London - Regents Park and Waterstones

Sunday the 4th of June, we checked out of room B, and back into room 6, at Cecil Court. We could hardly wait, since room B was even more of a dump than room 6. The bathroom was so small, that if I wanted to sit down, I had to back in through the doorway. I could literally lean out from the shower stall, over the toilet and wash my hands in the sink if I wanted to. The best part was that there was a leak in the shower line so that if you hold the shower head any normal fashion, water would spray all over the walls and on down into the door frame, on down to the floor, soaking the carpet of the room. Another way you could soak the carpet is if you pull the shower curtain across, and inwittingly cover the shower drain so the water builds up and breaches the tiny shower basin down into the door frame and onto the carpet. Evidently, whoever was in the room before us, did at least one of these things since at least half of the floor in the room was sopping wet when we checked in, and STUNK! There were no other rooms available at this price, so we stuck it out. Just very glad to be back in the room #6 dump today though. After checking out, we left our bags in the office, paid, then went to Costa Cafe to read, make plans, have coffee, etc. From there we took the tube to Baker Street and on to Madame Toussauds. With the expense and wait, Vee deciced it wasn't all that important to visit, and so instead, we walked all through Regents Park, which was spectacular. There were people everywhere, sitting on lounge chairs, blankets, throwing frisbee, kicking footballs (soccer), eating, drinking, talking and just plain having fun. We sat under a tree for a while and read and took in the beautiful sun. We later took the tube to Picadilly and raided a place called Waterstones, which is the largest bookstore in all of Europe. We probably could have spent an entire day in there. Finding books that we wanted took only a matter of minutes, and then we kept finding more. Ugghh!! But, they closed at 6pm, and we were forced out with one book each, mine was only 99p, and Vee's was 3 Pounds off regular price, total bill was about 4 pounds. Yeehaa! Oh, but the price we'd pay... Every place we walked by was closing their doors, so we couldn't immediatly find a place to eat. We ended up at what we though would be an inexpensive italian pizza shop for a panini, a bagel, 2 slices, and a beer. 21 pounds. WHAT!!!!!!!!!??? Furious. But, what could we do? I bit my tongue, fuming, and in disbelief, we walked around until we finally decided, with the mood killed, to take the tube back to the hotel, and call it a night. All in all, it was a fabulous day! The rose garden in Regents Park, the playful birds, the blue rowboats, willow trees and festive atmosphere were sangrias for the soul.