-I've recovered from yesterday's breakfast faux pas, and to prove there are no hard feelings, I add a ham and cheese sandwich to my plate. Jen assures me that tomorrow I will have the traditional English breakfast I so desire. Lamb kidneys here I come!
-It's 1/2 Day Excursion to Windsor Castle Day! Hooray! The ride up is a delight, with our tour guide providing interesting tales about London's complicated system of government (wacky!), Runnymede (stuff total happened there, dudes!), and the castle itself (did you know that pop music icon Elton John lives nearby?). The ride back to London will be very, very different.
-Windsor Castle is absolutely amazing! We only get an hour to wander through the various rooms. I could easily spend two hours or more. It's beautiful inside, but for some reason you are not allowed to take pictures. That doesn't stop the many Asian tourists passing through however. Oh, Asians!
-The Room Full O' Weapons is my favorite! All the swords and guns and knives and axes! It's a third grade boy's dream! Best gun: the one with the heart-shaped barrel. Best sword: the one that had a creepy, wailing man-creature carved into the hilt.-A thought I had while touring Windsor Castle: If I were a member of the royal family, I would totally jump the velvet ropes and sit on all the thrones and couches and stuff. I'd sit at the fancy dining room table with a bag of McDonald's cheeseburgers and have loud, obnoxious cellphone conversations with my friends with my mouth full. "I'm gonna be king someday, bitch! What what!"
-Check out St. George's Chapel while the royal guards (or whatever) play the Austin Powers Theme Song for a crowd of rowdy tourists (French kids and elderly Chinese men do an awful lot of pushing, by the way.). It's awe-inspiring and full of dead people. Seriously. There are corpses buried everywhere.
-A thought I had while touring St. George's Chapel: a chapel employee kindly asked me to remove my hat and I politely complied, but what if I had looked at her and said, "I'm an atheist, so I think I'll just leave it on, thank you?" Could she have kicked me out? Would she have been able to tell that I am not actually an atheist and give me a disappointed head shake? Would I have been able to live with myself?
-Board a smaller bus for the return to London. Our driver is a surly old man with very little patience for his passengers. He fails to regale us with any London Fun Facts, but he does bellow, "These were built during the Victorian times" at some point. Nobody is really listening.
-Board a smaller bus for the return to London. Our driver is a surly old man with very little patience for his passengers. He fails to regale us with any London Fun Facts, but he does bellow, "These were built during the Victorian times" at some point. Nobody is really listening.-Upon reaching London, our driver stops to pick up a family from Oklahoma who are headed to Stonehenge for the afternoon. The family consists of a mother, a father, and two daughters. Jen gives the daughters a pair of delightful nicknames: The Pretty One and The Ugly One. The girls start chatting up everybody but me and Jen. I think this is because we are sitting in the back like a couple of aloof cool kids. "It's so nice to hear some American accents," one of the girls says. Really? If being around a bunch of American accents is so important to you, why didn't you vacation somewhere in the US? The Ugly One (By the way, I do not condone this nickname--I think it's awful!) also says, "It's so nice to meet some fellow Southerners," at some point. What?! Oklahoma's not the South. As someone who lives in the South proper, I find myself slightly offended.
-Also, when we reach the city limits, our driver informs us that he will be making one stop and it will not be at the bus station where we boarded our original bus. Jen and I don't care--we've been wandering around lost the entire time we've been here and look forward to another aimless journey. For an elderly woman traveling alone, however, this is not acceptable. "I was picked up at my hotel this morning," she says, a touch of panic to her voice. "I don't do that," the bus driver says matter-of-factly. "What hotel?" She tells him. The driver proceeds to give her the most confused, unintelligible directions I've ever heard. I'll be honest: I still don't know if that lady ever made it back to her room. The Ugly One (sorry) however offers this unsolicited advice: "You can always take a cab." Ugh.
-Fish n' chips at the King's Arms Pub! And guess who likes mushy peas? If you said "me", then good for you, but I'm talking about me, Matt. Jen and I spend the first twenty minutes of our pub dining experience making fun of the family from Oklahoma and discussing why were are superior to them and all other American tourists we've encountered so far. Wow, we're assholes!
-Fish n' chips at the King's Arms Pub! And guess who likes mushy peas? If you said "me", then good for you, but I'm talking about me, Matt. Jen and I spend the first twenty minutes of our pub dining experience making fun of the family from Oklahoma and discussing why were are superior to them and all other American tourists we've encountered so far. Wow, we're assholes!-After a quick nap at the hotel, I'm given the task of plotting our trip to the British Museum via the tube system while Jen confirms our shuttle pick-up for Saturday morning. I put together a route that should put us about a block away from the museum. I'm pretty proud of myself.
-EPIC TUBE FAIL! We wander around lost for what seems like an hour, and probably is an hour, but eventually come across signs pointing us in the right direction. (Note: Every time we get lost, it's in a new part of the city, which kinda makes getting lost a fun adventure.)
-British Museum doesn't have much British stuff in it. Should be called Shit the British Stole From Other Countries Museum. They've got a bunch of Egyptian stuff, including the Rosetta Stone. They've also got a buttload of mummies: adult mummies, kid mummies, cat mummies, fish mummies, snake mummies, foot mummies, etc. This place has got more corpses stuffed into it than St. George's Chapel. I tell Jen this would be a great location for Night at the Museum 3: Revenge of the Mummies.-Unfortunately, we reach the museum late and a lot of the wings are closed off, including the Korean wing, which we desperately wanted to compare to the Korean wing of New York City's Museum of Natural History. Did I say Korean wing? I'm sorry, I meant crappy, depressing display case.
-Italian for dinner! I order a calzone the size of my head and eat every bite. Jen has some delicious risotto. We follow this with coffee and dessert. We've been doing this all week and it has been fabulous.
-Tonight we learn something essential to having a pleasant dining experience in London: When ordering water, you must ask for "tap water." If you just say "water," they will ask "sparkling or still?" Your first inclination will be to answer, "still," unless, of course, you desire a sparkling water. Do not order "still water." "Still water" translates to "overpriced bottled water." Ask for "tap water" and you will get exactly what you are used to getting in the States.
-I find the souvenir I want in an erotic bookstore window display: The Big Butt Book.
-Blond kid on the tube either wants to make time with me or is trying to pick my pocket. His hand is all over my ass, but I don't say anything because while he fondles me he is conducting a conversation with his sweet, elderly mother.
-Jen and I still giggle whenever we see the sign for Cockfosters.
-Back at the hotel, Jen finally shows me the Holiday Inn Pillow Menu. There are so many pillows I would've loved to experience, but, alas, there is not enough time.
TO BE CONTINUED...
