London Part II

Day of Museums

I had told Lorena that on our third day in London, we needed to wake-up early so we could do all of the things that were on our list. "Surely, you're exaggerating." No, no I'm not... and don't call me Shirley. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) The thing is, typically Lorena wakes-up after noon. That just wasn't possible. The plan was that I would get up about eight-ish and then wake her up at nine.

At this particular hostel (YHA near Oxford St--stay there if you're in London!) they have a "beauty room" where a person can use their hair-dryer without waking others. After showering, I went downstairs only to realize that my card key wouldn't unlock the beauty room door. So I went back to the elevator, hair-dryer and diffuser in hand.

If you know me, you know that I'm not always a morning person. I'll sleep walk and grunt a good morning, but there typically has to be a reason for me to be cheerful after crawling out of bed. A very nice English man happened to discover this on that very elevator.

He saw what I had in my hands and said, "That looks painful."

And what did I say? Well, after a beat of silence, my brilliant response was, "Yeah, it's big."

Face palm.

Because God wasn't done laughing at me, the guy insisted on more conversation. "Well, Americans do do things bigger. Or are you Canadian?"

So many things I could comment on what he had said, but instead I grabbed the plug and said excitedly, "I actually got this here!"

Well that shut him up. 'Cause really, what do you say to the crazy woman you're trapped in an elevator with while she waves a U.K. plug in your face?

Apparently my people skills need improving.

Cat mummies... creepy.

Lorena and I did manage to leave at a reasonable hour and our first stop was the British Museum. Lorena wanted to see the Ancient Egypt exhibit. I've seen exhibits like it before, and personally it's not something I agree with. Only because it would piss me off if someone dug up my remains and put them on display, especially if I had special amulets to see me to the underworld, but that's just my personal stand on the issue.

One thing that made this particular visit to a museum stand out was that it must have been field-trip day and nobody warned us. I got bumped and jostled and was forced to calm a very annoyed Spaniard before she got us deported for battery of a child (or in this case several children).

One of the major things that I wanted to do was go to Buckingham Palace. I know I kept annoying Lorena with my questions on why we couldn't go into the palace. She kept telling me that it was their home and that people couldn't just come and go. I asked her why not. There are White House tours; I know, I've been on one. Alas, I received no satisfying answer.

Taking the Underground, we were walking through a park next to the palace when we heard a procession leaving the palace gates, bagpipes and drums. Guards and horses and I wished we had gotten there a little sooner to know what the heck was going on.

Not going to lie—little disappointed when I didn't see them in red coats.

Victoria Memorial

It was cold that day, folks. Very cold. So when we discovered that we were close to the Hard Rock Cafe (both the Spaniards had been oddly insistent on going there), I told Lorena to take her time picking out her shirt. The shop was nice and warm and I wasn't in a rush to go back outside. I don't know why the Hard Rock Cafe was such a big deal, but apparently it's big in Spain because there were quite a few Spaniards in that store.

It was something that had been bugging Lorena. There were too many Spanish people in London for her liking. She left Spain to hear British accents but I guess she wasn't the only Spaniard with that plan. Even most of the staff was Spanish-speaking. Everywhere we went Lorena wanted me to speak for her since I was "a native speaker." Ha! She couldn't use that excuse in the Hard Rock Cafe. It's funny, I should have told her she paid too much for her shirt like she did for my Banksy jumper.

Pretty, pretty diamonds.

The largest collection of colored diamonds.
One more thing—some of them
glow in the dark.

Our next stop was the Natural History Museum. I enjoyed this museum immensely. (Not that I had favorites, but between the two we saw that day—this one I liked more.) My favorite section was the ginormous rock and mineral display they had. It was an entire hall filled with shiny.

Another exhibit I really enjoyed was the dinosaur one. Overall, they had an amazing layout. 

Does this make me a pearl?

Go Hilltoppers!!!!

Great, great day at the museum. Fortunately we managed to do everything we set out to do. Unfortunately, it plum tuckered us out. We decided to head back to the hostel to recoup that way we would be wide awake for midnight.

Our plan was simple. Be under Big Ben when it struck midnight on December 12th. This was Lorena's birthday wish. It was how she wanted to ring in the Big-21.

We did stick around for 12:12, but after standing out there for forty-five minutes, we were very cold and the moment was anticlimactic.

So far we'd taken the Underground, and I'd become proficient in finding my way around and "minding the gap." However, the tube stops running after midnight, so we had to get a bus back to the hostel. That's right, folks. Vicky rode a red double-decker bus in London. And because I'm a dweeb, I took a picture from the top deck.

Day of Rest

Since we had seen everything that was on our list, we were going to take the fourth day easy. Personally, my dogs were killing me. So, we decide to just wander the city, check out SoHo and Chinatown.

Ducks in Chinatown

I saw this, took the picture, and then busted out laughing. Lorena called me crazy, but I won't hold it against her. One, on most days I'd agree with her. Two, she's never seen A Christmas Story. I tried explaining the scene where the dogs ruin Christmas dinner and Ralphie's family has to have dinner at the Chinese food restaurant. She still didn't see why I was laughing hysterically in Chinatown that day.

Somehow we stumbled into M&M World on our day out. It's a super store and factory. It was a good thing I was low on cash because there was several things I wanted to buy.

The picture to the left is my favorite!

The guy at the door took one look at us and said, "The candy's downstairs." Bwahahaha... we must not be the only girls who go in with that hungry look in their eyes.

But, yeah, I'm not spending that much on M&Ms. It's crazy.


After we left the store, we were making our way to SoHo and passed a very... I don't want to call it seedy, but if you're frisky in London, this was the place to go. Straight sex, gay sex, sex with yourself—this part of town had it all. And for some reason, Lorena got a kick out of it. I didn't realize she had taken so many pictures until she gave me the flash drive. And I'm the crazy one.

So what better way to end an unusual day than by going to St. Paul's Cathedral with an atheist? It was on the list that Anabel had drawn up and we had run out of things to do, so we caught the tube to church.

I've been to my fair share of churches and cathedrals both in the States and abroad, but I've never been charged an admission fee. It turned me off completely to be charged to enter the house of God. Lorena says that they do it in Spain. If you don't live in that city, you have to pay a fee. It actually made me miss Italy.