Before I start, I'd just like to say that this post almost never happened because I thought I left my phone on the coach (aka bus). Thankfully, however, that was not the case, though the past frantic half-hour has been one I'll be glad to forget.
PKP arranged coaches for us to travel to London for a boat tour on the Thames. I was in the first coach, which left at around eight in the morning. Our lovely driver then took a wrong turn, and we ended up stuck in traffic worse than any I'd ever seen in LA, got out of the coach in the literal middle of the street, and hightailed it for the pier, arriving just before our ship was supposed to leave at eleven.
By this time, the wind and rain had begun, and I began the most miserable three hours of my short existence in the United Kingdom.
Remember that ferry ride out to the Statue of Liberty? Well, this was worse.
Granted, it wasn't open water, but there was rain, much rain, and I wasn't expecting the wind. I complain because since our coach was so late, we had to sit up on the upper deck of the ship (named "Sharpedo" har har) and face the elements like delicate flowers shrieking under the unflinching beam of a freeze gun.
We sailed East to Greenwich and saw some gloomy-looking bits of London along the way.
The Shard, the tallest building in western Europe.
London Bridge (it wasn't falling).
The Tower of London, home of London's first one-way street.
The Tower Bridge, which is much nicer in real life.
After a nauseating, frigid paddle down the Thames, we dropped off some unfortunates at Greenwich and made our nauseating, frigid way back to Westminster, where Big Ben (not actually its name) frowned on all of us miserable people.
An archaeologist friend and I decided to go to the British Museum because: a) it was freezing and b) it was the British Museum, come on.
I've got a lot of work to do, figuring out why our contactless cards didn't work, but we did get return tickets from Embankment to Tottenham Court Station.
There, I had the longest, skinniest hot dog I have ever before seen.
There were some people meditating in a corner. A security guard came by on patrol and stopped for a while.
Tonya, I almost bought this for you. I'm still not quite sure why I didn't. Probably because it's not very British.
There was a lot of stuff in the British Museum. That's about all I can say.
My archaeologist friend (let me re-state that--my archaeologist friend) had sprouted wings and a halo and was somewhere in heaven while I trailed along behind a Chinese tour group and picked up a new vocabulary phrase: 墓碑.
(I looked that up in my handy-dandy Chinese-to-English dictionary.)
It all was very impressive, the big stuff.
Then we left Ancient Greece and wandered into Ancient Egypt, where stuff was even bigger and more imposing, if that were possible.
Over time, however, I experienced the phenomenon known as Greatness Fatigue, which is characterized by experiencing so many things so great and wonderful that nothing looks great and wonderful anymore, just ridiculous, like these titles:
I sniggered.
And then I saw the Rosetta Stone and was overawed again.
And there was King Ramses II (or at least the top half of him).
Admire my photography skills. Admire them, I say.
I say a statue that looked like a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet.
Turns out it was a large scarab beetle. I'm not sure which one I'd prefer.
We then wandered into a mummy exhibit, which was horrifying and which I don't really like to think about. Maybe tomorrow, and not right before I go to bed.
Anyhow, we wandered back to Westminster and found that the skies had magically cleared, and every step was not followed by a grunted curse against the weather gods.
Everything just looked so much nicer, so much more welcoming.
Even the Tower of London.
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