London

Sorry it's taken me so long to post on London. I think the reason why is that I don't quite know what to make of it yet. I was prepared for the culture shock of America to Paris but not Paris to London. It is two completely different experiences. Most of you will be hearing about this when I return home in a couple of days, so I'll summarize a few things here. Since lists seem to be my thing, I'll start out with one of my observations/discoveries.

1. First, the city is gigantic, and the weather is very unpredictable. This was quite a change after being in Paris. Also, it is the second most expensive city after Tokyo. I paid $30 for a movie and popcorn the other night. The new Harry Potter was really good, though!

2. After you get your bearings in the city, there are lots of great neighborhoods and sites to visit. Luckily, we have an excellent tour guide in Lindsay's friend, Pete, who has nicely combined touristy and non-touristy attractions. Soho is great. There are really gorgeous huge parks here too.

2. If you can believe it, Starbucks is a bigger plague here than in Seattle. It is everywhere. You can't round a corner without running into one...or five. Surprising and funny.

3. It's OK to tromp all over graves in churches. In fact, it's hard to avoid, but it still feels weird anyway. Before this trip, I had never seen graves inside actual churches. We've visited the Westminster Abbey, Templar Chaple, and the London Towers.

4. In many bathrooms, old and new buildings both, the height of the sinks reaches just above my kneecaps.

5. Unlike Paris, you feel big city invisible here. Also, there are tons of toursists at nearly every attraction.

6. If you have an active imagination, hearing the details of all the head chopping (and what they did with the heads) that took place in this town is not pleasant. After a yeoman tour of the London Towers, I marched through the crown jewels exhibit mumbling nasty things about royalty past under my breath.

7. According to signs in the tube and underground stations, Jerry Springer the Opera http://www.jerryspringertheopera.com/noflash.html is a big hit and has won many awards. On the train, I amuse myself picturing scenes from that production. I can see a singer in grimy jeans and tank top trilling about his love for his brother's girlfriend's mom while hurling a chair across the stage.

8. No matter what views you have about Christianity, and probably religion in general, visiting a place like this gives you a new appreciation of the great impact it's had on nearly every aspect of daily life - from government to household items to art & architecture. The same goes for Paris.

9. While typing at the computer in the lobby of the hotel, I can hear the activities of the inhabitant in the first floor room. She brought a guy home with her, and he has just called his mom to inform her that he will be "staying at a friend's house tonight." Hmmmmm. On one hand, nice of him to keep his mom in the loop, on the other...

(I'm nosy and awful for including this in my blog. May have to remove it tomorrow)

10. The history of London, and how it has been preserved, is really amazing. There are ancient buildings, or pieces of these, mixed in with new ones. There are lots of new developments, but they've managed to hold on to quite a bit of old. Both the London and British Museums are great. Not only do they have extensive collections on Britain, but they have aquired, through purchase or what I'm sure is past thievery, tons of artifacts from many other civilations as well. For example, the British Museum has a spectacular ancient Egypt exhibit.

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I realize this post is pretty messy, and I have so much more to share. But, it's getting late, and I'm really sleepy from all our touring of the city. Plus, I should really let the guests on the first floor get some sleep, or whatever, without having to listen to the clickity-clacking of my typing. So, I'll finish this post up by describing our hotel experience and will try to write more details about the things we've done over the past few days tomorrow.

While our place in Paris was clean and quaint, this one is only so-so. Our room is about the same size, only dark with grim lighting. And, not as clean. The good point is the free internet access in the lobby. The annoyingly bad is that our room is on the fourth floor, and there is no lift. Also, the shower is the bane of my existence in London.

I stepped in the first morning to find disappointingly low water pressure. As I soaped up my hair and face, the already dripping water came to a drip, drip, dripping halt. At that point, I threw a tantrum and cursed while messing with the dials trying to get the water to come back on. Finally, I put a towel around me and threw open the bathroom door to inform a surprised Lindsay that the water had stopped, and I could not go on with soap in my hair and on my face. She took in my frightening state and, to my relief, headed downstairs to speak with the clerk at the reception desk. I got back into the shower and waited. Less than a minute later, a huge force of water came shooting straight out, nearly causing me to fall over. The shower is a small step up from the floor and is very shallow. There are no doors, only a curtain to pull around it. The shower head is pointed at an angle rather than straight down. I'm sure you can imagine where this is going. The force of the spray pushed the curtain out, allowing water to go all over the floor while I scrambled around trying to turn it off. It was the great flood of room 9. Sigh.

More tomorrow! Night!