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| Details on the Houses of Parliament building |
On Saturday I had a brief walk about the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace. I am blown away by the architecture of these old buildings. I can't imagine someone today trying to build such an extravagant church or government building - let alone a castle - and getting public support.
I was too cheap to go inside any of them, but I'll be back in London for several days in a few weeks and may then. I still have to see the Churchill Museum and the National Gallery, among a few other things. Anything else you think I shouldn't miss?
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| Buckingham Palace - one of the Queen's many homes |
After that I met up with Julia and Enda for the rest of the day. It was great to get to talk to some "locals" who could show me around the city a bit. They were wonderful to entertain me all day: we walked through Borough Market - full of cheeses and salty pork products - and had some mulled wine; we hit a couple pubs for some traditional British ales; we snuck into St. Paul's Cathedral for the beginning of the Saturday night mass, so I got to see it without spending any £; we walked Portobello Market after it was mostly closed and had beer in a secret garden (no snogging); and I got to go to a real restaurant for dinner - one of Julia's favo(u)rite Indian places. Thank you both so much for taking me out!
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| Awesome map of Borough Market |
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| My wonderful hosts for the day |
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| Urlacher In'erception? I hardly even know 'er! |
Sunday I had lunch again with Enda then decided to see if I could find some Americans with whom to watch some championship (American) football. I showed up at an ex-pat bar a couple hours before the first game (which started here at 8pm) and got one of the last seats. The barbecue wasn't bad, either! It's more fun when you're rooting for one of the teams so I arbitrarily chose the bears. Most of the bar was for Chicago, too bad they got whooped.
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Out of about 70 rooms in the museum I would say half
of them contained nothing but pots or the like |
Today was my last day in London before leaving for Belgium in the morning. I went to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone, but to be honest that was the only thing I could get excited about. Endless rooms of pots, urns, plates, knives, figurines, pots, trinkets...pots... I'm starting to understand what I like in a museum: if it's art or culture then it better be famous, otherwise I like dinosaurs and science. Who knew?
Have fun in Belgium! How are you traveling there? I guess your experience at the museums confirms that the knowledge you go in with determines what moves you...those "pots" each tell me a story, and the monuments transport me back to ancient Greece. What's your story with dinosaurs? p-t-e-r-a-n-o-d-o-n spells...
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