London proved to be a nice town. The two days I spent there felt like two weeks, and as exhausted and sore as I was when I was departing it, I didn't really want to leave. I guess I'm going to have to go back to see more, there is just far too much for only two days.
Sarah got to feeling better and we made the 8:45 train, arriving in London around 9:50. The first thing we did was buy oyster cards, the cards that you use to travel around "pay as you go" style on the underground rail system. After that we found out that all of the rails we would be needing for that day were out of service. Well, not all of them, but a wide majority. Ultimately this meant we just had to make do and do some extra walking, which wasn't terrible. First we set out for the Portobello market. It was a nice market, with different goods than the normal touristy things your find in most markets. Problem was, there was probably about twice as many tourists as a normal market. Walking was near impossible. Neither of us had eaten at this point, so we set out to find food. I decided on the Ghanian food. Some rice and a beef stew. The lady said, "Now this is already very mildly spicy, but would you like some chili sauce?" I told her to put just a bit on the side. The food without the sauce turned out to be hotter than just eating 2 or 3 packs of fire sauce from taco bell. The chili sauce was ungodly. However, I found a huge doughnut (there is a picture) and it was the most delicious doughnut I have ever eaten. Seriously, this thing beat out Krispy Kreme's hot doughnuts.
We made our way back out of the overcrowded market, made a few souvenir purchases, and then headed to the natural science museum. Here we went through a dinosaur exhibit, complete with some real fossils and animatronic dinosaurs. The natural science museum is also home to the Darwin Centre, where scientist work to do...Darwin-esque things, I suppose you might say. We took a little tour of it which was pretty neat, and they had a Darwin statue I got my picture taken with. Sadly they had no Darwin items to buy in the gift shop. It was a travesty.
After this adventure we took the tube to Leicester (Lester) square in search of some cheap tickets for a show on the West End. We had hoped to get to see Phantom of the Opera, but at this point it was about 3 in the afternoon and they were sold out. There were still several other shows we could choose from, and we settled on Chicago. The tickets were 27.50 pounds each...so close to 50 dollars, but still not that much for a show on the West End. We left the Leicester tube station at about 3:30. The problem with that was we were supposed to check in at 4, and it was explicitly listed that if you failed to call in advance about arriving late you would likely lose your place. No big, I can call the place on my phone. No, sorry, the phone doesn't log incoming call numbers. Total crap, right? So we had no way to contact the place. We hopped on the jubilee line and began our trip to the Northwest.
We probably got out of the train at the Harlesden stop about 4:05, so we were already late. But on the map it didn't appear that the hostel was too far off. We take the map out, and I find that I have failed to print out a map with street names. It was a google maps print off, and I was zoomed out one notch too far to see all of the smaller road names. We just started walking. And walking. Found a main road, asked for directions. Couldn't understand the lady really, so we went in the direction she was pointing. Walked. Walked. Saw a guy with a grocery bag smoking a cigarette. Ask him where we are, where to go. Going the right way, keep going and take a left up here. We walk. Walk. Walk. Where the hell are we? There is a sanitation guy, he probably knows the town. He can't speak English very well. Tells us we've gone too far and need to turn around. We walk. Walk. Its almost 5 at this point.
We've come back to where we originally were so sure we were on the right road, and we see a guy pulling up in a truck to the market. We decide to ask him. He tells us to hop on either of the bus stops on the street across from us going in a certain direction and get off at the Willesden Bus Garage stop. From there, the hostel is right around the corner. We walk. We ride. Ride. Ride. Get off. Where is the hostel? We look in both directions and decide to go one way. We walk for about 10 minutes in that direction, then stop at a grocery store to ask for directions. The guy uses two different iphones to figure out where we are trying to go. Tells us to return from where we came. We get back to the bus stop, and, lo and behold, the building on the corner opposite has an 8 foot tall number 8 on the side of the building (the hostel we were staying at was named "Hostel No. 8"). Finally after walking way too much we arrive around 5:30, and they still had our room.
The play was at the Cambridge Theater, something which we didn't learn until after we had bought the tickets. Oddly suiting. The play was absolutely phenomenal. There was about a 14 piece jazz band to play the music, and they were most excellent. It was the best production I've seen, but then again the next biggest show I've seen was Cats at the Greenville Peace Center. Sarah is a bit more cultured than I, and she seemed to have the same opinion of it as me, though.
Leaving I picked up a big bottle of beer and a big bottle of cider to consume on the walk from the train station to the hostel (its so nice being able to drink in public). Getting off the train, I decided to open the beer bottle by catching the edge of the bottle cap on the brick, and quickly pulling downwards to yank the top off. I have done this many times in the past, though I guess not on brick. I cleaved the top part of the glass bottle off. There were no cuts...except to my soul. I had this freshly opened beer, rendered completely undrinkable by the razor sharp edges lining the lip. I left a little piece of me on top of that trash can that night.
The hostel was nice enough. They had free breakfast in the morning, which was nice. We were up and out of the hostel by about 9, and headed to the Camden Lock Market. This market was like the flea markets back home in a way, with booths selling all kinds of goods. Some touristy, some not. The prices were all pretty decent too. We grabbed some Chinese food from a stall in the food district and shopped and shopped. The weather was quite nice, a gentle breeze on top of already acceptable temperatures. On the way out we stopped at a Sainsbury's where I bought some water and a 1 liter bottle of strawberry milk, which I proceeded to drink in about thirty minutes. Only later did I realize that it probably wasn't meant for consumption all at once. Sarah got a sandwich and we rested for a bit (you must realize a lot of Sunday was spent being lazy, we were both completely worn out from Saturday). From here we went to the Covent Garden. We walked around for a bit, did a bit more shopping (finally found something for Allie's birthday, I was starting to worry at that point), and then headed to the Somerset house to view the Courtauld Gallery. It was full of impressionist art. They showed pieces by Monet, Manet, Rubens, Picasso. It was quite nice. You'll find a decent number of pictures in my photos. When we left the gallery it was raining quite hard. We found a coffee shop down the road where we sat for probably an hour plus just eating and drinking tea and watching the rain. Once it cleared up we hopped on the underground to Southwark, the closest station to the globe theater.
We took our time finding the theater, and then had to wait for the PA's to get there to give us tickets. We ended up of course, in the standing section. The play was As You Like It, one of Shakespeare's comedies. What I understood of it was pretty good, but only a little over half made sense. I just wanted to get out of there--after standing for near three hours my feet were killing me (what's better than a culmination of walking miles and miles and then getting to stand in one spot for that long?). After the play a bus took us back to Cambridge, and the shower that evening was absolutely wonderful.
The London trip was useful in the fact that I now know how to use the rail system. And somewhat, the buses. I've been in crowds of people larger than I've ever been around. These things took a bit of adjusting to, but I feel I benefit from it. I do think I am going to go back to London, if only for a day, just to see the big landmarks (the palace, parliament, big ben, etc) from the outside.
Monday was a blur. I had class at 9, and ironically I was the only one to show up. The professor asked me to come to the seminar later that day (there are two seminar groups for the class that meet at different times) and we adjourned at 9:15. I ran a few errands, came to my room, and slept until the 2 o'clock class. The rest of my afternoon was filled with paperwork-type things. The King's formal was that evening. I have to say that I like the Pembroke ones more. King's only allows you one drink during the drinks on the lawn. Pembroke gives you all you want. At King's they didn't offer me anything to drink, though they served everyone else at the table. They also do a lot of refills during the meal, but only once did they offer me any. Not only that, the food wasn't that good. The main course was pretty good, but the rest was pretty...yuck. Maybe the Pembroke food isn't as fancy, but I'd rather my food be ordinary and taste good than exotic and nasty. I also had my first and last encounter with goat's cheese. You know, when you go to eat something new, you smell it first, right? Well that's what I do, so I can get a heads up on what I'm eating. I smelled it, and thought, "Wow, this literally smells like a disgustingly uncleaned urinal." So I figured, there is no way that it actually tastes like that.
Needless to say, I think I'm going to just trust my nose more in the future.
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