Oh What a Saturday

We had a very interesting day yesterday.

Bob got us tickets to go see Grease on stage, so we set out for lunch then the play, all the while, a demonstration by Gaza supporters had begun at Hyde Park, with a march to the Israeli embassy next door to our hotel. Kensington High Street was closed down to all traffic, so we walked quite a while until we were able to hail a cab...a lovely lunch, mediocre play, then an attempt to return to the hotel. (One cab, who could only get us to Harrods tube stop, two tube rides got us to Ken High Street, then a decent walk to Il Portico for a lovely reunion dinner.

After dinner, we were unable to get back into the hotel without having to walk way around it to avoid the still lingering, and very vocal remaining demonstrators. We ended up getting a police escort (5 officers in full riot gear with helmets and shields) to escort us back into the hotel. Shoes and protest placards and sticks were everywhere, and there must have been hundreds of police officers in perfect formation. Bob told Megan she was staying at the most safe hotel in London. :)

Watching from the hotel we saw horse mounted police go in around 9:00.

The Daily Mail online shows lots of photos...we are directly across from Starbucks and Crush, many of the photos were taken from the hotel..the photo of the man striking the police on horse shows our hotel in the background...the hotel entrance was swarmed during the day with demonstrators...also BBC has some good video clips, I just don't know how to post them here.

We were not going to venture back out after all that, so Rachel missed her sleepover with Anna and we stayed in and watched Meet Dave.

Very interesting day.

This morning, the street is clear of guard rails and not a bit of litter is left- you would never know what happened yesterday. Traffic is flowing and all is back to normal...unbelievable, the Brits are so on top of everything. :)

Lots of Love