Around The World

After another good night’s sleep, we got downstairs to breakfast at about 10:00 am.

After a lovely breakfast, we went upstairs to pack our suitcases. We were booked on a flight from London to New Delhi this evening, which meant that we had most of the day free to spend enjoying London. But in the process of packing, we had to make a determination about whether any of the medicines we were carrying would be problematic on entry to India (since India is stricter on these things than most other countries). In the process of searching for information on what medicines might not be allowed, we discovered something else: Australians (unlike many other nationalities!) cannot get a visa granted on arrival into India. And since we were only hours away from boarding a flight to India, this created somewhat of a problem that was not going to be easily solved on a Saturday afternoon.

The next couple of hours were spent on the phone to American Express in London to re-issue our tickets on new flights so that we were not considered “no shows” on our original tickets (which would be a disaster). We booked placeholder flights a few days out so that we could ponder our options. And since there wasn’t much else we could do, we went downstairs to the reception desk and extended our stay at the very funky Ham Yard Hotel for one more night.

We decided that we should spend the rest of the afternoon doing something fun, so we went downstairs to the basement to enjoy the hotel’s bowling alley. Other than both pulling a hamstring on our first bowls (ouch!), we had a great time.

After we finished bowling, we went back upstairs to our room to consider our options for the evening. No point sitting around, so we decided to book tickets to “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical”.

Before heading out to the theatre, we ordered room service for dinner.

We left the hotel at 6:45 pm and caught a taxi to the Aldwych Theatre.

The show was fantastic and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Even though we knew a lot of the story, it was well told and very entertaining. And with 23 musical numbers, it was almost like a concert in parts.

We exited the theatre at about 10:15 pm and decided that, rather than taking a taxi back to the hotel, we’d walk and take in the energy of London on a Saturday night. There were people everywhere and it felt good to be walking around in a city with such a positive vibe.

We got back to the hotel around 10:45 am and retired for the night. Tomorrow, we need to work out whether we’re staying here in the same hotel or whether we’ll head somewhere else. Either way, we’re going to be somewhere in England for a few days while we re-jig our plans. But whatever we end up doing, we’ll be having fun!