Alright, to Tuesday....

Now that we've all voted to change the world and make it a better place, we can now return to blog posting about mostly nothing at all...like trips we've taken!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008 - We head off to London on the 9:15 train. Our cab driver to the airport described London as a mistress. She's beautiful, and expensive, very interesting, but not somewhere you can afford or handle forever. I agree. I adore London but can only afford her in small doses. One thing the cab driver didn't mention was that affairs often cause high drama. And, without getting into too many sad details, on our train into London, we had a two hour delay due to some drama. But in true British fashion, they were efficient, quick, and got us on our way as quickly as they could.

Once in London, we took the tube towards St. James Park. On our way to the park and to my favorite attraction in Britain, we walked by the Royal Mews. Not the sort to walk by horses, we did the self-guided tour.

In all honesty, I don't know if I'd recommend this. I say that because of one thing:

These are the only horses we saw.

When you say mews, I think of a place where horses live. So, Todd and I were just a little sad when these were all the horses we were going to meet. We did see and hear about the amazing carriages that carry and have been gifted to royalty over the generations. We learned that many of the people who care for the horses actually live in the Mews with their families. And, when you look up above where the horses live, you can see the apartments with flowers on the window sills. Seeing a glimpse into royal life and those who care for the entirety of that life was cool.

We also met this guy, who is an obvious resident.

Pressing on, we gawked at Buckingham...

That annoying black bar in the picture is part of the gate that goes around the palace. To take pictures you have to go through the bars. (I would have edited it out but picnik isn't behaving. )

Its mildly amusing to see hundreds of tourists leaning through bars to take pictures. Of course, it might have been more amusing to them to see one tourist taking this picture....

From Buckingham, we walked through St. James park.

See the London Eye in the background? It didn't move the entire time we were there.

From St. James, we embarked into the Cabinet War Rooms. I adore the Cabinet War Rooms. Why? Well, thank you so much for asking...

I really didn't enjoy history. Memorizing dates and royal lines and all of that stuff isn't fun. And, I'm not good at it. Staring at note cards, being quizzed by mom really didn't help my appreciation for those who came before me.

But, humanities...putting all the pieces of a culture together, art, music, politics, literature, fashion, etc... that's what I love. That's when history comes alive. And that's what the Cabinet War Rooms do. After the end of the war, everyone just left. And the map room, it is exactly as it was all those years ago, down to the sugar some dude was hoarding since there was rationing. To me, that's history.

Now, of course, some of the museum had to be recreated, like the bedrooms and such whatnot. But to see how the war was dealt with, below ground, to see how staff lived and worked...that's just amazing.

As we came out of the War Rooms....
It sort of sums up London for me: light, dark, still, moving, old, new, simple and complicated.

That was deep...anywho...

From St. James, we walked down Pall Mall so I could meet my London co-workers and see the London office.

From there we walked to Fortnum & Mason, also known as the Queen's grocer. The food is spectacular and, during my last visit, I saw the Edge in a fabulous green top hat and tails escorting an appropriately aged, dressed, and quite attractive woman to some sort of an event there.

We walked Bond Street to SoHo where we ventured to All the Fun of the Fair. This marked my first knit shop in London. The shop is tiny but incredibly bright and easy to navigate. They have not only yarn and notions but all sorts of hand knit treats like cupcakes and tea cosies and bunnies and bears for sale. I really enjoyed my time there. Now, my only rule of yarn buying on this trip was to buy only what I cannot get here at home. For some reason shopkeepers were amused & delighted by his request. After being introduced to all of the yarn that fit my description, I bought two large skeins of organic undyed wool and two normal sized skeins of bamboo sock yarn.

We walked around Carnaby Street down Regent Street and around Piccadilly Circus and then took the tube back to Kings Cross. The 19:15 Cambridge Express train brought us back to Cambridge for a late dinner, email and bridal mayhem.

So ends Tuesday.

I don't know about you but I'm tired. Just writing about it was exausting. Looking back, I don't know how I did all that walking.