Ritas Ireland Dream: People, People Everywhere

It was an absolutely beautiful spring day at 70 degrees. Can’t say so much for the traffic through London. We decided to take the Big Bus Tour and see all the sights, but the high school and college students decided to take TODAY protest to the streets for Climate Change which closed down many of the major streets and caused massive traffic jam. Throw in the fact that it was a warm day and everyone out on the streets for Easter Vacation and it was a little like Gibson Hill Road, North Albany Road and Hwy 20 all rolled into one during the Hwy 34 closure. In other words, 45 minutes to go 6 blocks. This meant that our plan to see Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey was not going to happen. So much for our planning to come to the UK the week of Easter. Guess it could be worse, the protesters are planning to shut down Heathrow airport on Friday which is where we flew in on Wednesday. Guess we do have good planning.

This is probably the most interesting city. The people here are from all over Europe and all points beyond. You hear every language and yet everyone seems to enjoy one another and tries to be helpful even if they don’t understand you. Rita sat next to lady on the bus who only spoke French and Rita kept talking to her and the lady was very gracious and listened intently.

How long did the bus ride to nowhere last? 10:15am to 4:30pm. Rita had her own little protest that was aimed at the bus driver. She wondered why she did not get to see all things on the map and why we went around in circles and only saw tops of buildings that we didn’t even know what they were. I thought it was pretty cool. I got to see statues with pigeons all over them and started making up name of buildings we had seen for the 3^rd time. What I really loved was all the flowers in bloom in all the window gardens and parks. We did get to go over the London Bridge…that was cool. Rita really wanted to see the London Tower, but the crowds were so crazy that it would have meant standing in line for 2 hours. We both really wanted to go into Westminster Abbey, but again, the roads were blocked off.

We had our English Breakfast at the hotel with all the other tourists at 9:00 am and by the time we got off the bus we were ready for dinner and REALLY needed a bathroom. Found a cute little pub up the street from hotel and had Fish and Chips and a beer for me because I was definitely walking NOT driving.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!!! She will need His help if she ever decides to drive through London.