Touring London, Hard Rock Cafe...

Piccadilly Circus circa 1993....

The Big Ten has appropriated the back of the bus #1. We are lounging throughout London. We are rattling through sinewy streets. The 300 year old  Victorian buildings flanking both sides of the street are the color of ash or some unknown mineral.  The dyslexia accumulated from driving on the “right” side of the road is compounded by the upside-down traffic lights and yellow lights which blink even after it turns red as some sort of get-ready signal.

We are in London. 

Vivian notes again that there have been several alterations to our itinerary primarily due to the Marathon being in town this afternoon. Whenever Vivian pronounces the word Marathon she does so without pronouncing the H. She says that if you look over to your right and down a bit you can make out the tip of Big Ben, which, she asserts, we shall see tomorrow in greater detail when we visit Westminster Abbey. 

We encircle Hyde Park. Our bus is skidding through London. Vivian is commenting how, being Sunday morning, it is inordinately calm traffic speaking. I have known Vivian for five days and I don’t know how I managed to get through life sans looking out the eyelids of the tour bus, my every thought chronicled via the narrative kiss of her voice, coated with a British accent that is to die for. For the moment the Big Ten is sedated. Everyone appears to be in awe. Vivian is talking about the city of Westminster. She is talking about Piccadilly Circus, claiming that it is very much like your Times Square back in New York City, now isn’t it? As we swerve through Piccadilly the Big Ten once again gives it up for our Bus driver Chris. It is Big Ten give it up. Vivian announces over the microphone that the statue we see in Piccadilly Circus is that of Eros the goddess of Love, or as you american have a tendency to note cupid. We are motoring through London. Vivian states that the double-decker buses you see actually happen to be reserved for tourists and the most Londoners prefer to take the tube.

I am in London.

 Vivian is pointing to our left. It is Trafalgar square. Vivian again inquires if any of us burgeoning scholars just so happens to know the name of the individual emblazoned on the top of the column.  I know it is Lord Nelson only I don’t feel like being a sycophant and answering the question. Trafalgar square is the one thing Coach Mann told me to think about him when I see it. There is a confetti of gray pigeons and column. I see Lord Nelsons back side.

 I can’t stop thinking of Harmony.

It is London. It is the trip I have yearned for these last three years.

Justin is pointing out the window. He is saying look. It is a giant neon guitar.

We have arrived at the Hard Rock Café.

Each of the buses are stopping at Hard Rock Café at different intervals. The Big Ten pushes its way through the front of the line like they are trying to make a first down. I ask Charles if I could run into the actual restaurant and purchase like a cappuccino or something and he says probably not, Hair.

We don’t go into the Hard Rock Café. Instead we just line up to enter the side of the building, teh gift shop, to buy shirts.

All the shirts have a picture of what appears to be the globe with the words HARD ROCK and the words of the city that never tires from life on the bottom.

Everyone is lined up like trained simians. Everyone has there bartered currency in front of them. Vivian has already told us on the tour bus that there is a size differential so when we ask for medium remember that in US terms it is actually a large.

“I thought we were going to go inside and just see the actual restaurant itself.” I tell Justin. He shrugs as if to say that the only thing his girlfriend really wanted was a t-shirt from the Hardrock café that said London scrawled on the bottom of it like a subtitle in a foreign film.

Everyone is lined up. I buy a black t-shirt for myself and two white shirts for my siblings. it is over fifty pounds, seventy american dollars. I still have a hundred-fifty left in travelers cheques for the trip.

We are at Hard Rock Cafe London for an hour yet we never go inside.  Even the counselors have t-shirts show the saturnesque planetary emblem of Hard Rock followed by the word London below, as if written for the hearing impaired.

Trevor and Charles are counting heads. We are congregating back on the bus.

The next stop is Madame Tussuads, where Vivian is informing us that a few of the older coaches are already awaiting us and will stop at the Hard Rock after.

It is London. I am wondering why Harmony refrained from calling me back.

I am a member of the Big Ten.

I am all alone.