More London..

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Now these guys know how to do take away!  Walk in - grab food - continue the day.  No hours wasted sitting down waiting to be served...  Starbucks, Nero, 24/7 take away coffee EVERYWHERE!  Woohoo!  I love a good supermarket sweep to check out the local brands and funky products.  Tesco, Marks and Spenser, Salisbury's... all have the take away breakfast, lunch, and dinner nailed.  Baguettes, sangas, and my favourite - the pasta meals.  I had some pesto with cheery tomatoes and pine nuts.. calorie counts are posted on the lid which takes the guesswork out of chowing too much fatness.  Most things I've experienced on 'tour' are done better back home, this is the exception.  

We hit London during the hottest part of the year.  So while we've decked ourselves out in a funky posh hotel, there is no air con.  Great for some bush style clothes washing in the bath and drying them in the room, but shiteful for sleeping.  We've done Abby Rd, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Harrods, the Lady Di memorial water feature, which is lacking toboggans! etc..etc..  The tube system is good, but the trains are a little chaotic and bloody HOT.  No aircon again.  We didn't do the London Eye, I wasn't up for 3hrs lining up in the sun... it has been good taking the non-tourist route and getting away from the masses.  I now know why tourism is a $1b++ industry.. there are trillions of them and anything you want to do as a tourist is charged through the roof.  No more obnoxious American tourist stories to tell.... yet!  

A five story book store produced the goods today.  I scored the 'Training and Racing with a Power Meter' book and a book on the Hour Record.  This saves me from ordering them from Amazon!  No other bargains here, everything is a little more expensive than back home.  Clothes shopping in Brussels has taken the cake so far.

Onto Croatia tomorrow for the family 'do'. I have to get the ball rolling on getting a track bike when I get home.  56cm track frame wanted! Then working on a hour record of my own!  The HCC road champs are 4 weeks after I get back, no chance I'll be in form by then so I might give them a miss.  I'm planning on about 3-4 weeks of areo -> base -> strength -> testing to get back into riding after these three weeks off.  We'll see where the power training takes my form and what the numbers have to say.