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| The masses of people outside the Apple Store on Regent Street |
We headed into town and did a few chores before calling by the Apple Store. Needless to say there were thousands of people there in a scene that was very similar to a major concert opening. There was lots of cameras, gates and a line of people that stretched down Regent Street and around the corner out of sight. Emma (and half of London) were quite shocked and a lot of people were stopping in the middle of the street wondering just what was going on.
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| The ultra geeks who queued up for hours with their laptops to keep them company |
We watched the opening from the other side of the road and it was fairly surreal. There was lots of clapping and running as the doors to the store were opened and the first people in the queue (who had probably been there since morning) rushed into the store to get their copy of Tiger. Rather than join the mad rush we carried on shopping for clothes for Emma. Some of the female clothing stores on Regent Street are pretty massive and filled with desperate young (and not so young) women trying to find just the right outfit for their Friday night. Fortunately Top Shop, a multi-level womans paradise had a cafe for poor boyfriends and bill paying parents to hang out in whilst the girls got down to the serious business of picking through acres of clothes racks.
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| The line of people went down Regent Street and around the corner out of sight |
Afterwards we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Soho which was nice (but not cheap) before heading back to the Apple Store so I could pick up my copy of Tiger. At the Apple Store we got scratch and win cards which was nice. Whilst we did not win a new PowerBook we did get a couple of free songs from Apples iTunes Music Store. All in all it was a good evening; I have a new toy to play with, Emma eventually found a t-shirt she liked and we got to see thousands of even crazier Apple geeks get into a frenzy about a computer operating system....