Lost In London

We rode into London by train today. The Exchange went home with his mother. Already, I miss him though we will see him when we visit his father in the south of France.

The Man and I went to the Portobello Road Market. It's an antique/flea market. Shopping is generally not my thing. Walking round to look for old things has no appeal to me at all. I shouldn't have to work so hard to spend my money. But The Man wanted to look for a used hunting wax jacket. What the hell is that? Why does he need one? What self image does he want to capture?

He found a nice wax jacket. You know that you have to wax the jacket to keep it waterproof? I don't even wax the floor, why would I wax a jacket? But then I won't be waxing the jacket. The Man will.

At one spot in the market, I had deja vu again. I had been to that corner before. It would have been raining and I ran down the street and into that corner of the market. When would I have done that? Perhaps the year I ran away and stayed in London for two weeks.

The Exchange phoned from France to tell us the airline had called to say they've found Butterfly Boy's luggage. That means when we get back to Paris, he will have swanky clean clothes to change into. He's one happy boy. It's weird to see him in The Exchange's clothes even though they are the same size.

But I am not so happy right now. I can't gripe about this to The Man, but I can here. The Man arranged for the boys to have dinner with us. He picked a restaurant called Gaucho or something from a guide book and told the boys to meet us there at 7 pm. The boys walked off with the guide book. Wouldn't you know The Man never took down the address of the restaurant. The Boy's cell phone ran out of juice so we couldn't phone him. We walked all over town, bought a map, phone the operator a million times, phoned the hotel a thousand times for messages, looking for the restaurant with the boys waiting in it. There were several restaurants with the same or similar name in London. We never found the boys.

Finally, we gave up and had dinner at a noodle house. Really, restaurant meals are expensive here. Our little meal cost 43 pounds. That's like $86 for a plate of rice with tofu on top.

We finally met the boys back at the hotel. They ate at the restaurant The Man sent them to. The meal wasn't that good they said. But it still cost them 110 pounds. That's $220!! Totally not worth it, they said.

My feet are sore and I need to rest.