Mind the Gap

[kaitou]

There were no electrical disasters today! YAAAAY!

We went to the Museum of London today, which rocked. It covers the history of London from prehistoric all the way up to today. Unfortunately everything after the Renaissance was closed. My parents told me from their visit that there were great exhibits about the World Wars and Underwear. But I'm still really happy with what I did see. I got to see trepanned skulls! Of people that survived! And mockups of Roman rooms, poor, middle class and upper class. I also really liked this bit where you could hear all the different languages spoken in London through the years, from Latin all the way up to Middle English. It was amazing how easy it was to understand the Middle English.

I had waaay too much to eat for lunch, but it was worth it because I had a piece of shortbread that was covered in like an inch of chocolate. The Brits know their desserts.

After lunch we walked over to St. Paul's Cathedral, which is immense. They're currently cleaning it, and you can clearly see which sides have been done. In front of the cathedral there was a big statue of Queen Anne, which I obviously took pictures of. I think I could totally pull off the look she has going there.

Then we walked over the Thames on the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Museum. You could see what Flidget calls the Gherkin building from there...which looks like the glass pickle from a German Christmas tree. It's actually really classy looking, and a neat addition to the skyline. We went into the Tate, but never looked at any art. We only used it for it's bathroom and observation tower.

Walking down the bank of the Thames, there's a building for the Oxo company. Apparently there was a law that you couldn't advertise on the banks of the river, so they built a lovely abstract pattern into the building itself that just happens to look like a giant OXO. Very clever.

As we crossed back over the Thames on a different bridge I spotted a white obelisk. I looked over at Flidget and asked, "Is that Cleopatra's Needle?!?" She squinted at it and said, "Huh, I think you're right." It's just sticking on the bank near a bridge with no big to do around it. Honestly London, you have too much of other people's history.

We went to Tea at the Thistle at Charing Cross. OMG it was so awesome!!!! Oh I ate so much! And the tea was excellent too. There were cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and all kinds of pastries. The room was very opulent, all pink walls with white molding, gilded pretty much everywhere you could gild anything. It was such a great experience.

After Tea we went walking through the Horse Guard's Parade and into St. James Park. (We did see Lord Neslon's statue on the way) The Park was gorgeous and filled with all kinds of flowers, and ducks and geese and swans. They had these little black ducks with white on their foreheads and the weirdest feet. they weren't webbed like a duck, but like...I don't know...like a normal bird's foot had gotten run over with a steamroller and made all wide and flat.

The Park leads all th way up to Buckingham Palace. It was really weird because, with Flidget steering me around from here to there to over there, I have no idea where I am most of the time. So it was really weird to be going through a beautiful park, and then..WHAM there's a palace. The Queen was in residence, according to the flag, but I didn't see her. What a shame...because my guidebook does give etiquette tips on how to speak to royalty.

By that time my feet were KILLING me. So we went home and watched the most bizarre Bollywood move called Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. It was TERRIFYING. The plot was very cute, and had a woman playing basketball in a sari in the rain. But the hero's daughter was this precocious demon child. And I liked the decoy fiancée better than the hero, even if he did wear western clothes to his engagement party.

Flidget still hasn't seen Avatar.

Still not King.