Part Two: What Happened to My Toes?

I had every intention of waking up bright and early to be dressed and ready for my friend Gillian to arrive from Coventry. Hmmm...instead I woke up when she called to say that she was five minutes from arriving. Whoops. Corina and I immediately put some clothes on and rushed out to meet her. I hadn't seen Gillian since December 2006 when I made a holiday trip to Seattle, and it goes without saying that it was good to see her again.

Gillian kindly waited for me to wash my hair and to look somewhat presentable before greeting the mean streets of London. After a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs with carrots and a crumpet (it is England, indeed!), Gillian and I left Corina to do some job searching and headed straight for Picadilly.

We hadn't walked for very long before my pinky toes decided that they didn't like the totally cute blue flats that I got a Target. With every step my toes got pushed further and further into the sides of the shoes to the point where I was about to kick them to the curb and go barefoot. Kind of a lame way to start the day, but a good excuse to go shoe shopping. Gillian had an errand at the Apple store, so I made an unsuccessful trip to the Nike store. (Is it me, or is Nike just producing ugly shoes these days?) I went to a couple other places until Gillian and I struck comfy shoe gold when we spotted a sale at the Clarks store. With a new pair of red MaryJanes, I was ready to get back on the road, and in particular Portobello Road.

Gillian navigated the tube system to get us to Notting Hill. Like most of you, I imagine, my only knowledge of this charming neighborhood is by the romantic comedy bearing the same name. Notting Hill is even better in person. We ate lunch at Eat-- a kind of Pret A Manger establishment where you can by freshly made sandwiches and stuff. After lunch I ate a Double Decker (making a total of two Cadbury bars so far.)

Portobello Road is a street full of vintage stores and other quaint shops, plus it holds a street market where people sell old knickknacks, jewelry, produce, etcetera. I nearly bought a lovely cameo ring, but at 20 quid I wasn't sure that I wanted to spend that much money. I kind of regret that...maybe next time. If you were hanging out with us, you would have thought that perhaps Gillian was shopping for single men. I hope she doesn't mind me recording this memory, but it was really hilarious. If there was a well-toned fellow within twenty feet of us, she spotted him. I could barely keep up.

That being said, let me just briefly state one thing that I absolutely loved about London. I noticed that if a guy saw a girl he liked he would smile at her. Well, I certainly noticed it happened in my direction. It was incredibly flattering. Now, certainly it wasn't the first time a fellow noticed me. Hispanic men honk, whistle, and shout. Persian men stare. Creepily. I am pretty sure we could come to all sorts of conclusions about why I like the male Brit attentions, but with Hispanic and Persian men I just get the impression that they do the same things to no matter which female walks by them. It is much better for the self-esteem, when a select few make you feel good about yourself as they smile when you walk by.

Another thing I loved: Hummingbird Bakery. I went there with the express reason to taste their products and bring cupcakes back to Dubai. Hummingbird is another one of the many cupcake/American style dessert shops on this planet. It does have a good clientele, including Gwyneth Paltrow, and in my opinion the most delicious vanilla cake I have ever tasted. Better than Magnolia, and better than where I currently work. They were clean out of cupcakes when Gillian and I arrived at 5pm. But I had a huge slice of their gorgeous vanilla cake.

As we headed to the tube Gillian and I found the bookstore from Notting Hill.

On the tube we smiled at the cute boys, exchanged stories, and I wanted to chop off my feet. My pinky toes were still hurting, and the balls of my feet were also joining the pity party. They complained loudly, but I pretended not to hear them.

We met up with Corina who showed us a Chipotle knock-off, and for two tortilla-deprived girls it was heaven.

She also introduced us to the Angel neighborhood where Gillian encountered an Israeli waiter whom she thought was an angel. She was quite taken with him. I was more taken with the polenta, lime, pistachio cake slice I bought. (Are you keeping a sugar tally? I am just as amazed that I didn't have an upset stomach.) No worries, Corina walked us all over a part of London I would have never even thought to visit. Well, rather, I hobbled along and occasionally stopped to gawk, gush, and swoon over the clothes and other objects in store windows. I realized then and there that the reason I like fall so much is because of fall clothes.

After a quick errand at Sainsbury grocery store where we picked up food for the next day, orange-flavored KitKats, and bath foam (for 15 pence!) we took our tired and cranky feet home. I took off my shoes to survey the damage. Ouch! Blisters on the balls of my feet, and two very large blisters on the tips of my pinkies. So big that they were pushing my toenails off. I did some minor surgery on them and happily stayed off them for the rest of the evening.