eddyfate

All UK Trip Entries

Our last full day in London. Our normal place across the street was full up, so we went to Giraffe to eat. From there, we went to the Natural History Museum so Michelle could geek out over some bones. We tried to go to Westminster Abbey, but it was shut. David's ankle started to hurt him, so Michelle and I went to Camden Market, only to realize that we were too old and too overweight for most of the clothing there. We headed back to the hotel so Michelle could fight with British Airways for a while. I decided to head over to the British Museum and picked up a few books at Gosh! Comics. I headed back, and Michelle and David were feeling better, so we finished packing and headed to Yo! Sushi for our final dinner before heading home.

All in all, a fantastic trip, and I'm glad we went.

All UK Trip Entries

Boxing Day. We decided to head to the London Zoo. We had a few delightful hours watching the animals before we had to head back to the hotel and change into smart dress for our reservation at Gordon Ramsey at Claridge's. We had an amazing dinner, and had a lovely after-dinner conversation with the Israeli head waiter which included a tour of the kitchen and a box of luxurious chocolates. The bill came to... um... let's say a lot of pounds, but it was a great three and a half hours.

All UK Trip Entries

Christmas! London is a ghost town as the tubes are all shut and there's not a soul around. I didn't sleep well the night before, but I ended up with an interesting fiction idea that I spent a couple of hours jotting down. riksowden came and picked us up, and I dozed a bit as he tried to find his way out of London to his mum's. "Last Christmas" count: 6. Had a lovely time with Rik's family, including a couple of martinis and a few pints at the nearby pub. Came back to the house to watch the Royal Christmas message. Then we had a lovely Christmas dinner with Christmas crackers and pudding. The soundtrack to the Coronation Street episode we watched brought my "Last Christmas" count to 7. We had a flat tyre heading back, but we were able to fix it up so Rik could drive us home.

All UK Trip Entries

Christmas Eve, and my birthday. Apparently, the new thing to do is to send birthday wishes via Facebook -- when I was able to log in, I was pleasantly surprised to see dozens of people wishing me happy birthday through it. We decided to stop by Harrods and spend a few hours wandering around as well as picking up Christmas gifts (and I got the other two books in the Night Watch trilogy -- link has sound). We stopped by Caffe Nero for coffee, then back to the hotel to drop off our purchases. We met up with riksowden at the hotel. We had dinner at Gourmet Burger Kitchen and then a couple of pints at the hotel pub for an hour or so.

All UK Trip Entries

Today we went to the Tower of London. Michelle and I had been here before, so we knew to wait for the Yeoman Warder tour. It was extremely funny and enlightening, much as we remembered it. From there we went to the Science Museum, which was far cooler than we expected it to me. There was an amazing exhibit called "Listening Post" which was an artistic representation of real-time Internet quotes and references set to music and arrangement. (To me, that is real modern art.) We stopped at the Hoop and Toy pub for dinner. We called it an early night, and realized how difficult it is to play Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? in a foreign country.

All UK Trip Entries

Michelle got up early to pick up the laundry and check to see what was open on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. We spend a couple of hours at the Tate Modern, being completely confused by modern art. We had a light lunch at the cafe while David conferenced into an emergency work meeting and Michelle and I watched one of the customers attempt to look important as he doodled in his notebook.

In the evening we walked along the South Bank. The London Aquarium still had some construction going on, but it was okay. We shopped a bit along the Bank until our reservation for the London Eye, which I surprisingly didn't die from (I am usually pretty afraid of heights). We stopped by the hotel to drop off purchases and get more cash before meeting Tim (bringeroflight) for dinner at Wagamama. We walked off dinner for an hour before having some gelato for dessert. We said good-bye and headed back to the hotel for bed.

All UK Trip Entries

Instead of breakfast, we ended up getting pasties from Victoria Station before heading over to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the Queen's Guard. From there, we walked over to Trafalger Square to browse the National Gallery. We came back to Russell Square to have lunch with Ben Counter. We ended up wandering around London trying to find a decent place that was opened, and finally settled on Italian Kitchen, which had some really good roma pizza and wine. By then it was a bit late in the day to do anything else, so we headed back to the hotel to take care of laundry, watch television and play Uno and Fluxx until dinner, which was a quick walk across the street for some Greek take-away.

All UK Trip Entries

Breakfast, then tube to Westminster (though we had to get out at Embankment and walk down. On the way we saw a police car with the sign "explosive search dogs." It might be a cultural thing, but I'm pretty sure that if I have a search dog, I don't want it to be explosive. ("Bark! Bark!" [BOOM!]) At least the pushy pigeons nearby the Houses of Parliament weren't explosive.

Afterward, we went to the London Imperial War Museum, and we paid to go to the For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond exhibit, which had lots of cool artifacts from both Ian Fleming's life and the James Bond movies and novels. We cut our visit short to head back to Russell Square for our lunch with Wood Ingham. We had some decent Chinese dim sum and talked about everything from work to Doctor Who to Tony Blair to our respective lives. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to hanging out with him again.

We went back on the tube to Buckingham Palace, but most events are closed for the winter, so we headed back to the hotel to check email and finalize my lunch plans for the next day. We decided to go see a showing of The Day The Earth Stood Still (short review: rent the DVD). Had dinner and drinks at the London Pub near our hotel. Played a few rounds of Uno and Monty Python Fluxx before heading to bed.

Days 0-1

Generally through the trip we woke up and wandered out the door in the late morning, and this day was no exception. We ended up taking brunch at The Ultimate Burger, which was a slightly high-scale burger joint, primarily because we were starving and we happened to run across it. The Sunday Roast with horse was surprising, but good. We decided to spend the day at the British Museum. Like all museums, it was free to enter, although the Babylon Exhibit cost money. We checked both out, and I walked away from the Babylon exhibit wanting to run a Requiem for Rome game set in Babylon. The one thing I really wanted to see because I've missed it every other time I've been to the Museum was the reading room, but it appeared to be shut for renovation.

We walked back to the hotel bar for drinks and crappy wi-fi (but, it turned out, the only free wi-fi we could find in the entire city). Then it was a quick trip to Victoria station to pick up a few things. We walked from there to the Shakespeare Pub for dinner. The service was quite poor, but the steak and orange spiced cheesecake wasn't bad. I ended up hearing Last Christmas again, bringing the count to four for the trip. We took the tube back to our hotel, checked our email, then toddled off to bed.

Bonus Pic For Old-Time Mind's Eye Theatre Geeks

We left on the evening of the 17th. The flight was miserable from beginning to end, from the hour-long delay that is either due to a medical emergency or technical problems, depending on who you believe, to one of the stewards mocking me to other passengers and crew. After staggering from Gatwick to our bus[1] to the tube station to our hotel (near Russell Square), we decided to take a short nap to shake off some of the jet lag.

We met up with karohemd at the Old Thameside Inn, which is a nice pub next to a replica of Francis Drake's ship the Golden Hinde. We talked about lots of things, ranging from Germany to Repo! to the Tiger Lillies.

Afterward, karohemd had to go, but we met up with bringeroflight and Becky (I don't have LJ names for her) at the British Museum, and then we walked to a Thai restaurant for drinks and appetizers. Near the end, the jet lag started to hit us again, but it was getting close to evening, so we stumbled back to the hotel for bed.

[1] On the bus trip, we heard Wham!'s Last Christmas three times. Considering I was still reeling from when btglass played it through the entirety of lunch the previous week, I feared that this song would haunt me all through my trip.