Harrod's

After the London Eye, we had shopping to do, having only bought enough stuff to get us through to London and our baggage still being no where in site. We'd heard on the news that bags were being taken by lorry to Italy to be sorted, which we found ironic since we were now back in London, but perhaps further away from our bags than we had been in Paris. Our first stop was Harrod's, figuring that if we were going to have to go shopping in London, we should at least start there. The boys and J. R. wandered around for awhile looking for clothes, but the prices were outrageous and we really didn't see the kind of casual clothes we needed. Janie had better luck picking up a few essentials.

Bond Street Shopping

A quick check of our guide book told us we'd have better luck looking for essentials over near Bond Street where Selfridge's and Marks & Spencer were located, so we headed there after Harrod's. We first stopped in a store called "NeXt" because it looked like it had a good selection of kids' clothes, and it turned out to be a good choice. We were able to find some shirts, pants, socks and underwear for Rebecca (and a belt for the pants we'd bought her in Paris that kept falling down). Thomas found jeans and some T-shirts as well as underwear and Alex and J. R. found some shirts. Janie found a few things as well and we moved on towards Marks & Spencer.

M&S was a much better fit for our style than Harrod's. Alex and J. R. quickly found jeans and socks and Janie and Rebecca were able to find the remaining items they needed so that we didn't need to do any more serious shopping the rest of our trip. So we walked out with our three NeXT bags and three M&S bags and went in search of some dinner, having not eaten since the train. We found a pub off the main street that was doing a rousing business downstairs but was pretty quiet in the upstairs dining room. J. R. ordered fish and chips, Alex tried the sausage and mash and we all agreed that despite the comments on British food, the meal was very good. The couple of pints of ale didn't hurt either.

We lugged out stuff back to the hotel and had the kids sit down in the lobby while J. R. checked in and Janie went to reclaim Duffel. We had booked two rooms and after a little discussion and debate at the counter, J. R. was able to get the front desk staff to actually give us the triple and quad we had booked. (They at first had us in one room then tried to put us in two doubles -- we had prepaid, so we were adamant at getting what we'd paid for). We collected most of our things and headed up to one of the rooms. (We learned after settling in that one of our bags was missing. After a bunch of searching and screaming, Janie went down to the front desk and found the kids had left it where they had been sitting). We unpacked our stuff in this room, then went down to the second room two floors below, which turned out to be the quad room. We decided we didn't feel like switching and left this one as the 'boys room'.

We were not quite ready for bed yet, so we went back out and walked over the bridge towards Westminster to look at Big Ben's tower and Parliament and Westminster Abbey. On our way back, we stopped in a Tesco Express and picked up some additional ibuprofen for J. R's sinuses, which were finally clearing, a couple of bottles of soda and some snacks and then headed back to the room to call it a night.