The goal for day 4 was revolved around cars: find the Top Gear offices, and hopefully, some of the Top Gear guys. I was happy to see *any* of them : Clarkson, Hammond, May, or even the Stig). Secondly, I wanted to go find some top end car dealerships (i.e. Lotus, Aston Martin). So we got up in the morning and took the underground up to the BBC Television campus.
Or what we think was the main one. It was plenty big.
As you can see from the front gate, we doubted we could just wander around on the campus. So we started walking around the outskirts of it to see what we could see. The first thing we ran into was a big mall right across the street.
The obligatory jumping pic
We ended up walking around in the mall for a while; it was strangely very much like an American mall. Afterwards, we found the type of mall that we really enjoyed : an outdoor market.
Forgive the shot, I was trying to take it while not looking all touristy, something I strived for the first part of the trip, but eventually gave up on.
Katie and I stopped and got some fruit from one of the local stands, and continued our walk around the campus. The satellite dishes were HUGE.
We walked through some residential streets and found a small park on the back side of the campus. There we sat down on a bench to enjoy our fresh oranges.
On our long walk around the campus, we realized that we had just walked around a small part of it.
But we kept on walking. And eventually we found… the Stig!
Or at least a cardboard cut out of him against the Top Gear office windows. Unfortunately this is as close as I could get to looking like the Stig (I even had to borrow Katie’s sunglasses). Unfortunately I wasn’t carrying around my white track suit and helmet or it might have been a MUCH better picture.
We finally made it back to Westfield mall and figured out what double decker would get us to where we wanted to go.
We were both really excited, since the double decker is an iconic piece of London.
It was very strange, getting on the bus from the LEFT side. Everything felt wrong about having the bus driver on that side of the bus, so we opted for sitting up top & at the front. That way we could have a pretty complete view of where we were going and watch the crazy drivers.
The view from up top.
Oh, and we could watch the tree branches hit the front of the top of the bus and scare the crud out of us.
We eventually got off of the bus and walked around a bit, finding a small little cafe to get some sandwiches and ate at a park a block or so from the American embassy. This area was *very* ritzy.
Fortunately, the Aston Martin dealer was just around the corner. 
Who has 2 thumbs and is going to buy an Aston Martin?
We hung outside the dealer for a few minutes checking out the 2 DB9s they had inside. There was a good ol’ chap inside paying for one of them, and I was going to ask him if I could drive it, but I thought the better of it. Unfortunately no good pics of the cars inside since all we could get is our reflection on the windows.
Just down the street was the Lotus dealership. Inside they had a new Lotus Evora!
(We both found it interesting the paper wasn’t called UK TODAY)
(See? This was the best shot I had taken from outside of the dealerships)
We, again, started looking for the BBC store, this time armed with the address. So we took the underground back & after 45 minutes of looking, we decided it doesn’t exist, no matter WHAT Google maps says. So we found a small pub called “Stag’s Head” and had a bitter & cider.
We enjoyed just sitting outside people watching. And, well, car watching (I saw TWO Ferrari Californias!)
The backdrop of our outdoor seating
Weapons of choice
We headed back home for a bit to relax before heading back out for dinner. We found a wonderful little Irish pub. I was excited because they had Steak & Guinness pie! But, alas, it was not meant to be; they were out.
After dinner, we went back to see Big Ben at night and take a bunch of pics.
g’nite London!
