The coach ride was long and quite uncomfortable, but we arrived in central London around 3 on Friday and gaped at the huge old things everywhere on the driving tour before being dropped off at our giant hotel. Bernard and I were roommates and we sat on our beds indecisively for a little while before settling on going to the British Museum, as it is free. In an effort to feel closer to those who are far, we looked for things we knew they'd seen. Half an hour of amazement at how old and huge the Egyptian statues were led us to the giant fist, where we happily recreated the Pound It picture from semester 0801.
Soon we met two fellow Harlaxtonites, with whom we spent the remainder of the day. At the National Gallery, I put away everything I thought I knew about paintings and let the art blow my mind. It was spectacular, but like many buildings in England, it was huge, and soon we found ourselves very, very tired and desensitized enough to start looking for a way out. Then, out of nowhere, we emerged into a bustling room full of Van Goghs on loan from somewhere else. What a way to end the visit. The caption on one Degas said, "Degas was fascinated by the female body in awkward contortions."
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Having come in at the back, we exited the National Gallery into Trafalgar Square, where a magician had attracted a crowd, and a man with a puppy was playing the wine glasses beautifully. On a statue pedestal with a net, a woman wearing all denim was shouting and waving to cars and singing Old McDonald. The news was there looking nonchalant.
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By this time we were quite hungry (probably due to the failure of our sack lunches at the best truck stop in the world to satisfy), so we set out to find dinner. We were hoping for the cultural experience of some solid hearty pub food—but alas, we were less excited about pub prices, so after a long wander and much contemplating, we entered a tiny Italian place with no name and very good prices. The panini I received for £3.30 wasn't huge, but it was certainly substantial enough to be worth saving the money. Though there were people smoking on either side of us and the threat of pigeon attack from above, the owner (and possibly the only employee) was especially welcoming and kind.
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Exhausted, we headed back to the hotel early, around 20:30, but stopped at a side store on the way, where I bought a box of strawberry tea that I sincerely hope has caffeine in it. In our room, Bernard and I curled up to rest our feet and watched the last hour of Ghost, which is probably not a good film to start halfway through. P-Swayze backed off into the great white yonder, and we fell asleep.
Saturday was even more full. A rushed morning after breakfast found Bernard and I buying day passes for the tube (though we still managed to walk our feet off) and then queuing at the TKTS booth for discount seats for Avenue Q that night. Lion King was our first choice, but we just couldn't bear to spend £56 on it, so AQ was a worthy substitute.
Our tube passes got their first of many uses taking us out to Portobello Road, one of my favorite roads I've yet encountered. The street market there was huge and packed like clothes in a Space Bag. There were musicians everywhere, two steel drum drummers, and a guitarist wearing all pink. I walked by a man selling bowls made out of scratched up records, some with WWII helmets and gas masks, several with watches, and a whole stretch of beautiful real food. If I lived in London, I would go to Portobello Road every weekend and eat nothing but bread and vegetables for the rest of my life. One vendor sold old, old books, and some were in German and French and Spanish. I looked for Eugene Onegin in Russian to no avail, one perfect gift lost. (When I asked if he had any in Russian, the man said, "No. Absolutely not.") Coming back up the road we bought a basket of apples and hunks of bread for lunch on a dime. A garbage truck came down the street and almost ran over Bernard, and we got separated for about fifteen minutes. I stood on the corner and ate bread and waited for a while, then headed toward out and found her.
We walked down a long curvy street to Kensington gardens, where we sat under a tree eating apples and feeling the sun sneak through the clouds. It was a beautiful and warm day. We were joined by a gaggle of little neon green spiders the size of pin heads, who crawled all over everything black and nothing else. "Why do the green spiders like black? Because they're English?"
After Kensington, Bernard humoured me by going to the Natural History Museum. Everything there was so interesting, I could have stayed all day. But there was so much to do! so we hurried through rocks and giant crocodiles and dinosaurs to the life size blue whale replica. It was the biggest thing I've ever seen. That's not true, but it was the size of the biggest animal ever to exist, and that's pretty big.
Poor planning means we got off the tube at Parliament with not nearly enough time to get to Westminster for evensong, so we took in Parliament, Big Ben in his tower, and the Thames, crossing the bridge intent on taking the closest tube station on the other side to the Tower Bridge. This endeavor led to a fairly long wander on the South Bank, since the station we sought was closed. But we got to to it soon enough, and took in the bridge to the smell of sweet sticky chestnuts being sold on the footpath. We found a tiny door, but I don't think Harlaxton's "If it's unlocked, you're allowed to go in" rule applies at Tower Bridge.
Getting ready Sunday morning we watched Megananny, a show that is not at all like Super Nanny, and then got back on the coach (which left two people at the hotel despite a five minute grace) and went to Hampton Court Palace, where we learned Diligence and Haste from a genuine medieval master of the house, strolled through Henry VIII's kitchens and William and Mary's apartments, ate the second overpriced meal of the weekend and sat in the lovely sun under the gumdrop trees before heading back to Harlaxton for a power homework session and finally sleep again.
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