February 24, 2007

Snapshots

Long overdue, the conclusion of our London Experience...January 23, 2007, continued: Following the London Eye trip, we headed in the direction of the British Museum. Free to the public, this museum contains historical artifacts collected from civilizations, ie. the Rossetta Stone (my photographs don't do it justice, as it is behind glass) and Egyptian and Greek sculptures (much, much more, but that is what we browsed). Since memorizing many Egyptian and Greek items of art and architecture in college for my art history classes, I've completely lost the ability to identify or recall such knowledge, so for the sake of what we saw, I will just describe it all as ancient. Especially the parts of the Parthenon we saw. It's been something like a decade since I've immersed myself in Greek mythology, all of which I used to just love, but my interests have changed. Seeing it was thrilling, nevertheless. There was also an enormous library of books called The Reading Room. This was a highlight for me, of course. After an hour or so here, we wandered across the street to fill out postcards at the Museum Tavern. We managed to get postcards to most of the friends and family on our list, I think. I love filling out postcards but one can only handle so much of it, really. After the Museum Tavern, we walked for a while. Craig wanted to walk along Regent Street. It was chilly and overcast at this time.
Tellie booths on the Strand...note, that isn't Craig in the third booth from the right...
Aside from the temperature, it was nice to walk with Craig in a city so new to us. I feel an overwhelming sense of peace while we walk together. It's one of the many reasons I just love adventures with him. And he was loving London so much. Anyway, after walking, we ducked into two more pubs. The first had a lonesome single guy with pint and cigarette quality to it.

After this, we found another pub on Great Portland Street as we neared our hotel. This particular night, then, we met up with Alison and Scott and Alison's cousin from Leeds. He was in London for work. We had a few drinks with him and with a British friend of his, then headed to another place for Italian. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind for the night, but it was an interesting time. Alison and Scott would be leaving to visit another relative of hers the next day. So, we said our goodbyes to them and wished them a safe conclusion to their trip.

January 24, 2007: The Tower of London/Tate Modern/Laura~KB reunion day. We woke up without our requested wake up call. Craig was hot under the collar over it. He had inquired about a wake up call the night before because we had naively not packed an alarm clock and again, alarm clocks aren't to be expected in lodgings, even of the 4 star variety like ours. So he placed another phone call to complain. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, we climbed out of bed and got ready to spend our final day in London. First on the itinerary would be The Tower of London. This definitely was a highlight for Craig but hey, I enjoyed it, as well. I'm not as into castles and knights and swords, but I'm easily amused. We headed to Tower Hill to arrive a little after 10. I had arranged that we would meet up with my lovely redheaded enigmatic friend Laura from IU, who has lived in London for several years and also whom I had not seen in practically five. She had a doctor's appointment so we would do the Tower and meet up with her around 1 at the Liverpool Street Station. So, the castles were interesting. Craig's excitement level over the experience was additional entertainment for me. He surprises me sometimes with what he likes. We spent an hour and a half or so at The Tower, then took the Tube to meet Laura. Oddly, the place we selected to meet at Liverpool Street Station turned out not to be unique. That is, we had discussed on the phone that we'd meet at the bookstore on the second floor, the tiny bookstore where it would be impossible to miss each other. Craig was being so sweet as we stood at the bustling station waiting and waiting and waiting to see my girl. It didn't seem in Laura's nature to be so late, so as all the women passed us by and none were Laura I became increasingly concerned. We decided that since Craig had never met her, and wouldn't rely on seeing past pictures of her to recognize her, we would go together to a tellie booth to call her. I had a fistful of pence and was shoving them into the machine all the while a wallpaper of XXX porn stared back at me inside the booth! Ha. Craig said, poking his head in, "Stop looking at the naked ladies." Anyway, as it turns out, there are not only two of that tiny bookstore, but three in the confines of the Liverpool St. Station. We finally found her and it was a beautiful reunion. Laura has known me since I was a bumbling idiot at eighteen, so I rather identify her as one of my dearest and longest friends, given she still loves me eleven years later after tolerating me back then! She's as gorgeous as ever and being reunited with her was like we had just seen each other the day before, as usual. I introduced Laura to Craig...as odd as it is that I've been with Craig for the greater portion of six years, give or take, they've never met. Anyway, first we grabbed lunch at a big open market area called Spitalfields. Then we stopped into Ten Bells, a pub beneath the apartment where Jack the Ripper allegedly killed his last victim, and had a pint. Then together, we headed to the Tate Modern. This turned out to be the savviest art museum I've ever, ever seen. It even beats out the Chicago Art Institute, which I love. There was an exhibit on Poetry and Dream, with ample amounts of Dali, Tanguy, Duchamp and Bacon. The first room we entered blew my mind. The paintings were arranged so seeming haphazardly but it was beautiful. I loved it. Craig and Laura joked about modern monochromatic art. Then we left the Tate and headed across Millenium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral. The photograph at the start of this entry is my favorite from the entire England experience. We didn't get to go into St. Paul's, but we walked around it and took it in. After this, we headed out to do some more pub crawling. We had encountered a neat little area near or in Soho called Carnaby Street, and we wanted to return to it. Laura is by no stretch of the imagination a pub girl - she doesn't like beer, and really doesn't even drink often, but she hung in with us and helped us enjoy our final night in London. We took her to dinner at a pretty decent pizzaria, and finished the night off with a couple more pubs. I miss seeing her more often!*So, when we got back to the hotel, there on the table at the far corner of the room we found a bottle of red wine, an opener and two glasses. Propped against the bottle was a letter from the hotel, apologizing for any inconvenience they may have caused by not delivering our wake up call! It was so generous, and of course we didn't want to travel back to the States with a bottle of wine so we enjoyed a night cap. And so concluded our incredible England experience. The next morning we were up early, grabbed a taxi to the Victoria Station where we took the Gatwick Express to Gatwick Airport. We ate breakfast there and tried to spend the remainder of our quid, but I still wound up coming home with nearly 20 quid (which, of course, here is nearer 40 US dollars!) Oh, well. I can tuck it away for our next trip to London.*Finally, I've wrapped it up. This entry lacks the momentum of the earlier posts which just goes to show how memory can fade too quickly following an experience. I'm just so happy that Craig and I got to do something so magnificent before I turn 30 this year. Granted, there will be plenty to see and to do in our 30's. I look forward to all of it. Now, for a weekend in New York.*

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yay! I finally feel "complete" now that your trip report is finished. :) Sounds like you guys had a great time!! Thanks for sharing!

10:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

10:00 AM  
Blogger videowallah said...

I of course have been egomaniacally checking your blog since you left to see when the report about ME would appear. And here it is. Yay! :) Heehee. It was lovely (or "lovely jubbly," as they say here) seeing you and your man, despite your unnatural thirst for pub beer. Next time you must come for longer so I can feed you Turkish pizza and take you to the Punjabi part of town and have you walk along the Greenwich Meridian Line. :) 3 million kisses all over you!

6:18 PM  

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