I felt very rested in the morning after having a long night's sleep. I got up and made us tea and fried eggs over crumpets with cheese and sauteed peppers. Kat is lucky to have such a good cook for a husband.
Monday we planned on more shopping and doing a tour of the Globe theatre before seeing our show that evening. We planned out route and headed out, back to Mansion House station and across the Millennium Bridge to the Globe. We got there in time for the 11:00 tour. Our guide was nice and knowledgeable. We could see them tearing down the old set and getting ready for our show while we were there. I failed to find the picture Chris said he was in. At the gift shop I picked up a postcard. On our way out we were stopped by a market researcher, Glenda. She asked us a few questions about our visit and I politely answered her.
Our plan to walk along the bank ran into a problem when we hit construction and had to detour around it. The south bank area seemed to be fairly modern and trendy. There were joggers and lots of cafes and shops. It reminded me of Portland. Rick Steves doesn't say much about it. I think he tends to be a bit stuffy and ignores modern attractions.
We eventually found Waterloo station and took the Tube back to Piccadilly Circus. We were on the hunt for Indian food at Chowki. We had discovered that our map had a 20% discount code for many restaurants and attractions that we had failed to take advantage of. Chowki was one of these. After I led Kat around in a circle a few times we finally found Chowki in the Soho district. We were very happy with it. The food was great and the price was very reasonable, even though our discount didn't work for lunch. After Amaya, anything could be considered reasonable, though.
Satisfied, we continued our search for toe rings and watches. Across the street we wandered into a touristy shop and I found a cheap watch that I could stomach so I bought it just so we would have something else to rely on other than her foggy watch. We still couldn't find a feminine digital watch.
We walked along Piccadilly Street and stopped in Waterstone's Bookstore and climbed the stairs to the 5th floor for a couple cocktails and great views of the city. Next we wandered down various shopping arcades, lined with expensive luxury items, none of them digital watches or toe rings. We ended at Oxford Circus and jumped back on the Tube to go to King's Cross and St. Pancras.
At the train station we wanted to find a tourist map of Paris to help us plan our day trip. We also wanted to look for the Harry Potter platform again. We never did find the platform, but we did buy a map from the bookstore in the station. From there we headed up to Camden Town.
Camden Market was the polar opposite of the Piccadilly arcade area. This area was packed with cheap crap. Still, with all the touristy wares we couldn't find anything that Kat wanted. Time was getting away from us and we needed to get home to change clothes and have some dinner before our show. Getting home from Camden Town turned out to be a bit tricky. This was the first time we couldn't go straight back to Earl's Court and had to make some transfers. We eventually figured it out, but we were running late at this point.
We got home and changed and headed back out again. We had decided to eat at Wodka, a fancy Polish restaurant nearby that was also on our 20% discount list. I was very excited to share it with Kat. I recognized some of the things on the menu we saw online. Kat was wearing high heels, so it took us a little while to get there. When we arrived we only had an hour and a half before our show started so we let them know we were in a hurry.
I ordered a few dishes that seemed familiar to me from my time in Poland for us to share: Zurek (sour soup), Chlodnik (chilled beet soup), Pierogis filled with cheese, potato and onion, and beef and sausage goulash. We each had a specialty martini made with Polish vodka. Everything was fantastic, but we had to eat it very quickly. We finished paying up with about a half hour before our show and we were a bit away from the station we needed.
Kat took off her heels and we ran to the tube station together. We were sweating by the time we got there, but we caught the train. We arrived at Mansion House station with five minutes before our show, but we still had to cross the river via Millennium Bridge. Kat kept her shoes on and we sauntered over the bridge, just hoping that things were running late and that they would still seat us.
We got there ten minutes late and picked up our tickets and cushions. They were polite and were still seating people. Our seats were in the very top balcony, at one extreme end, almost behind the stage with a limited view, but they were still amazing seats. The play had started already by the time we sat down, but we didn't feel like we had missed much. Falstaff was just explaining his plan of wooing two women at the same time to a pair of drinking buddies.
They play was fabulously entertaining. The actors really got into the spirit of the theatre in the round. From our vantage point we could see the musicians clearly and it was fun to watch them play their period instruments. There were only a few times that we couldn't see the action on the main stage, but we could hear them perfectly, even without the use of amplification.
After the show we walked back across the Millennium Bridge. I think this was our first real night out on the town. St. Paul's looked even more amazing lit up at night. The city lights were stunning from out in the middle of the Thames. This has really been a very romantic honeymoon.
We came back to Earl's Court via Mansion House, hit Tesco on the walk home for ice cream and wine, and sat down to have them when we got inside before going to bed.
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