kaitou | American Geek in London

April 21

Today I blew out

flidgetjerome's power converter with my hairdryer. We went down to an electronics shop, me with my wet hair, but had no luck. We managed to find one at a hardware store, but once we got back to her flat we realized that it still couldn't handle hairdryer power.

However! The hairdryer had it's OWN power converter, twist the knob and voila! Instant British settings. Of course the plug was still American, but Flidget had a plug converter. Except! Power converters all seem to have these high round walls that are just fine for plugging in your lamp or coffee pot, but not something that has a block on it like a hairdryer or cell phone charger.

So it was back to the hardware store. But there was no plug adapter that would work. So instead I just bought a British hairdryer and was done with it. Of course by this time my hair had dried into a bizarre shape that left me looking like Rally from Gunsmith Cats. There were no pictures of me taken this day, I assure you.

Once that little disaster was over with we went to the British Museum. Really awesome. The writing on the Rosetta Stone was so much smaller than I expected. We're really, really lucky that Ptolemy's reign was so multicultural. We might still be trying to decipher it all today without it.

I really loved all of the glass work from each culture that they had on display. And it was awesome to see Assyrian (Phoenician?) siege engines in their friezes...just like Ancient Discoveries!!

We hit a Korean place for Bibimbap for lunch, that was very good and authentic. It made me long for chijimi, a kind of kimchi pancake that I love very much.

After lunch we went back to the museum to check out all the Indian, Chinese and European collections. The Celtic cloak pins threw me for a loop, some of them were HUGE. Easily long enough to run through someone and have a few inches left over. That is some badass jewelry.

My feet were feeing pretty sore by this point, but we dogged it up to Leicester Square and Neil's Court. Flidget brought me to a really cool tea shop where I inexplicably bought nothing at all. Stupid Ann.

Then we headed down to the Bookseller's district and a huge store called Foyles. I checked out their history section and found a book on the History of Hong Kong that not even Amazon could get a hold of. And on Flidget's recommendation I picked up a new Georgette Heyer book Cotillion. After Foyles we went to Borders, which was kind of surreal...I had no idea the chain was international. Flidget wanted to show me how superior British bookbinding can be (even if we DO get the best Harry Potter binding ha ha ha). And I showed her the covers of the British editions of Julia Quinn books which are vastly superior. She also bought 'Lord Perfect' a book in the same series as 'Mr. Impossible' which has a really tacky cover (but not garish pink!). I hope it will be as funny as the last book.

We then went back to her flat and had Yorkshire Pudding, which was very good, and read more comic books.

Still haven't forced Flidget to watch the end of Avatar.

Still not King.