Had a really good sleep until 2am when I woke up in the same position I went to sleep in. From then until 4:30am, I slept but tossed a bit. At 4:30am I started to hear a drip, drip, drip and thought it was the rain outside so tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. Alas, it was the aircon leaking onto the fake wooden floor and making a big "splat" sound every time a drop hit the floor! So, I got up and put a towel on the floor and slept for another half hour or so, until the towel became sodden and the "splats" came back. I was awake by then so decided I had had enough sleep.
I turned on the lights and made myself a coffee. The room does not have coffee making facilities but being the "adapting, overcoming and improvising" person the Army has taught me to become, I used my portable heating element I bought at Duty Free in Sydney in 2006. Two mins later, water was boiling and I added coffee and creamer and had a nice coffee before breakfast which was not until 7am. I spent the time in between waking and breakfast fixing my phone settings so I could send emails from it. I would receive email, but not send. I eventually got there, not a second too soon as the phone was about to go out the 6th floor window! Breakfast was a mix of hot and cold; hot was scrambled eggs or omelette, cold was cheese, ham, bread, jam, pastries, cereal and coffee (well I suppose that is hot as well). I had some cereal, followed by eggs, ham and cheese with two cups of coffee.We had arranged to take a City Tour by bus, and met in the lobby for an 8:30am pick-up. We were led to believe it was a three hour tour starting at 8:30am. Well, we only got picked-up at 8:45am, and then we did the rounds of another six hotels to pick up other passengers. By the time we got to the big bus for the tour it was about 9:45. BTW, I forgot to mention that the weather was "tickly nasty" and was likely to be so for the whole day. I had my doubts about how much we would be able to see, but went along for the ride anyway (what else can you do on a rainy day?). By the time we got to our first stop, a supposed coffee break and comfort stop where the loo was through one of those touristy shops, it was already 11am. Jane and Sylvain had a business meeting to attend in the afternoon and had to be back at the hotel by 12:30pm at the very latest. This first stop was about 500m from our hotel!! So, the three of us walked back to the hotel whilst Trudi and Ann continued with the tour.
The three of us went to lunch at a cafe about 100m from the hotel and whilst the food fed the worms, they were not the best meals we've had, so we won't be going back there again unless necessary. J & S went to their meeting and I went back to the hotel and lay on the bed and crashed for two hours! I knew I had to wake up but just couldn't open my eyes, but I obviously needed it as I felt a lot better after it. Steve met us here in our hotel and we (Steve, Trudi, Ann and I) went to dinner just around the corner from the hotel to the London City Café/Restaurant. The steak strips were good and the beer (don't know what brand) was excellent as well. It was still raining on our way home to the hotel.
There are no pictures attached because I didn't take any. Hopefully we will be able to do a walk through the city on another day.
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