Borders Across Borders

We went hunting today for a new bookstore to haunt since that's our favorite past time, and we seemed to recall passing by a massive bookstore on Picadilly the other day so we made our way back there today.

On our way there, I got a bit hungry so we stopped by Pret a Manger for a sandwich. I had some left over, so I asked the guy at the till for a plastic bag. Specifically, a B-A-G, bag. He made me repeat myself, and then corrected my pronunciation - apparently, it's B-A-H-G. Not in America, it ain't. And I did not go to school for as long as I did to have the guy serving me my tuna fish sandwich tell me how to pronounce my English.

Anyway, back to the bookstore. Sorry Borders, but Waterstone's got you over a barrel and spanking it. Hard. The place is five stories, and super spacious. The only odd thing that I noticed were the Sunday trading hours that were posted. Apparently, you could only browse the books from 11:30 to 12 - no purchases allowed. Why? Because the UK enforces Sunday trading laws, which only permits 6 hours of actual trading on Sundays. Whaaa??? It was odd since I was always under the impression that the English weren't particularly religious. Or maybe they are, just about their shopping. Anyway, we got there after noon, so we were permitted to actually buy the books we were looking at. Yay!

Oh yeah, and the other weird thing are the book covers - they're all different than the ones in the States. Not better or worse, just different. Danielle Steele definitely got a UK facelift though - her books look a lot less trashy here. Not that I read Danielle Steele. Seriously, I would not. It does make identifying the books you like a bit more difficult, since I'm accustomed to my favorite authors having a certain look to their covers. Hm. It's a good thing I can read.

Roaming around after the bookshop, we popped into Boots for a quick second so I could buy batteries and film for my camera, and we tried to get a membership card for discounts and deals. The guy patiently explained to us that we need to live in the UK and sweetly asked if we did. Yes. For goodness sakes, yes. I think he kinda felt bad after that cause he spent like 5 minutes explaining the advantages of using our Boots membership card. Dude, get over it.

And then we saw Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben on our way home. Walking home here is definitely a different experience than at MDR.