UK TRIP 2022 – PART IV

 May 10, 2022

London

Another lovely breakfast at the Rubens. Erika, the breakfast room manager, has been absolutely wonderful. She asked if we enjoyed our tea the day before. We told her the young lady who served us, Petra, was a delight. She smiled. “She’s my daughter.” We told her how much we enjoyed her and wanted to get a photo with her before we left.

We returned to our room and prepared for the afternoon’s visit to The Wallace Collection. Chris and Guy had suggested it when we saw them on Sunday. The current show was called “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts.” Since we are Disney fans, this sounded like something we’d enjoy.

I had thought we’d walk, but Larry checked the route and thought we should take the tube. Another adventure!

Actually, it was quite simple and reminded us of the subway in Japan. Unfortunately, the ticket machine decided to eat Larry’s ticket. We found someone to open up the machine and free it. The gentleman smiled. “It happens.”

Once he was free to go, we found the right train and were on our way. Only two stops from Victoria, where we started. Then we had about a ten-minute walk to the location.

As expected, the exhibition was fascinating. However, in the middle of it, Larry’s phone went off. The only way to stop it was to turn off the phone.

After the show, we decided to eat lunch at the café. I thought about the quiche, but it was salmon. I don’t like salmon. Nothing else appealed, so I ordered the mixed leaf salad. Larry had an egg salad sandwich (eggs, mayonnaise, and sprouts—not original but edible). My salad, on the other hand, was primarily frisse, dandelion greens, and others I don’t care for. The dressing tasted like straight oil. I picked out the spinach leaves and left the rest. I also ordered a scone, which I never got. Not a great lunch.

We walked through the rest of the museum. Larry loved the huge arms collection, especially the weapons and horse armor.

We found our way back to Victoria, where we wandered a bit before returning to the hotel.

Our laundry was supposed to be back by five o’clock since we had taken it down to the concierge desk at about six the night before. It was nearly five. Our clean clothes weren’t in our room, so we went down to the New York Bar for a couple of cold diet cokes and dessert. Larry ordered rum vanilla ice cream. I had limoncello sorbet. Delicious and refreshing!

While we ate, we noticed Erika serving in the tea room. As she went through the bar area, she spotted us. I commented on her long day and asked about Petra since I didn’t see her working.

Erika said Petra was celebrating her birthday by having tea with her best friend as a guest. I told her again that we wanted to get a picture with Petra before we left.

We stopped by the concierge desk and asked about our laundry. They said they would check again and guaranteed it would be delivered by seven o’clock that evening.

It wasn’t. So, we called about seven-thirty. They told us housekeeping was gone for the night, but everything would be delivered by seven in the morning.

Larry tried to restart his phone, but it wouldn’t sign on to the hotel wi-fi nor would it allow him to sign onto Google (because there was no wi-fi). We hoped he could get it to work once another wi-fi source was available.

We packed the rest of our stuff and decided to eat a couple of protein bars before retiring for the night. We hoped our laundry would arrive in the morning so we could finish packing before leaving for our flight.