Tuesday 23 June 09

Well, time to see if everyone can get up and around on their own - we are quite spread out through the hotel. Some in the basement, some on the ground floor, some on the third, and the rest on the fourth. Of course, they're in two different stairwells, which don't connect, other than on the ground floor, so it's set up for great convenience. Oh well, what's a few stairs among friends?

At any rate, most of us made it down for breakfast - English or cornflakes - and we all got there in time for our appointed departure. And depart we did, heading for the tubes and our appointment with destiny, or rather with a guide at John Wesley's Chapel in City Road. In a surprise move, we actually arrived early for our 10AM appointment - ahead of our scheduled guide, in fact.

The upside to that was that one of the two ministers of the chapel - Rev. Jill Potter - gave us an interesting talk about the history of that building, but more importantly, the history of Methodism as a separate denomination. Very cool information here that none of us had previously encountered. Once the guides had arrived on site, we got a quick finish to the chapel introduction, and then moved on to the Foundery chapel and John Wesley's grave in the back. Following that, we split into two groups to tackle the house attached to the chapel, and both groups got excellent tours of the place.

Next up was the Bunhill fields across the street. This is a famous cemetery for dissenters or non-conformists - including Susannah Wesley (the mother of John and Charles), Isaac Watts, Daniel Defoe, and many other luminaries. Unfortunately, most of the graves were inaccessible, as the gates to the footpaths through the fields were padlocked. Interestingly, we were "heckled" about Methodism by a chap walking through to have his lunch in the fields. He found Methodism unacceptable, as it was founded by the man who "invented electroshock therapy, and that's evil." We had a very civil discussion, and parted, while not friends, certainly not opponents. One can hope that he might reconsider - we'll be praying for that.

Walking back up City Road, we stopped at the food court in the Marks & Spencer store and bought sandwiches, drinks, salads, all that kind of stuff for a picnic lunch at the Aldersgate Memorial site by the entrance to the Museum of London. In spite of the fact that I misinterpreted the placement of the 5 items or less signs, the checkout ladies let us all go through so I could buy all the lunches; it was very kind of them, and we didn't really inconvenience anyone. Not only was the food welcome (& good), but we had a pretty significant devotional period there, right in front of random Londoners and visitors. I think it was a good witness that there really is something to all this Christianity stuff. Check 2 Corinthians 3:3.

Now it's time to head back to the hotel to get ready for our matinée of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. Unfortunately, we ended up at the wrong end of Paddington station, and had to really run and push through things to get to the theatre. Not only did we have a bit of a late start, but the two lines that made the quickest connexion were both down. We still made it a couple minutes after the curtain rose, and the ticket folks asked - are you the group of 14? We were, and they gave us a quick recap of those couple missed minutes and got us in our seats in time to enjoy the play - which we all did, but we can't tell you who it was, as they have sworn us to secrecy!

At least we now had plenty of time to head back to the hotel and relax a bit before our dinner at The Albert, a public carvery in Victoria Street, not far from Methodist Central Hall. We arrived in two slightly separated groups, but all sat down at the same time to a wonderful, traditional carvery dinner (turkey, roast beef, roast pork, and all the sides!) with starters and/or desserts for all. To get a full picture of the dinner, you really should ask one of the travellers who had the chocolate fudge chocolate cake how the dessert was - the looks on their faces almost made me want to have something sweet (but only almost!).

After dinner, we had a fun tube ride home, talking about the various places we could visit tomorrow - our last day in London. We put together some options, and we'll finalise the schedules in the morning, once everyone has slept off their sugar rush- and sleep deprivation-fed anxiousness. The great thing was that everyone realised that they were getting a bit snippy with one another, and that it was because they needed rest.

We're scheduled to meet at 8:30 AM to head out on our last London adventure, so stay tuned!