day sixteen: london, new years eve

Wow! Day sixteen. Very hard to believe...

Well, it is a little after noon on Saturday and we still have only tentative plans for tonight with Reid, Shawn, and Anna. It is kinda difficult to plan anything right now since a 24-hour London Underground strike started at 12. They claim the trains are gonna run until they lose too many workers.

That's all I got for now on today. More later.

Gavin

Update
Robin and I decided to head out and brave the Underground strike. Apparently just the station staff are striking, not the train drivers. It is now just a matter of keeping enough stations open. Our closest station is open but not very active, and the trains are running less frequently.

• We take the train down to the river's edge.
  
• It is a cool, sunny day (what a difference from yesterday!)so we grab some baguette sandwiches and a cup of soup to enjoy on a bench in the Victoria Embankment Gardens under a statue of Robert Burns.
  
• We then checked out Cleopatra's Needle, a 3000 year old Egyptian obelisk adjacent to the park.
  
• From the river, we walk back up to Covent Garden, and Leicester Square for more shopping.
  
• Time for a couple half paints in a pub before heading back to the hotel to start getting ready for the evening. I have an Abbot's Ale which is some of the tastiest Brittish beer I have had so far.
  
• Back at the hotel we cancel our tentative reservation for dinner here which would have set everyone back £65 ($114) a person. OUCH! We made the group decision to just walk north of the hotel to a nearby area full of restaurants, clubs, and bars.
  
• We finally decide on Italian for our last meal of 2005. The restaurant is very busy and the staff is running ragged, and when we ask for a table, they look at us oddly as if to say, "You want to eat here? Now? At a table?? Well, I guess so..." The tales of this dinner could go on, but just know it was delicious, and we wound up ringing in the New Year with a bottle of champagne and the predominantly Polish staff.
  
• We begin wandering back to our neighborhood in the light rain, all the way trying to find a club with an after-midnight cover charge less than £20. We find one near the hotel and do a little dancin' till we decide to turn in around 2:30am
  
• We say goodbye to Anna and Shawn who are heading home in few short hours.
  

Happy 2006!
Gavin