Big Fun in the Big Smoke

More good times bumming around London

Westminster Abbey

Just finished up a trip to Westminster Abbey for my Art and Architecture class.  I am really glad I signed up for this course.  Even though I know next to nothing about art history or achitecture I have always been interested in them.  Plus we get our admissions paid for in places that I would have gone to anyway.  The abbey was quite huge and impressive.  The only thing better than the outside was the inside, which due to weird British anti-photo policies, I have no pictures of to show you.  Just imagine over 600 tombs of famous kings and queens and other notables like Darwin and Chaucer.  Can you see it?  Good who needs pictures of the inside of mind blowing structures anyway?  I have theory that the most powerful political lobby in Britain is the post card lobby and they have decided the only way to make a profit in the age of the digital camera is to prohibit photos of cool stuff, like the crown jewels, college of surgeons museum, and gilded alters, all of which I have seen but are not able to pass on.  I know this sounds super touristy but sometimes I don't even want to go to a place unless I can take a picture of it.  Otherwise, how would I be able to prove that I had been there?  Another problem here is the tea.  I never thought that I would be able to complain about tea quality in the "land of tea" but there you go.  Back home I was a huge tea fanatic.  My girlfriend and I have boxes of different kinds.  Even the crappiest of coffe houses back home offer a selection of 4-5 teas such as Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Orange Spice, etc.  Here when you order tea you get the choice of . . . tea.  One kind,  that's it.  And they assume that you want milk in it and unless you say something in advance you get a big cup of creamy tea.  Not good.

I have been finding some cool little out of the way cheap places.  I am reading tonnes of books with all the spare time on my hands, and the Oxfam bookshop is a great place to get cheap used books.  I found a couple of Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) books, but these were definetley for adults.  There are called Switch Bitch and Kiss Kiss.  They have a bit of a ribald edge to them.  Also I found the best cheap place for curries here in London:  the restaurant at the Indian YMCA.  Dinner was only £4 pounds and lunch today was a little more pricy but had a ton of options.  The only down side is that, being a YMCA, there is no alcohol served on the premisis.  And we all know that beer and spicy foods go together perfectly.  I have only had one really spicy curry at a a restaurant so far.  Luckily my homestay family are curry fanatics and cook them for almost every meal.

I just started planning my week off travels.  I booked 2 nights in a hostel and a guided tour of Belfast for $60 bucks.  Not too bad considering how much everything else costs.  After I finish this blog I have to go online to figure out bus travel and other stuff.  I am planning on visiting a little town outside of Manchester called Hadfield, where they filmed my all time favorite show, League of Gentlemen.  After that it is up to Liverpool for some Beatles fun, then on to Belfast and probably back to London.  Everyone else is going off to the continent for the break but I just don't have those kinds of funds.  Plus I figure that being an Anlgophile (British enthusiast, not some one who is aroused by geometry) I should spend the time that I have here exploring the U.K.  I will be back to visit Europe sometime in the future.

Here are a couple pics of my trips last week.  More to come!