so today was a kind of a rollercoaster.
Walked through Hyde Park knowing that the trees had me sneezy 7 years ago. Turns out they still do. The windy conditions don't help. In fact, it helped DH realize that he too is allergic/reactive to whatever kind of tree this is. We deal with it for a while but after walking around Buckingham and stuff, we headed to the train to buy tickets before going to Westminster Abbey. DH is like "my throat is starting to swell." Ok, well that isn't good. He didn't think he needed a doctor but we did go to a pharmacy and got him some Benadryl. He had me mildly worried there because I knew he was probably understating how he felt though I figured anaphylaxis wouldn't have slowly happened over hours. He's all good now.
We get to our Tube stop at Big Ben and it's super crowded. We take some pics, then go to the Abbey. Says no photos inside so I paid and then didn't open my purse the rest of the visit. About 3 hours later, as we were getting ready to leave, I open my purse and can't find my phone. Ruh roh. I knew I hadn't had it out since the train station right after leaving the pharmacy to check directions. No phone turned in at the Abbey. We had seen a sign warning about pickpocketers (that I joked to DH about!!) and we had a sinking feeling my phone was gone. That crowd around Big Ben. So after checking the Abbey, we quickly get back to our hotel room to sign me out of Google, try to track my phone, and see what we could do knowing that it had been at least 4-5 hours since we had definitively had it. DH is like, mildly victim blaming and I'm like dude, I kept my purse in front of me, zipped, and hadn't had it open after the train station other than for security and to pay. But I knew I had moved it from my zipped pocket to a slot one which would be very easy to grab if the purse was a bit unzipped. Blah.
So we spend a couple hours in the hotel trying to at least lock the phone remotely and ****. Read some Google reviews about how apparently Big Ben is a pickpocket hot spot. Sweet. Missed that in my research. Meanwhile, I tried to call the train station, but no one would answer. DH was certain he had seen my phone when we were there but I knew we had had a funny moment where I had his phone and thought it was mine. It was just one of those things where looking back I knew I was out of my "routine" and thought it was possible I could have set down mine while looking at his.
Finally we go back out to eat - without showering and changing as we had been doing - and I said we should at least go back to the station. We had assumed the worst since Google couldn't locate my phone (meaning powered off or something) but I remembered we had it in airplane mode which meant even if just lost, we couldn't call it. They still had people at the info booth and guy there says nope, no phone. Go to walk away. Second guy is like wait, what's today? the 27th? Says a Samsung 8 was turned in. Mine's a 6. Asked what it looked like. Said they'd have someone unlock the safe so I could look anyway. Eventually a person comes in and opens it.
Pulls out my phone. I literally gasped. I was so certain it was gone. So, no pickpockets. Just me leaving my phone sitting on a table in the middle of a rail station in London. Thank you kind person for turning it in. Probably karma for me chasing down a Czech lady at O'Hare to give her her passport after security.
I got to be like yeah, DH, told you I wasn't careless about not watching my purse! The look on his face, lol.
We then wandered for dinner - again, dressed in jeans and skechers. And a cardigan for me, t-shirt for DH. I looked like a suburban soccer mom. Wandered into an Italian place with no reservation but they had a table. I take a look around and realize ****, we are waaaaaaaaaay underdressed for this place. It was a delicious meal. So good. But I felt like such a rube with my messy hair and such. Gah. Our fanciest meal probably, and we had our dress clothes at the hotel. Oh well, the day ended well. DH didn't die, I got my phone, dinner (complete with hazelnut ice cream - amazing!) and Westminster Abbey was very pretty.
I hope tomorrow is less exciting!
