We slept in that morning after being out late at Crobar and Trafalger Square. I didn’t roll out of bed until 12:30, and we didn’t even leave the hostel until 2:30. I was okay with that though, since it would be our last chance to sleep in. We really didn’t do a whole lot this entire day.

Since we missed the breakfast, we stopped at this Turkish place right down the street. Chuck got a Kebab roll and I got a Tikka Chicken roll. I had no idea it would be so spicy! It gave me visions of the Mucho Macho Burrito, but it wasn’t quite that hot. Afterward I did have a similar feeling though; the one that comes from drinking a lot of water after eating a spicy food. From there we went to the train station and bought our ticket for the next morning’s ride to Gatwick Airport.

Then we did head out Harrod’s. Not sure if you’ve heard of it, because I hadn’t, but it’s a rather large shopping center. We walked around a bit, but most of the stores were high-scale. We went to the Waterstone’s though. Chuck tried to find Watership Down to no avail. Seems they’d sold their last copy just an hour or so before we got there… Murphy’s Law, right? There are five levels to Harrod’s, and we definitely did not walk around them all. I thought the layout was a bit weird. Instead of a regular mall where there are distinct stores with entrances, this was more like an office building where you could walk into another store without going into a main passage. Felt a bit cramped, really. It was also hard to figure out where the stores were, since you couldn’t see them from afar.

After the failed book-finding, we headed off to Hyde Park. We strolled through and went to the Serpentine Gallery. It’s a small art gallery, and they had only one exhibit there. It was a modern artist, whose name evades me, He has a Popeye series of artwork. It was weird at first, but then interesting. The sculpture-things were inflatable pool-toys sticking through ladders, trashcans, dangling chairs, or other things. Well, we thought they were inflatable pool-toys. Turns out they are actually made of aluminum, but look extremely real. They have the right colors, reflectivity, and even wrinkles. It took me a long while to figure they weren’t plastic, and I was still wondering as we left. The paintings were oil on canvas collages. Lots of consumerist and sexual snippets meshed together. From afar it looks just like a print magazine had been blown up, but closer inspection shows the finer detail and brush strokes. Once the shock of the material and medium faded, I was really impressed.  It’s a shame the building was so small; I would have liked to see more artwork.

After the short visit to the Serpentine Gallery, we walked through the rest of the park. Saw a monument to… someone (Chuck, help me out!). It started raining again. Quick diversion. Being a meteorologist in London must be easy: every day it is mostly cloudy with a chance of showers through the entirety day. And it will rain at some point. If you look out the window and it’s not raining, just try to go do something out there and it will start to rain. Now back on track! We walked through the rest of Hyde Park whilst ducking between tree cover, and eventually made it to the Marble Arch station which is just past Speaker’s Corner (no one was speaking in the rain). We took the train to the Angel station again, where we went back to the Borders in the N1 center. Chuck got Watership Down at last! Since I had one ride left on my Oyster card, I took the tube back and Chuck walked. So what if it was just one stop. After the ride I got my 3 pound deposit for the card back. I then walked around for a little bit trying to find a souvenir shop. It was difficult, but I found a hole-in-the-wall market which had a few things, and I got some of them. Can’t give away what I got though, that’d ruin it for the people getting them.

Chuck and I met up back at the hostel and then went to Yum Yum, which was this little Asian restaurant just down the street from our hostel. We both got the Roast Duck with rice which was actually really good! Duck has an interesting and pleasant flavor.  After the dinner we went to the Tesco across the street and got some snacks for the voyage home. It consisted of some Jammie Dodgers and dried mango! Chuck spent all but two pence of the last of his change. I still had some to spend the next morning at the airport. Following Tesco, we read and checked the internet. I finally finished Hyperion! The book was good but it ended abruptly. It’s a cliff hanger for the next book, Fall of Hyperion, but it bothers me that I won’t get any resolution until reading its sequel.

We also showered and packed up most of our stuff so leaving in the morning would be quicker. A quick bit about the shower. The two shower units I’d used before had the same problem where it was mostly cold water with a random splash of warmth. This third shower was on the opposing side and a different issue: the water had one setting – scalding. It started off just hot, but it eventually got so hot I was actually scared of burning myself. That is unacceptable. It was on the lowest setting, barely turned on, and it threatened to burn all my skin. And that’s a problem when you’re trying to wash out your shampoo and rinse off the soap. I thought maybe the hot and cold were backwards, but turning the handle to the other direction just made it even hotter. Their showers can’t even have the same fault… impressive. Sometime thereafter we went to sleep. It was the last night in that hostel, thank goodness!

With the rise of the sun ended the first night in Journey’s. Only two more to go… holy carp, that’s a long time. I ate breakfast, which was actually decent. Had some Golden Puffs and bread with drum roll peanut butter and jam! Peanut butter, you ask!? That’s right, we finally found some! Then I showered. The showers themselves seemed clean. The area right outside the shower, where you could towel off and change was different. There was a bunch of wet carp on the ground along with dirt. The mat they had didn’t help with anything other than holding water. The shower heads were fixed and shot straight down. The water temperature varied widely in a ratio that was approximately 30% warm, 60% cold, 10% hot. Adjusting the handle didn’t do anything. I have no idea how the pipes were rigged, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s not like they were completely out of hot water…. it just didn’t come in warm all that often. Just another nuisance. One upside was the hooks where you could hang your clothes and towel.

Our adventure for the day consisted primarily of the Science Musem, which had free admission! We’re all about the free stuff! It kicked Vienna’s Deutches Museum’s ass in a couple, important ways. 1) This museum was free. 2) The exhibits worked! We spent over four hours in that museum and I don’t think we even saw it all. We saw some engines, airplanes, jets, 18th century inventions (probably my favorite part of all we saw), a plastics exhibit, and quite a few other things. I also enjoyed seeing the history of computing. They had a Cray 1 there, along with some of the first calculators, and Babbages Difference and Analytical Engines (which are mechanical computers, believe it or not)! In the same section were also some crazy pieces of 3- and 4-D geometry. I really enjoyed the museum!

The night before we had talked to a couple people staying in our room, one of whom was a Londoner herself. She told us about a few cool places to check out. One of them was Maxwell’s. It’s a restaurant and Mondays they have 50% off on their burgers. Chuck and I made our way over there after the Science museum, since most other sights closed around that time. They told us a 40 minute wait, but we got a table in 15. I think the food took longer to arrive than we waited to be seated. I got the double stack burger for the main meal and had a banana and toffee sundae for dessert; both were good! The burgers seemed pretty expensive at their full price, but were decent at 50% off. I really enjoyed the hassle-free tap water and refills and credit card acceptance!

Another recommendation was Crobar, a rock bar in the Soho Burrough. Chuck and I headed there a bit later that evening. I really enjoyed the place! They had good rock and metal music along with good drinks. I tried quite a few of their shooters. They had stuff like Misty Mountain Hop (LOTR anyone!?), Charlotte the Harlot, Fireball, and Johnny the Fox. I enjoyed all the ones I tried. I’m glad they had those instead of just straight shots because the shooters are just more fun. Crobar isn’t a huge bar, but it’s got a good amount of seating. The music machine didn’t seem outrageously priced either. Plus you could open a tab on a credit card, which is convenient for not spending all your cash.  I enjoyed the crowd, because I’m familiar with the types from my concert goings. I definitely recommend the bar to anyone who hates “pop” music and the regular, lame circle of bars. Josh Burke, this is an example of an awesome bar! Remember our plan to open a metal bar? We can take a lesson from these guys! Mental note: chuck owes me for both dinner and drinks!

After we left Crobar, we went to Trafalgar square to catch a night bus back to St. Pancras/King’s Cross. Along the way we ran into the most awesome thing we’ve ever encountered: public urinals. Right along the sidewalk was this metal structure which could fold open to reveal a small area to walk in and pee in to. I have no idea why more of these aren’t in cities because it would basically eliminate the whole peeing on buildings or bushes problem. I definitely partook of the wonderous contraption! We then checked out what was going on at the plinth. It was just some guy standing around, and once it started raining he went inside a tent he had up there. Uneventful, so we made our way to the bus. Once we got to King’s Cross, we tried to find a kebab stand which was open at 3:30. That was an impossible feat. Chuck and I looked around for a while, and then he headed back while i continued to look. No luck. My faith in kebab’s just died! After I gave up the search, I headed back to bed.

Sadly, we only had two nights at Palmer’s Lodge. This was the morning of our checkout. We put our packs into the luggage room and set off to the O2 center, where we’d seen Harry Potter. A person at the desk of the hostel had told us there was a Waterstone’s Bookstore there, but it was not open during the time we went. It was before noon on that Sunday, and I expect they didn’t open until noon, if they opened at all. Annoyingly, there were no signs posted with their hours, unless I overlooked something.

So we headed back to the hostel, got our packs, and headed for the new hostel. Why were we switching? We’d looked at prices on the internet and two nights at Palmer’s and 3 at Journey’s – St Pancras ended up being a cheaper combination than staying 5 days at either one alone. St. Pancras was also a more central location, which made it a bit easier when trying to get to places around London. I’ll come right out and say the Journey’s was the worst hostel we stayed at. I’ll go into more details later. As of this time, we were only checking in. We were allowed to drop out bags off in the room, even though the beds hadn’t been made.  And here’s where I’ll tell you a little bit about the hostel. It’s exterior is rather plain, and it looks like a hole in the wall. The paint job wasn’t very nice and shouted “Cheap? You got it!” The room was ridiculous. 17 beds crammed into the same room that I’d seen some 8 bed dorms in other hostels have. Beds were stacked 3 high in most places. There was no room for baggage. Anywhere you set it, it was in the way of either getting in your bed or even just having a path to walk. The place was also filthy. The baggage spilling everywhere must mean that there is never a way for anyone to do any cleaning. The carpet was stained, dirty, and had a lot of crumbs. There was all sorts of litter behind the beds and just on the floor. Ventilatoin was almost non-existent. There was one small window which partially opened into some small, garbage filled area. Luckily, my bed was right near this window. It provided a bit of circulation. Apparently some of the other rooms have zero windows. I can’t even imagine how terrible that would be. How can you cram 17 people into a room and then not even have ventilation?

The common room and kitchen were similarly small and dirty. Again, no circulation left the entire place really hot. It became unbearable to just sit there after a few minutes if a fan wasn’t blowing on you. It wasn’t blowing anything other than the hot, stale air, but it was at least moving. There were few seats in either the common room or the kitchen, so finding a seat was a pain. The bathroom had one stall our of order and the toilets barely flushed. And you had to straddle the commode to close the door. One of the faucets was dripping. They had a hand dryer, but the towel dispenser was always empty. I’ll tell you about showers later.

Anyways, after we checked in, we headed out. Our first stop was finding a bookstore. There was supposed to be one in the train station, but I think it was also closed because it was Sunday. We asked around and heard rumor of a border about 20 minutes away in Angel. We set off on foot and, after another round of asking about it, were directed to the N1 center wherein lay the Borders! We spent some time perusing (I love bookstores), and I eventually got a book of both Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. I’ve been interested in reading the books for some time, and was happy to find them both for only 3 pounds! Chuck looked around but didn’t get anything.

We wanted to do what my guidebook called the Millennium Mile (which when measured was over 2 miles, but that’s besides the point). We started at London Tower, where we saw the outside of the fortress. There was a group there where some people were firing water balloons from a trebuchet, so we watched that for a little bit. Their aim was horrible! Mental note: I want to build a trebuchet some time in my life. And not just a little one, I want it to be something like 12 feet tall, without the arm extended. Next, we walked to the Tower Bridge, Part of it was under renovations, of course, but it was a neat bridge to cross! The towers in it are large and the railing is interesting to see!

We then walked along the Queen’s Path, which follows the River Thames. We passed a few more bridges, came across a weird looking government building. Some locals called it the “crushed testicle,” which happens to be a pretty accurate description. Impressively, we saw the London Bridge. I do wonder if it’s the same one mentioned in the childhood song “London Bridge is Falling Down.” I must find out. We saw some neat looking buildings, passed a church, an Sir Francis Drake’s old galleon, and then finally to the Millennium Bridge! We’d seen it in Harry Potter 6 not just two days before, and now we saw it for real. It wasn’t as large as I expected it. Well, I didn’t know it was only a foot bridge. It was a neat piece of engineering because there’s not much too it. It’s entirely metal and it doesn’t even appear to have much framing.

Right up the foot path from the bridge is St Paul’s Cathedral. We weren’t able to go inside (I think a service was going on), but it looked rather impressive from the outside. The dome was huge! We sat outside it for a little while, thinking of what to do next. We just decided to continue along the road. We got some more pictures of the other side of St Pail’s and then came across the Royal Courts of Justice, which look pretty awesome! There’s also a pretty wicked dragon statue in the road in front of the building! Further down we came across the Charring Cross station. Around here we got some food from the Tesco again. This time we found the fabled Jammie Dodgers! They were a nice treat! Charles wasn’t too impressed, but I thought they were good. Trafalgar Square was close, so we went back over to see what the person on the plinth was up to. This time it was a guy wearing the shirt of a charity, and he was trying to raise money from up there. We waited around a bit and saw how they changed the people. They brought out a lift and raised up the new person and brought down the old person. Not too exciting, but to think they have to do that on the hour every hour is impressive. The guy who then was up there was boring, so we left.

We rode the tube back to the King’s Cross station. This is where we set out on our search of Platform 9 and 3/4, famous from Harry Potter. The area where Platform 9 and 3/4 should be is under renovation, so the attraction was moved to a spot just around the corner. We even had to wait in a little queue, but we finally got our pictures with the cart which looks like it’s disappearing through the wall. The King’s Cross and Platform 9 and 3/4 in my mind was way different than what actually exists, but I guess that’s the beauty of books, right? I liked my mental picture better. After out picture there we just came back to the hostel. I think we just hung around there for the rest of the night. There’s not much to do when it’s really hot and cramped in the common room, so I just read a bit more in Hyperion while laying on my cramped bed before sleeping. The hostel sucks so much. Filthy, hot and cramped.

As I noted in the last post, we got in pretty late the night before. We woke up at 9:30 to grab some free breakfast. Then we went back to sleep! We woke up at 2:30 and took showers. Showers are always nice! Then rushed off to meet for the free tour of London.

The tour stared off near Green Park. It was just one large group, but it was managable. We walked through and talked about Green Park and then walked on to Buckingham Palace. The Queen was not at home that day, sadly. Otherwise Charles and I would have stopped in and had crumpets and tea with her. She and I are on a first name basis, you see. Wot wot! The Palace looked nice, but we couldn’t see too much. The garden out front was pretty though. Apparently, quite a few people have managed to break into the ground or palace, which made me want to try it. Mayhaps another time. It’d just be fun to do!

We walked along then to see some of the palace guards. That’s right; the ones who wear those silly hats. They were very serious about those mammals which must have been crouching on their heads. The area wrapped off, woefully, so neither Charles nor I had the chance to pester the guards and see if they didn’t budge, as rumored. From there we walked to the house of one of a King’s mistress and then along Pall Mall, which is one of the most expensive streets in London. Carp like that doesn’t impress me, so I didn’t think too much of the area.

Onward we walked, now on to Trafalger Square! This is where the British like to party… for just about anything. The square is pretty awesome. A large statue of Horatio Nelson stands in the middle. He was a bad-ass naval commander, before he was shot by a sniper. Apparently, after you get sniped, you tend to die. And that’s what Horatio Nelson did: died. If you couldn’t tell, I’m feeling a bit funny today. Not in a physical way, but a mental way. I’M SO WACKY! Also in the square are a few fountains with statues spewing water, and a few gargantuan lion statues at the base of Mr. Nelson’s statue. There are four plinths in each of the corners of the square and one has been turned into an art project. Let me clarify that just a bit: a living art project. For an hour at a time, a UK resident is on the top of the plinth. They can do whatever they like for the hour, as long as it’s not illegal. This project lasts for several months, and the plinth is occupied 24/7, even in incliment weather. The guy up there when we passed by was talking to some folks and taking pictures. Not anything too exciting.

From there we walked to an archway, which, for some reason unknown to anyone, had a bronze nose in one of the columns. One of those great little things spotted by the guide that not even locals notice. We walked across some street and into a courtyard. There a naval head quarters sat. It is also where some military guys parade on occasion. In the 2012 Olympics, it’ll be the location of sand volleyball. Right on the other side of the clearing is the house of the Prime Minister. It’s painted black because the folks in charge of renevations were too cheap to clean the soot and dirt from it. The quickest fix was to just paint it black and say it’s tradition. Across the street from that is Hyde Park, which used to be the home of the royal menagerie, before it was relocated to the area that is now the London Zoo.

Then we walked along and saw Tower Clock (whose bell is called Big Ben)! We walked around the corner and came across a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, I had to do a double take too. I have no idea what a statue of ol’ Abe is doing in London, but I have pictures! Then we saw Westminster Abbey. By the way, Westminster Abbey is a fantastic building. It’s been the place of corronations for centuries, and has awesome architecture. The low-yet-wide stance of the large doorway is quite intimidating.

And right across the street from Westminster Abbey are the Houses of Parliment. I think this gothic building is my favorite building ever. On one end is the Tower Clock, and the rest of the building has some other, smaller towers, and really intricate stone masonry. The color is perfect and the whole thing is just regal. I love this building! The Belfry in Bruges was damned awesome, but the Houses of Parliment take the cake! On some steps near the Houses, our guide told us the story of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. “Remember, remember, the fifth of November.” Yeah, that poem you head in V for Vendetta is real, and has a history to it! I’m very glad Parliment wasn’t blown up, or else I wouldn’t have much to look at there!

Once the tour ended, we grabbed some food at the corner Tesco store and ate it there. We walked around a bit more, and got to see the London Eye, but it soon started to rain. Chuck recorded a get-well video for his Grandmother, and then we headed back. We rode the tube back but had to do so in a round-about way because one of the lines was shut down for a signal failure. Signal failures seem to be a pretty common thing there, because we heard about several in our 5 days there. So we got back to the hostel and then I proceeded to write the day 25 blog adn the drafts for 26 and this 27th blog. I also uploaded some photos. Looked into doing laundry but they didn’t have soap there to use.

I was nearing the end of Hyperion and would need another book for the rest of the time there as well as the flight home, so Chuck and I devised a plan to find *some* bookstore and buy *some* book. Chuck’d headed to bed a while before I finished writing and uploading, but I followed suit not too long after.