Meeting Up With the Old Crew

Wednesday morning I headed out to try to get my phone sorted out.  I had brought along the pay-as-you-go phone we had bought in Ireland when we visited in 2008 hoping it would work, but it said there was no service.  I took the train to Liverpool Street & stopped into a phone shop nearby.  The told me to go to a different shop where they could see if the phone was unlocked.  At that shop they told me that the phone was sadly locked & sent me to another shop to get it unlocked.  The third shop was closed dispite it being 10am.  I asked at the shop next door, where they directed me to a fourth shop to get the phone unlocked.  The fourth shop was also closed, so I gave up & headed to Tottenham Court Road to see how I'd fare.

I quickly found a phone shop & asked about getting a new pay-as-you-go phone.  They had some cheap phones I could get for around £25, but that would be about $50 Canadian.  I decided to head to the nearby Starbucks & see about adding a travel plan on my phone from home, which I discovered I could do for $5.  It was a lot of running around, but it used up some of the extra time I had.

After all that fun I headed to Covent Garden for some shopping!  I picked up some souvenirs for everyone & then it was time to meet up with my old workmates from when we lived in London.

 

As I walked to the pub where we were supposed to meet, I took a few pictures of the street signs

Apparently there were a few people I worked with who do not check their facebook very often, & they had no idea I had named my daughter after the street!

This is one of my favourites!

Fiona & Mora worked on the Reception desk with me, & were always fun to work with.

Ian & Pete

 I had not seen these people in over 12 years!  It was far too long & we had  a great time catching up.  We had planned to meet up at 3 in the afternoon on Wednesday, figuring that the pub would be dead & we would have the run of the place.  Strangely, there was a power cut, so all the nearby businesses had been let out & everyone had the same great idea to head to the pub!  Despite having no power, the pub carried on serving drinks.  After a few hours the lights came back on & everyone cheered.  At the end of the night you could see that the dishwasher had not been working, as the entire bar was stacked with glasses!