Going overground

The other day I met up with my good friend Carrie who was visiting London town. We had no plans, just to hang out. We were heading to the tube station when I said, "how bout we do something different and take a bus?" She looked nervous. 

Our maiden voyage traversed the highways and by-ways between Paddington and St Pauls. OK it seemed to take a very... long... time... But as we headed down Oxford St and Regent St, and through Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, we got more and more excited, like we were on our own special sight-seeing trip.

Not only did we have a bird's eye view from our top deck, but we got to see things we'd never see from the tube. A photoshoot outside a top-dollar restaurant, rows of leotard-clad girls reciting to a matronly dame, a half eaten pie atop a bus stop. All of it London, all of it beautiful.

 
Then after hopping off and soaking up the culture in the Tate Modern (as Carrie concluded: "some of it's art, but some of it's shit), we popped to St Paul's and discovered it was ₤12.50 to enter, or free if you were there to worship. We glanced at each other before singing in unison: "we're here to worship!"

We were handed a psalm book and got our very own front row seats in the dome, with a bird's eye view of the choir boys (poor buggers). I got goose bumps as they sang. It was beautiful once-in-a-lifetime stuff. Though we were both slightly pre-occupied by the even more exciting thought of Charles and Diana standing just feet away on their big day. 

The next day our sightseeing bus trip landed us in Covent Garden for lunch and then a short stumble into Leicester Sq. There we made up for our free entry into St Paul's by saying yes each to a ₤16.50 ticket to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. I shed a small tear as I paid and had to remind myself that saying yes is always worth it. After all, we did get to keep the glasses. Brilliant.