Petticoat Lane, Waterstones Hunt, and a Quiet Evening

Today was pretty relaxed at times...although I spent more time walking than I would have liked.  I decided to do some shopping since this was potentially my last Sunday in the city (or, at least,  my last Sunday living at King's Cross), so I headed to Petticoat Lane first.  My prize item was a pair of boots (£5) which will be stealthily tucked away until autumn...despite the chaos of the market scene and the rude people at times, I really like the atmosphere there: people arguing over prices, trying on clothing articles over whatever they were already wearing, music playing loudly (needless to say, there were several Michael Jackson tributes).  The guy who sold me the boots actually asked me about Gary, Indiana when I told him where I was from...I think he was expecting a charming small town, and he seemed pretty disappointed by my description.  (He did tell me that I was a very nice girl and wished me well with school, and another vendor said "Such a beautiful smile" as I was walking through...so I suppose that the trip to the market satisfied both the urge to shop and the urge to have complements thrown at me.)  :)

After I had scoured the rows of stalls, I had planned to spend the afternoon at Waterstones.  Unfortunately, as I left Nido in the morning, I realized that I forgot to double-check which stop I needed to go to in order to visit the bookstore, and it seemed silly to go back upstairs just to check that.  I asked someone in Information at one of the tube stations, and she gave me information that I think was correct (sending me to Tottenham Court Road), but it was a different location from the central one, and thus, I could not find it from memory.  I also went to Euston in search of the branch there, but I was unsuccessful again.  By this point, I was running out of time (they close at 6:00 on Sundays) and my feet and legs were killing me.  The hill-climbing yesterday definitely took its toll, and wandering the city in search of the bookstore just made me feel exhausted, which was ironic since I just wanted to curl up with a book and a cup of tea.  I passed several branches of WH Smith and a Borders, but I just wanted the Waterstones atmosphere!  Eventually, I gave up my search and returned to Nido, did a google search to find out where I should have gone, and checked Mass times at St. Aloysius.  That part of the evening actually worked out pretty perfectly: I took a short nap (after which my legs and hips were stiffer than a Brit's upper lip) and set out an hour before Mass, both to compensate for my potentially slow walking and to stop at the WH Smith at King's Cross/St Pancras to pick up a new book (I figured that I could just make tea back at Nido and have a makeshift version of my previously planned afternoon).  They had the next book in the Tudor Series (my name is Corrina and I am a Philippa Gregory addict), so I bought it (as well as groceries from the Marks and Spencer next door), then headed to Mass.  During the evening at Nido, I did laundry, had dinner and read...this is really thrilling, I know, and I hope that you will still read tomorrow after my relatively quiet post today.  :)  I did have one moment of excitement, though: I went to the cafe to read and drink my tea while my laundry was in the dryer (which did not break this time!), and I spent part of the time watching a group of guys watching whatever game was on at the time.  I was sitting around the corner, so I could see all of their reactions, but not the game itself: the perfect view, in my opinion.  Every now and then, I would just hear a synchronized gasp of horror and know that something exciting was happening...it almost reminded me of high school football games and my (still, to this day) ignorance of the rules of the game, but still enjoying the excitement of the game itself.  :)