I awoke the next morning surprised, followed closely by startled. I was happily surprised that I had slept the WHOLE night through! With jet lag the first few nights are usually spent plotting the destruction of the clock for reminding you that it has only been half an hour since the last time you ever-so-slightly opened an eyelid hoping, praying that it has been more then half an hour. But alas it usually tells you what you already know: that it is 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, ect, ect, ect, and you are going to spend yet another day in a foggy daze! However, I must have done something to appease the God’s for when I peeped through the tiny crack of my eyelid I saw something quite unusual, Daylight! Yippie, I had slept the night through. It was only 6:30 though, so I decided to treat myself and snuggle in for a little more shuteye! “OOOOO, Heavenly” I thought as I drifted back to dreamland wrapped up in my personal cloud of togs. That’s when ‘Surprised’s’ beastly little brother ‘Startled’ came in to rain on my parade! Paul was up and yelling at me to get my lazy butt out of bed. “What is going on? What happened to dreamland?” I thought to myself. I tried to ignore him at first, but the possibility of ignoring Paul Brookland Williams is like trying to ignore a bull in a china shop – not possible. I reluctantly realized that dreamland would have to wait and threw up the white flag. “I give up, I surrender. I’m up. I’m UP”
This was NOT my usual wake up call at all. Typically when something other than my alarm clock wakes me up it is my mother, whose voice takes on an angelic tone while she tiptoes into my bedroom to gently nudge me awake. “Gooooooo - ooooooooddddddddd mor - nnnnnnniiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggg sleepyhead. Rise-and-shinnnn-nnnnnneeeeeeeeee. It’s a beautiful day today,” she would coo at me. Whereas Paul decided to throw open the door with a BANG, jump on my bed and sing out at the top of his lungs, “DARLING, I am awake and it’s all about me, right? Get up, get up, GET UP and great yet another foggy day in London town!” He was half kidding about it being just about him, but there was no WAY he was letting me go back to bed.
Over breakfast Paul gave me an unexpected and rather unwanted gift … a Reality-check! A big, fat, hunk of reality!! As he informed me of the schedule for the next couple of days, an alarming pattern started to emerge. My idea of a personal tour guide was slowly starting to unravel. I was under the impression that Paul was cutting back on all the exercise classes he taught while I was in London. I was delighted for him to show me everything. To his credit he did cut back on classes, BUT since he works like a crazy person his cut back schedule resembled that of a normal person. My first few days were spent wandering around different areas of London while Paul taught Pilates, dance, water aerobic and other such things. Would go off on my own while he taught and then meet up with him again after he was done. A few times I even joined in on the fun! There really isn’t much you can do in London, by yourself for an hour! I had no phone and no way of reaching Paul if I got lost or lost track of the time, so for the most part I stayed close by and window shopped.
Paul did his best to show me the highlights of London while on his breaks. Considering his total distaste for touristy things he did very good. It may not have been accurate, but it was always humorous. Paul has a knack for making anything and everything fun since he is naturally hilarious, quit possibly one of the funniest people I know, and COMPLETELY over the top! Paul grew up on the stage and has performed in many productions including the musical The Starlight Express for 7 years. The world is one big stage to him and as such everything is a production and performance.
The first touristy thing Paul took me to see was Trafalgar Square, the very center of London (the center of the universe as the English like to say!), and home to a very tall statue of some famous guy, who, I am assuming, won the battle of Trafalgar. The four famous lion’s of London sit in the four corners of the square, where each one is showcased on top of a massive concrete block. Paul somehow convinced me to climb on top of one of the blocks to get my picture beside the lion, which is something I would never do! He snapped the picture and then told me to hurry down before the police arrested me. Might have been good to know before I climbed up here – just saying! I scrambled down as fast as I could to find Paul laughing at me. Apparently he was kidding!
After our fun in the square, Paul took me to the ye ‘ol English Pizza express, where we treated ourselves to Pizza and pinot grigio (of course!) After we filled our bellies we walked around the town and had a spin on a carousel. It was either, go on the London Eye by myself, or take a spin on the carousel with Paul. Later on, I had the pleasure of visiting the Ye ‘ol English Starbucks – which according to Paul was founded in the Elizabethan era wherst the Queen would frequently visit for her afternoon tea and biscuits! Here we indulged chai lattes and crispy Belgian chocolate squares. Very English you know! Another highlight of the day was going to the Argos Catalog store (same concept as the Sears catalog), since Paul needed to pick up pressies for his niece and nephew. The catalog store is not so much of a store as it is a warehouse full of the contents in the magazine. Instead of browsing for the items yourself, you instead look through the magazine, find what you want, put the item code on a piece of paper, put your order in with the clerk, pay for it, take a number and then sit in the waiting area until they call said number to hand over the goods. As we waited for Paul’s number to be called we had a ‘jolly good time’ chatting with all the elder ladies! He picked up the dolly that his niece wanted - Row-say with stri-pay tights (I am trying to simulate her accent because it was so gosh darn cute!) and a pop up Thomas the Train thingy that has suspenders so you can run around and pretend to be a train. We may or may not have tried it on, and it may or may not have been super funny. We rounded out the day with one more Pilates class, an hour tube ride home and of course an episode of Pushing Daisies in the comfort of our togs!
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