Blundering Through London

Let's get this straight. They speak English in England. English is my native language. We speak the same language. So there should be no reason for my complete inability to order a coffee from Starbucks without babbling like an idiot.

"I'd like a black regular drip regular coffee please with..." What do they call it? Is it cream here? Milk? Half-and-half? Do you even order that at the counter, or is it self-service? "...milk for room, I mean for cream. Please."

I am the reason the English have signs like this in their pubs:

There was also the unexpected difficulty of finding a public telephone that actually worked. In the end, a man from Birmingham overheard our plight in Starbucks and lent his cell (ahem, mobile). In return he got our first gift of macadamia nuts, which I awkwardly passed to him across the table, saying "We're from Hawaii. These are special chocolates. We've been looking for a phone for two days."

On the bright side, being tourists means we get to indulge in a little silliness. Who else could get away with it, after all?

Defense training

Somewhere in there, Neville is missing a toad.

Respects to the Queen

Cheers,
The North American