This was the free day we had while we were there, it was difficult to try to find some stuff to do, so while we were in Leicester Square on day five we looked up things we could do. There’s an older film theater in the area that was showing Dune or Back to the Future II on 70 mm film. There was also a 500 minute marathon at that theater for the Harry Potter films, what could be more appropriate for the night before we go to the Harry Potter Studio Tour?

We arrived at the Piccadilly Circus tube station and walked up the steps, the surrounding area looked as if we were walking around SoHo again. We walked down the busy street and found a covered street between two buildings, but not a lot of people were there. The shops are was small, too, and there was a macaroon shop that Taylor and Max wanted to stop in. The walls looked like they were literally dripping gold and the macaroons were set out so particularly – it felt like I was in a china shop. That feeling was heightened further because the shop was so small!

Macaroons are such a coveted dessert because of how hard they are to find great ones. However, we found a T.K. Maxx (T.J. Max) and went in there so Taylor could find herself some shampoo, we saw little boxes of them at check out. They were so much more less expensive there, obviously, than the luxury macaroon shop.

We eventually walked closer to China Town to find a SUPREME store so Max could shop there. Meanwhile, Taylor and I went to Ben & Jerry’s across the street. They actually had little quarts of the vegan ice cream and I got to try some from where they scoop it.

We walked all the way back down Piccadilly Street, past the art museums / art schools and went into some US shops (we didn’t buy anything – just wanted to see if there were any similarities). We went back to the tube and took it to Leicester Square. We saw some street performers and walked over to see about some tickets to a showing, nothing we were super interested in. Shakespeare’s Globe was only showing Henry IV and the cheapest tickets were standing only (the play is three and a half hours so that was a no…)

We walked back to the Seven Dials and went to some local shops we saw before – one called The Cotton Story. I loved talking to the owner about the business and how much I appreciated the low carbon emissions that local businesses emit rather than big companies. We also went into a store for skin care and all of the plastic bottles were made of certified old recycled plastic bottles – so that was super cool. The bottle of shampoo I bought from Neal’s Yard is also made of the same material. We walked around a little more and decided to head back toward Leicester Square. We went to the M&M store and saw the largest wall of M&M dispensers in the world – there were too many people so we just looked around and left. When we headed back up the stairs we saw the costumed green M&M and took some pictures with them.

Still wanting to walk around, we went to the National Portrait Gallery to see some exhibits. They had statues of monarchs and knights and the likes. We then walked to a Bella Italia close by for some dinner after looking up the menu in the NPG, but went to a local Italian place next door called Vespa instead. I wasn’t too impressed with it, but it sufficed as sustenance for the night. They had half scooters hanging out of the walls and used the front lamps as some light in the small restaurant.

We returned back to the lobby, wanting to watch a vampire mockumentary called What We Do in the Shadows. I recommend it if you feel like laughing at something ridiculous because it does a fantastic job of it. We brought some snacks into my room and tried to hook up a phone to the hotel tv so we didn’t have to watch it on someone’s phone. When that didn’t work, Dr. Barner and Monica were in the lobby hanging out so we went down to join them to talk about the day.