On Sunday, we spent a lot of time reading the papers before we headed out. We had heard tales of the Hyde Park Speakers Corner, and our map showed that it’s adjacent to Oxford Street, which is pedestrianized on Sundays. So we set out for the Bond Street Station to experience a European car-free street on our way to the speakers’ corner.

It’s hard to say what we were expecting, but Oxford Street was not a pleasant experience. We were caught in huge crowds of mutant shopper zombies moving at about two steps per minute. When we finally got to the end of the street, there was a major intersection between us and Hyde Park, and the only way to get to the other side was through a maze of tunnels.

By the time we got there, the Speakers Corner was a bit of a let-down. There were scattered clusters of people observing other people arguing with each other. It didn’t help that we were cranky, with the six-hour time change finally catching up with us.

We wandered off into the park to relieve the our stress, and eventually found our way back onto the tube. We stopped at the St. John’s Wood station to scout the area around the Abbey Road Studios. Night had fallen by the time we got there, but we plan to return.

Getting a bite to eat in a nearby pub, we were hoping that the Packers (our favorite “American football” team) would be playing on the TV. Instead, they were showing an auto race somewhere in the USA. After the race was over, the announcer was going on about how Americans should be proud to have witnessed such a spectacular race. Obbie laughed and shouted out that almost no one in America was paying any attention to that race… “They’re all watching football!”