Danger on Day 1 in London: The M&Ms store

There was only section that actually sold M&Ms; the rest of the store was souvenir junk.

 
On our first night of the London trip, we had a little time to kill after dinner and before seeing Spamalot. We were in Leceister Square and I suggested we check out the M&Ms store. I'm not sure why I thought that would be a good idea since it was this horrible, swirling mess of tourists/kids/tourists/kids.

It was actually rather creepy (to me, at least). When one walks in, there is a blast of "chocolatey" air. I have heard that some stores actually blast artificial scents and perfumes, both in the food and non-food areas. This blast of air was creepy because it was that total fake chocolate smell that really didn't smell like chocolate at all. Plus, the store was mostly toys and t-shirts so it wasn't even like there were that many chocolates there anyway.

Another creepy part was the tv monitors that one could look at and see what was going on all over the store. It was meant to be kitschy but it was a little bit too "Big Brother" for me.

To top off our experience, I tripped going UP the stairs and scraped my foot. Sigh. After all of that, we didn't buy any M&Ms. In fact, I don't really even like them, so I'm not sure why we went into the store at all! It was a trip doomed from the start.