to head toward Westminster Palace, also known as the Houses of Parliament as this is in the same direction of Trafalgar Square but...police cars sped by toward the protests 

So this is as close as we got.  We headed back to Victoria Station, had some bad coffee, and wandered toward Regent street in the Tube, where we finally found an H&M that carried our sizes.

Then wandered again

Ended up on Carnaby street.

did a bit of window shopping until Christi's new shoes wore a hole in her toe.  Headed back, made grilled cheese, and I did laundry. Fun times!