TUESDAY IN LONDON (July 30, 2013)

Hello everyone!  We had a great night's sleep and got up around 7:00 a.m.  Before heading out for the day we stopped at the front desk and "mentioned" that we didn't like our new room very much.  Agnes, poor Agnes, had to help us again.  She upgraded us in the first place and, as you all know, no good deed goes unpunished. We actually had the nerve to complain (just a little bit) about our upgraded room and she was very sorry to hear we didn't like it.  She offered to show us more rooms and herded us around the hotel.  I asked her how many rooms there are in the hotel and she said over 400.  I joked that I wanted to look at every room and she looked at me oddly -- I think to see if I was kidding!

We liked the second room and we told Agnes that we were headed out for breakfast and toy soldier shopping and that we would move rooms when we returned.  She is very agreeable so that was the plan.

David wanted to be at Hamley's when it opened so we decided just to have coffee/tea and some kind of scone or muffin.  We walked outside . . . and it was raining!  And raining pretty hard.  So we borrowed a bright pink umbrella from the hotel and braved the elements.  

Hamley's opened at 10:00 and we arrived shortly before then.  A pretty large crowd of kids gathered before it opened.  All of a sudden the doors burst open and two young women came out ringing bells and escorting the Hamley's larger-than-life-size bear!  He was very cute!  They tried to get the crowd riled up but really only David responded.  The women shouted "are you ready?" and only David pumped his fist in the air and yelled "YES!" Then they wanted to countdown from 10 to 1 and, once again, only David hollered along with them.  Yeah, it was embarrassing but also pretty funny!

It is a gigantic toy store and I'm sure if a toy existed, it was available there.  David looked at all of their soldiers but only bought one.  It was a Hamley's exclusive and only 500 were made.  That's about all I know about that.

On the way back to our hotel we passed wonderful clothing stores -- Stella McCartney's, Diane Von Furstenburg's, Burberry's, Chanel, Hermes -- all the fabulous stores.  I'm not nearly cool enough to shop in any of them so we just noted them all and passed on by.

It was still raining but a little lighter.  We returned to the hotel and changed rooms.  We love this room and I think we are here to stay.  We had a little bit of time before our next adventure so we rested a bit and I wrote my earlier blog entry.  

I wanted to go look around Harrod's because I remember being there before and being amazed especially by their food hall.  It was still raining so we took the tube there (I so love mass transit!).  David and I split up and he looked at his stuff and I looked at mine.  Here are a few of my observations.  They only sell black clothes which works out OK for me.  It is almost August and most everyone -- shoppers and staff alike -- were wearing black tights.  Love that!  I lost some weight before this trip and thought I might find something there I wanted to buy but I swear there were NO clothes in that entire department store that would fit me!  Also, surprisingly, most of the women in London wear pantyhose!  And a lot of them wear that awful suntan color.  Remember those ladies???  

Harrod's was packed with people and mostly sighseers so fighting the crowds got old fast.  We made a quick pass through the food hall which is incredible, but with so many people there, you couldn't buy something if you wanted to!  So we took the tube back to our hotel to get cleaned up.  

We left the hotel again around 1:45 p.m. to walk to the Dorchester Hotel where we had a reservation for High Tea at 2:30.  Yes, we are VERY hoity toity.  The lobby of the Dorchester is out of this world with beautiful carpets and flower arrangements that were about 12 feel tall.  

Our friend, Noel, just arrived so I must end for the time being.  More later.