Don't Try This Without a Local

After our lunch and walk through Notting Hill, we ran a few errands back in the Piccadilly Circus area (ugh, Times Square with a cockney accent). It was quite a drag, fending off tourists and slogging our way through the teeming streets, but we managed to get quite a bit accomplished. Our reward (and Suzie's bribe to keep me in high spirits) was to swing by Abbey Road on the way home, so that I could see the famous Abbey Road Studios of EMI, where The Beatles recorded many of their albums, as well as the even more famous zebra crossing immortalized on the cover of The Beatles "Abbey Road" album. In case you can't recall, the cover of the album shows the four Beatles crossing the street in the zebra crossing in front of the Abbey Road Studio:

Certain that I was the first tourist to ever come up with the brilliant idea of capturing in pictures my own reinactment of the Fab Four's jaunt across the street at the zebra crossing, I convinced a somewhat recalcitrant (but ultimately sporting) Suzie to take a picture of me doing just that. (Below is a photo of the two of us at the actual Beatles zebra crossing, captured by a friendly Brazilian.)

Now, as you may know, a zebra crossing is a British invention--at such pedestrian crossings, all vehicles must give way and stop when a pedestrian is in the crosswalk. Even for a silly bugger like me.

You see, funny story: It is actually very difficult to capture the moment during rushhour in modern day London, what with all the drivers intent on flattening an insufferable tourist. So, after several attempts at the original site, we drew on my yankee ingenuity (and Suzie's stoicism and good-humored but semi-dwindling patience) and captured the moment at a different zebra crossing down the road.

One which conveniently had an actual "Abbey Road" street sign and a far more photogenic background...

...Regardless of how many takes it took to get the shot even remotely right (at least 20) and no matter how many drivers (five) and pedestrians (two) shouted at us that we were at the wrong bloody zebra crossing.