Miles and Smiles Away: August 6: Stupid Shoes

Well... my mom and I keep playing this game where we accidentally wake each other up in the middle of the night due to our snoring. So we keep sleeping in later than planned -- oops. Today we woke up at 10:30 and were out the door by noon. Once we stepped outside, we were shocked at how amazing it felt. It was sunny with a light breeze, it was perfect! After walking a few blocks, we stopped at this restaurant called Caffe Concerto. It was so, so good -- probably my favorite meal so far. After that we decided to walk around town... we ended up at the entrance of Kensington Gardens, which is where my shoes started to bother me... I ignored it and we kept walking on the trail and ended up in Hyde Park. After a little walk, we ran into this pond (turned out to be the home of Princess Diana's Memorial Fountain), where people are sunbathing, canoeing, paddle boating, feeding the ducks, and just relaxing in lounge chairs, it was so pretty! As we're walking away from the pond, I lower my head (so I don't have to see my mom's smirk) and ask my mom for a band-aid. Thanks to my hyperhidrosis -- fancy word for my sweaty hands and feet -- the band-aid wouldn't stick on. At this point, I just suck it up, because I don't want to be lectured from my mom... "I told you to wear comfy shoes five times, Ashley!"... I could hear it already. So we kept walking on.. we're now at the end of the trail and we have no idea where we are. My mom asks a local for some help, while I'm trying not to die thanks to these stupid shoes. We ended up only being five minutes away from Buckingham Palace, so we marched onward. It was about the time we walked up to Buckingham Palace when my foot went completely numb, so that was neat. After taking somewhere between two and 200 photos, I caved and asked if we could find a store for some new shoes. We were told there was a mall 30 minutes ahead, once we got there we couldn't find anything at all. We asked once again and were told we were standing in it. We looked to our right and saw a pub, looked to our left and saw a health and fitness club... no mall. I look straight and see the Trafalgar Square, so I suggest we go over there because I knew there were some souvenir shops over there. Turns out, we couldn't find any shoes at any souvenir store, so I bought the next best thing...some socks... not just any socks, but high-top, London socks. It was humiliating, but I knew it'd help. After I got over the fact that I had to walk around London wearing socks and flats, we headed towards The London Eye. I was pretty excited about this, because the last time I was here, my group and I ran out of time and weren't able to visit / ride The Eye. The view from the top is worth every penny...or pound, I should say. Afterwards we walked around Thames River and took even more pictures. We then cabbed it back to our hotel, grabbed some Chinese food from downstairs, and went to our room to get some beauty sleep.