I wasn’t able to get back to the blog for several days - it seems like a week, but it’s only been 3 days.

Went on a long walk through the heart of London - Buckingham Palace (again), St. James Park, Parliament and Westminster Abbey (both from the outside) - 10 pounds entry fee - yowza.  Too rich for me.

Then we walked across the Golden Jubilee Footbridge to the South Bank, which had street performers and Star Wars exhibits and the London Eye and mushy hot dogs that tasted like Vienna sausages.

Then we turned ’round and headed north, visiting the Tate Modern museum of art.  John W. had always wanted to see the Tate, so I was happy to come along.  I was absolutely dismayed at the terrible condition there - the floor has a huge crack running through it, from one end to the other, a foot wide or more in some places, although conveniently never more than a foot and a half deep, almost as though it was part of the exhibit.

After carefully stepping over the crack a few times, and dipping our toes in to prove it was real, John W. and I went upstairs.  yes, that’s right, I actually entered a modern museum of art.  Christy will never let me hear the end of it.  I saw Jackson Pollack and Mark Rothko paintings, some sort of anti-capitalist exhibit that made little sense (other than the mass-produced copy of Das Kapital - brilliant!).  At this point, we were both pretty tired, so we sat for a while.

We went outside, walked briefly on the Millenium Bridge, but neither of us were particularly keen on walking all the way across, so we headed north again, still along the South Bank.   Starbucks has absolutely conquered London, as far as I can tell - it is by far the most dominant restaurant I saw.   I had to go out of my way to find local coffee shops to visit.

Eat. comes in second.   I never did manage to eat there.  McDonalds and Burger King both had a strong presence as well, but I avoided them as well.

Eventually we got to London Bridge, which was notable only in its complete lack of notability.  It wasn’t falling down, it didn’t have towers, no shanties perched along the edges.  Dis. A. Pointing.   I did get a picture of the Globe Theater… sorry, Theatre, which was neat.   There are some touristy things near London Bridge, including the Clink (the original prision called “The Clink”) and some dungeon/haunted house thing.

Both of us were exhausted at this point, and we rode the Tube back to Knightsbridge.  We recovered enough that I managed to stumble through Harrods.  I’m sure Rowan and Christy will enjoy it more.  I was mostly amused by the pricing - everything is pretty much the same price as in the US, except the prices are in pounds.  So a book that costs $6 in the US, costs 6 pounds in England.  Note that they do not earn twice the salary we do - somewhat like 10-15% less as I recall.  which means they pay double for everything, on less discretionary income.

After Harrods, and buying some gifts for the kids, we got on another train to Paddington Station.  There was no platform 9 3/4 - that’s at Kings Cross, which I never managed to visit.   We found our train, and got on, and headed out to Newbury.