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08-13-10

Day 4 and 5 : London

After an early hectic morning of Andrew trying to follow my gazelle legs through the underground, we’re on a bus to Cambridge. I was a bit worried about making it to the bus on time with our current sleeping patterns, which mirror our pattern at home. Staying up until 3am, waking up at 10am, naps somewhere in between. I safely say we’re acclimated now to the time difference. I’ve also given up the dream that we’d get up early everyday. That’s never going to happen no matter what country we’re in.

Day 4 started with a bunny dress and the mission of breakfast. Andrew scanned yelp and found a cafe located inside the Wellcome Center (a museum dedicated to medicine and the body), which was ooh’d and aaah’d about with the promise of internet. The cafe was alright, but the museum a nice surprise with quite a collection of medical oddities. They had a shrunken head, a lock of napoleons hair, Florence Nightingale’s slippers and paintings (which I thought contained a real Hyronomous Bosch, but just ended up being a copy).

The next stop was The British Library and happened upon their exhibit on old maps, which Andrew really enjoyed. 

The library also has a permanent exhibit, "Treasures" collection of literary pieces. They range from different illustrations of Alice in Wonderland, the original Magna Carta, original various religious texts, Di Vinci’s notes, and artifacts. Since no cameras were allowed I decided to sketch Jane Austen’s writing desk for you.

And thus we began the longest walk through a park ever. Hyde Park is a massive stretch of park, the park other parks were inspired by, the park that took us over an hour to cross only to reach another adjoining park, Kensington Gardens. It was a race against time, a race to make tea time at The Orangery, THE place to have high tea and closed at 6. We started around 3:00pm, with us thinking,”oh that’s PLENTY of time!” and moseyed around a bit, taking our sweet time.
4:00pm, when tea time begins, we were only halfway through the park.

4:40pm: We are still trekking through these flatlands. The crew is starting to lose hope of ever making it out of here alive. We are getting desperate but have made it to Kensington Gardens only to not be able to find The Orangery anywhere. 

4:45pm: A CAB! A cab driver will take us there, of course!

4:47pm: Cab driver drove us 5 feet and said The Orangery is through that gate. He did not charge us for the 5 feet, in exchange for our dignity.

4:49pm: The walkway through the gate is blocked off by construction, there is no way through, just a giant wall, a wall with no directions to The Orangery. We spit and shake our fists at this wall.

4:56pm: We follow this wall and have FINALLY found an alternate entrance and… The Orangery! And a long line. BUT! It moves rather quickly and I have the best tea time I’ve ever tasted and experienced. It tasted like sweet victory, which makes anything taste better.

And then, the girl in the bunny dress thanks The Orangery with a curtsey. The End.

Day 5 was Cambridge day. We took the two hour bus, not really knowing what to do in Cambridge but thought we’d figure it out when we got there. England has been a good place to start the trip being that they speak the same language, I’m a little nervous about going to places where I don’t know the language.

Once we arrived, we went to the information area and picked up a few pamphlets. Being a bit museum-ed out, we were happy to find out we could rent bikes. Cambridge has a wide array of bike trails which go not only through the town, but to adjoining towns as well.

We happily biked upon a lovely lunch place called The Orchard in Grantchester, one of the adjoining towns. With total lack of respect for tea time, we ordered beers with our scones and sat under pear and plum trees in the backyard where other famous Brits had done the same (minus the sacrilege).

On the way back to Cambridge, Andrew jokingly suggested we bike like crazy people through the town and scare the tourists. I may or may not have taken him seriously and made lots of use of my bike bell. Heh heh.

08-07-10

Day 3 : London

It’s quite late but we are still up, having accidentally napped from 9pm until midnight after stumbling into a pub in Camden Town that served fruli – a strawberry flavoured beer – and then (literally) stumbling out.

Today was a day of markets. We started off skipping Pret and eating at a boulangerie near Russell Square, which was sort of a silly thing to do given the glorious treats that awaited us at Borough Market near London bridge.

I was given a strange face followed by a chuckle when I asked a construction worker for the location of the nearest tube stop. They are tube stations, i was informed, followed by very typically polite but questionably accurate english directions.

The northern line isn’t stopping at Kings Cross, a major transfer point, and this complicated our trip some and may have precipitated aforementioned beer drinking.

Camden Town made up for the frustrations – we had a nice tea at a place called yumchaa. Jenni bought a nice dress with bunnies on it, and I spent some time in a game store and came out with a copy of fluxx – a little card game for our travels.

And, after two days of threats, it finally did rain.

See more London photos.

08-06-10

Day 1 & 2 : London

Jenni is in the kitchen making tea and i am typing our first report, after two solid days in London.
The flat where we are staying is quite close to Russell Square, which is a tube stop, and also a park. The guy renting us the room is quite nice and the place has everything we need. Points for airbnb so far.

When we first arrived we made every effort to resist sleeping, and after refueling at ‘Pret a Manger’ – a ubiquitous chain of quick-bites – we proceeded to the british museum which is walking distance from where we are staying. We had to contend with a sizable crowd but Jenni got some great shots in the Egyptian, Roman and Greek wings. The European wing had a lot of local history – like a gold coin bearing the image of emperor Carausius, who lead a breakaway ‘mini-empire’ of Britain and Gaul in the late third century. It was found in someones backyard in 2007.

The temptation to nap just became too great, but we did awaken in time to make it to the Lexington to see a concert. ‘Chad Valley’ opened with a one-man synth-opera style that we both thought was great. Then ‘Plants and Animals’ came on. In the past this band from Montreal was instrumental, but the vocals were decent. We didn’t stay long after the headliner, instead attempting to barhop, which wasn’t very successful as we didn’t know which areas had the scene.

We started late the next day, grabbing Breakfast at Tesco (supermarket) – we ate in Princes Garden before hitting the Science Museum, which gets mixed reviews. Its really for kids, and there were so many of them and the admission was so free that we did a flyby past some apollo space vehicles and jetted out there. We headed to Westminster and walked along the Thames to the Tate Modern, where we we saw an exhibit called Exposed – mostly voyeuristic photos. Jenni liked it. Andrew is now paranoid.

We tried to get tickets for Anne Boleyn at the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, but it was sold out – we’ll try for the matinee tomorrow. It was pub time anyway, and we dropped in on The Banker in the north side. Seem like a good place to go for a pint or if you want to discuss the economy. Finally we capped the evening off with a trip to Piccadilly Circus to see Gainsburg at the cinema. Jenni liked it. Andrew slept.

Check out the London photos so far.