Day 3 - London
We dragged ourselves out of bed at nine so we could meet Richard at 10. Had
the best hotel coffee ever (it was instant I'm not kidding). Went
downstairs to pouring rain Vancouver style where we figured out how to use a
phonebox to call Richard he found us at about 10:15 and we took the train
this time to Euston station and walked from there to the British Museum. The
train station was just down the street from the tube and although it seemed
like we were going in the complete opposite direction, we basically ended up
in the same place I never did really get a good sense of direction going
in London. Richard seems to get bored of museums just about the same time I
do (or maybe he was just being polite), but we saw some stuff there that we
hadn't gotten to see in Athens because Lord Elgin stole it (or preserved it,
is the other side of the argument) It was pretty cool to see the statues
from the Acropolis six years after we saw the Acropolis it kinda links our
trips. We also saw some Egyptian exhibits creepy to realize that you¹re
essentially looking at dead people that again, the Brits stole out of
cemetery so they could exhibit it. After Greece and Egypt we headed out and
caught a double decker to St. Paul's Cathedral it being Sunday, we
couldn't specifically sightsee inside but we did get to sit on the Eucharist
and hear some excellent churchy music. Ellis was more interested in the
grate on the floor. The acoustics in the cathedral were pretty spectacular.
We then headed out again and walked over the Millenium Bridge which at first
I assumed was the same bridge that was near the London Eye and I couldn't
figure out how I had missed the Tate Modern or St. Paul's Cathedral the day
before turns out we walked over a different bridge the day before. By this
time, it was pouring and we were getting soaked so we went into a pub the
Anchor and had lunch all 4 of us had Carvery (meat and veg that tasted
like meat in fact Ellis's sweatshirt still smells like greasy lamb a day
later). I just didn't do the conversion (again as per Keith) and lunch was a
reasonable 35 for all four of us, which included beer. Fortunately we got to
dry off at lunch and when we left it wasn't raining anymore we took the
tube to Oxford Street so we could hit Marks and Sparks before it closed so
we could get Cyp his roo fortunately it was buy one get one half price. We
then hopped another bus to the National Museum where Richard got to see
Turner, I got to see Van Eyck and Cyp got to see Da Vinci we then stopped
for tea and then headed off to Buckingham Palace with a slight diversion via
Big Ben again we got on the wrong bus essentially. Watched the guards
tooing and froing a bit and then hiked through green park to the Ritz where
we caught another bus that drove through Berkely Square (seemed swank) and
somehow we ended up back on Oxford Street which I thought was the opposite
direction. We then went over to the business district where Cyp got a closer
look at the Lloyd's building (sewer and air ducts appear on the outside of
the building) and we went underground to catch the Docklands train which we
rode out to Canary Wharf (designed by a Canadian land of big officey
buildings) and Greenwich. This train was nice as it ran above ground for a
long way and we got to see lots of sights. Headed back via the tower of
London (which was now closed, but I really felt we had to see it) and then
convinced Richard to come for dinner with us. We went back to Regent Street
(Soho I think) via another double decker this time we had the very front
seat at the top which was kinda exciting I'll say pedestrians are crazy in
London there are no jaywalking laws perhaps they need them. Ellis liked
it a lot - it kept him pretty entertained even though it was a fairly long
ride. We had dinner at what was supposed to be good value as per Frommers
and I guess it was - but it was very upscale inside (oldest Indian
restaurant in London Veeraswamy). Ellis was so well behaved even without a
high chair - we stuck him on the floor for a while and he sat there seeing
how the different textures on the table and chairs made different sounds
with his spoon. Dinner was delicious (maybe that's where the value part came
in it was only 50 pounds for the two of us though and we did have a fancy
cocktail to start), We ended up racing to the tube so Richard could catch
his train to Winchester (they were only running every hour at this point)
and I hope he made it. He was an excellent tour guide - we finally got back
to our hotel about 11 pm the poor putud was crashed (the concierge noted
we had had quite the long day). We packed up for the next day and then
crashed into bed.
posted by Renee @ 10:00 PM
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