51 years later

We started our day with a walk through Olympic Park, site of some of the 2012 summer games. We strolled along the canal, enjoying the sunny weather. I always think of gray skies and rain when I think of London, so the blue skies were a welcome sight. Just across the south end of the park sits the ABBA arena. I had previously talked everyone into going to the show, and they were not disappointed. It’s the second time I’ve been here, and I still can’t figure out how they do it. Regardless, it’s 90 minutes of pure joy. It’s like a giant sing along with 3,000 friends. By the time they got to Dancing Queen, everyone was on their feet. Fun fact: it was 51 years ago today that ABBA won the Eurovision contest with their rendition of Waterloo.

We left the arena and walked back to the park. Nikki and I had tickets for the Helix: the world’s largest tunnel slide. Kim and Deb opted out. The slide drops about 600 feet, looping around a dozen times before you come to a screeching halt at the bottom. At the top, they wrapped us like a burrito before allowing us to fling ourselves down the tube. I let Nikki go first, then I hopped in behind her. I’m not sure it’s possible to slide down without simultaneously verbalizing delight.

Because we are in England, we walked to a chippy. Apparently this one doesn’t take its hours of operation seriously, so we regrouped and found the Chipping Wharf about a mile away. It was a fortuitous turn of events, as we happened upon two narrow boats making their way through a lock on the canal. It was fascinating to watch the downstream lock get closed by hand. Then, they used a tool to raise the upstream lock just enough for water to rush in. Once the area was full and the boats had floated up, they opened the upstream gate fully and motored away. The whole process was so interesting that I’d forgotten about food. We stayed way too long before continuing on to dinner. I don’t think we got there until about 5:30, which ended up to be a much later lunch than anticipated, but it was worth the long walk. The cod was fried to a light perfection and presented horizontally on the stubby potatoes. Dressed with a couple of pickled onions and served with lime and lemon, the plate was enormous. After Nikki finished off all of the onions, we hopped on the tube to Kings Cross. There, we popped out of the underground to the train station, where Harry Potter used Platform 9 3/4. We took a quick picture and grabbed the subway back to the AirBnB, where we made some plans for our trip to Bath tomorrow.Read more