This was vacation was one day too long. Overpriced breakfast with meh service. Then, we took the metro to Buckingham Palace. This is when it started getting quite warm. In fact, it was 20 degrees hotter than the average. 89F was the high. This is the day we decided to walk the most, I think. 8 miles. It definitely felt like the most. We walked from Buckingham Palace, through St. James’ park (stopped for a bit at the playground), to Westminster Abbey and Hall, past the Elizabeth Tower (and the bell within, Big Ben), and onto a very touristy (if those places weren’t) Southbank. We arrived in Southbank just in time to beat a TON of school kids to the bathroom…the very dirty bathrooms. Got some chicken nuggets (very McDonald’s like…but not as good) and got in the line for the London Eye. It was a nice ride. It’s 443 ft. tall. The Las Vegas High Roller is 450 ft. tall and is currently the tallest Observation Wheel in the world. From the London Eye we could see a playground and we spent some time there next. Then, on to….lunch?….at a burger place. Ellea enjoyed her non-breaded chicken strip sandwich. Avery got a smash burger. He’s been enjoying burgers recently. After that, we had a boat tour, which was pretty good for 15£ each. We went to Draughts next which is a board game pub under the train tracks. Pretty cool area. I don’t like how you have to pay to get in, but there are a ton of missing pieces from the games we tried. Also, food wasn’t so great. We had a couple ideas of how to close out our trip and we decided to walk around Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent Park. This would have been a great idea if it wasn’t the same weekend as Taste London, the bridge wasn’t under construction, I didn’t have to pee, and my feet didn’t really hurt. But there we were…chasing after ducks and posing with roses. Lindsey did find a restroom, so that was nice. Would have been better if that place was still serving food. I would have liked to have eaten there. I would actually have pictures to share if we had.
Instead, we walked out of the park and back to our neighborhood when I found an overpriced Japanese food restaurant. It was pretty good. We sat on the patio. But that’s when trouble started. We see a guy on a Lime rental bike almost run over a couple guys. He then comes towards us…looking our way…then turns away and goes to the other side. I know now he was setting the bike up for an easy get-away. He walks towards us and says he’s very hungry and only has a couple pounds, which he shows us and points to our edamame. We…stupidly…both turn our heads…and that’s when I think he grabs my phone from the table. Rudely, he also takes our edamame, throws it in his mouth (without evening opening the pods), and runs off on his bike. I had no idea what had happened at this point. Lindsey just wants to close out and be done with the place. I get up to go pay and realized I left my phone on the table. Head back to the table and that’s when I realize what had actually happened. I then used Lindsey’s phone to put my phone into lost mode, but by that time he had already gotten down the block and had turned my phone off. We paid with a standard card and went back to the apartment.
When we left the states, Lindsey thought I was crazy for taking 2 emergency phones with us. To quote Branch from Trolls, “well who’s crazy now? Me…crazy prepared.” From my new phone, I was able to send an erase command to my iPhone 15 Pro. I assumed the phone would never be turned on again. Early the next morning, though, it was turned on and I got confirmation the it had been erased. We pack up and I got my iPhone 11 set up the best I could with what I needed for the next day, then…bed time.