Wednesday, May 12, 2010-After 10 1/2 hours of sleep, I wake up Wednesday morning feeling semi-refreshed.
-I spend the bulk of the morning hungry on a tour bus. Apparently our hotel meal plan affords us the "continental breakfast." I learn this the hard way when a breakfast buffet attendant stops me from getting scrambled eggs. "Do you have your breakfast voucher, sir?" she asks. "Um, sure?" I answer, a spoonful of fluffy yellow scrambled eggs hovering above my plate. "Oh, good. May I have it please?" "Have it?" "Sir, I'm afraid you are only authorized to partake of items from our continental breakfast section, which is a bunch of boring garbage that, from the forlorn look on your face, is exactly what you don't want." In rebellion, I eat only a banana, a croissant, and scoop of madarin orange slices. Jen eats like a normal person and laughs at my brattiness.
-Things British people like: smoking, midday runs with a mate, tights/leggings/extremely tight pants (ladies only), low rent submarine sandwiches (Seriously, there is a Subway restaurant on every block here.), smoking, apologizing, super strong coffee (Jen says this is because they are used to making tea, therefore they are not as adept at brewing a decent cup of coffee. I'm inclined to agree.), serving expensive bottled water to clueless Americas (If you want a glass of water in a London restaurant, you have to ask for "tap water." They're going to try to sell you something called "still water," but that's just overpriced bottle water. We learned this eventually. I think we overheard somebody do it.), and smoking.
-Things British people like: smoking, midday runs with a mate, tights/leggings/extremely tight pants (ladies only), low rent submarine sandwiches (Seriously, there is a Subway restaurant on every block here.), smoking, apologizing, super strong coffee (Jen says this is because they are used to making tea, therefore they are not as adept at brewing a decent cup of coffee. I'm inclined to agree.), serving expensive bottled water to clueless Americas (If you want a glass of water in a London restaurant, you have to ask for "tap water." They're going to try to sell you something called "still water," but that's just overpriced bottle water. We learned this eventually. I think we overheard somebody do it.), and smoking.-"For one hour we were a feudal society again." -tour guide explaining the Prime Minister situation to a walking tour made up of people who probably didn't even speak English.
-Sites seen on and off the double-decker bus tour: Buckingham Palace (effing huge!); Tower of London (meh); Westminster Abbey (beautiful, but costs 15 pounds to get in...WTF?); Parliament buildings and Big Ben (so effing huge!); St. Thomas Cathedral (at least I think that's what the automated tour guide said...whatever it's called, it's one big Catholic church); The London Eye; Tower Bridge; The Texas Embassy (not an embassy, but a restaurant, though the automated tour guide does say that there was a Texas embassy in London at some point); Westminster Subway ($5 footlongs); multiple Underground stations.
-I had the following encounter with a crazy European lady at the Goodge Street subway station. Enjoy. I didn't.
-I had the following encounter with a crazy European lady at the Goodge Street subway station. Enjoy. I didn't.Lady: How you get outside?
(a nearby, petrified Londoner looks at Jen, then me, then the lady, then proceeds to point upward and shrug)
Lady: Outside!
Me: (pointing to a sign that clearly reads "WAY OUT") Just go that way. You're going to have to take an elevator to the street. (The Goodge Street station is irritating with those elevators...oh, I'm sorry, lifts!)
Lady: (pauses) That makes no sense! How you get outside?! Outside?!
Me: I'm not from around here. Sorry.
Lady: (reaching a fever pitch) OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE!
Lucky for us, the train arrived at this point and we were free of this nutty baglady's weirdness. If she had taken the time to read some of the signs posted in several Underground stations, she would have seen that transportation authorities have no tolerance for "anti-social behavior" in the tube stations. They also don't like busking, though I saw some of the most elaborate, and frankly, kinda great busking of all time all over the place. One dude was rocking out with a drum machine and an electric didgeridoo!
-Jen and I enjoy a late lunch at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, the restaurant staffed by juvenile delinquents. The food was awesome and lunch cost roughly $96.00. That's a fancy-ass lunch! How much was your lunch? Probably not 96 bucks! You wish, right? It makes me feel good about myself to think that you're totally jealous of my 96 dollar lunch.
-Jen and I enjoy a late lunch at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, the restaurant staffed by juvenile delinquents. The food was awesome and lunch cost roughly $96.00. That's a fancy-ass lunch! How much was your lunch? Probably not 96 bucks! You wish, right? It makes me feel good about myself to think that you're totally jealous of my 96 dollar lunch.-Speaking of restaurants, the McDonalds in London have a special "Tastes of America" menu. It's just a slew of oversized burgers dripping with the kinds of toppings Americans enjoy, I guess. And while the Double-Down Chicken Monstrosity has yet to make it across the pond, KFCs in London offer a weird fried-chicken mexi-wrap and the most horrifying breakfast sandwich of all time. That's right: KFC serves breakfast here. In fact, the KFC Breakfast Sandwich looks a lot like a Double Down surrounded by a biscuit. Ugh.
-It is announced that the Picadilly Line will be running fewer trains and making fewer stops. Why? Well, someone has apparently fallen under a train. We will hear more of these announcements over the duration of our trip. British people just can't keep themselves from falling under trains.
-We take the train up to London's theatre district to see Chicago. We get a seat upgrade, which is nice. I don't know if you've ever seen this show on stage--this was my first time--but it's basically live soft-core pornography. "Oh, I like this," I whisper to Jen 30 seconds in. All of the actors do pretty decent American accents, with the exception of the guy playing Amos, Roxie Hart's husband. He kinda sound like Mark Addy when he attempted an American accent on Still Standing. Still Standing? Anybody? Just me? Moving on...
-We take the train up to London's theatre district to see Chicago. We get a seat upgrade, which is nice. I don't know if you've ever seen this show on stage--this was my first time--but it's basically live soft-core pornography. "Oh, I like this," I whisper to Jen 30 seconds in. All of the actors do pretty decent American accents, with the exception of the guy playing Amos, Roxie Hart's husband. He kinda sound like Mark Addy when he attempted an American accent on Still Standing. Still Standing? Anybody? Just me? Moving on...-I'm starving after the show and I need a late night snack. What better than Burger King? Turns out, cold fries taste the same here as they do in the US. In London, however, asking to have your meal "King Sized" is simply a ploy to get an extra 50 pence out of fat American tourists. Don't ask me how I know.
TO BE CONTINUED...
