day 10 - march 25, 2009

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
--ROBERT BURNS

Okay. So, that's a TAD dramatic, but kp and I were feeling a bit Burns-ish on our first morning in London. We awoke to the sound of chirping birds. Except they weren't birds. It was the sound of three cell phone alarms going off, followed by the sounds of young girls starting their appearance prep. Kp and I waited them out, got ready in a quarter of the time and went in search of breakfast. Our breakfast was grumpy, helped only a bit by tea. I'm not sure why we couldn't shake our initial prejudice against London. I've been to London before and loved it, but I think this time it was a combination of being too different from where we had just been AND the fact that being in London meant our trip was almost over. Thus: grump.

We started our day at the Tower of London:

We didn't go inside because we couldn't be bothered to shell out the pounds

We took ourselves on a bit of a walking tour, as recommended by the lovely Jacqui Okum.

The Tower Bridge was an impressive thing to look at and walk across. Does anyone know if it's always been baby blue? Or at what point was it painted this particular shade? Is it the Queen's favourite colour? How do decisions like this get made? These are the things we wondered about as we walked across it.
We headed toward the Globe Theatre--that was the one thing I wanted to see on this London trip.

I think here I am adding "impatient" to my "grumpy".
Sorry, kp.

We made it to the Globe! Here is the view from the roof.

We ran into this nice fellow fixing the stage.

And this fellow was sweeping up.

We decided to spend our tour money here. I was really hoping that we would catch a rehearsal in progress, but we didn't, so I felt a tiny bit ripped off. The theatre was quite beautiful, though.
It briefly crossed my mind to ditch the tour and sneak backstage and explore on my own. But then I remembered things called laws and people called police and figured I didn't want to come up against either, so I stayed with the group.

Next time I'm in London, I'm going to see a play here. I think I have to.

We continued our tour of London's sights with a stop at Big Ben.Good job living up to your name, big guy.

The architecture in Parliament Square is definitely awe-inspiring.
I can't imagine commuting past such gorgeous buildings on my way to work every day. Eventually you must get desensitized to it, I'm sure, but that's a shame.

So are these outfits. A real shame.

Despite the fact that neither of us are religious, kp and I decided to attend the Evensong at Westminster Abbey. I've been to church a hand full of times in my life, but a good portion of those times the service was in Croatian and therefore mostly incoherent (my Croatian vocab is chiefly swear words, which are not often used in the house of God). Luckily there was a program for the Abbey's service, so we knew what to say and when to say it. Otherwise we would have been exposed as fakes. Well.... come to think of it, I'm pretty sure we didn't fool you, God. I enjoyed the part of the service that we stayed for--I really shone in the greeting-your-fellow-worshipper bit with a "peace be with you" and it was wonderful to experience the church being used for the reason for which it was built. The stained glass was beautiful, the acoustics were amazing and listening to the choir sing gave me goosebumps. Even though it wasn't a religious experience for me, it was still a memorable one.

We left the service early because we still wanted to see Trafalgar Square. We were a bit pressed for time because we had to catch a train to my friend Martin's house, where we were staying for the next two nights. We made it to Trafalgar Square just as the light was fading.

This was the highlight of our day:
Thank goodness we have each other. Who else would find this so entertaining?

On our way to the train station I was completely determined to find Cornish pasties for dinner. We eventually found them and SCARFED them down because we were really cutting it close. (They were still delicious even though they went down quickly!) We took the tube to our hostel, grabbed a cab to take us to the door, wait for us to grab our packs, then drive us back to the tube. THEN we made our way to Waterloo station and bought our tickets despite a very unhelpful customer assistance lady who hindered rather than helped. We had to run to catch the train, but we made it. I charmed an older man into letting me borrow his mobile to call Steve, Martin's roommate.

I think this is probably post-charm. Thanks nice older man! That's a dapper suit.

Steve very nicely picked us up at the station. Thanks Steve! Steve and Martin's place was so lovely (just as I suspected it would be) and it was a wonderful change to be in a place with a real kitchen and incomparable water pressure in the shower. Bliss. Kp and I got some food and wine from the Sainsbury's and spent the night consuming the aforementioned and enjoying each other's company.

We spent a very enjoyable evening by ourselves in Martin and Steve's kitchen doing things like this:

We ended the evening by watching a VERY amazing British show called "Snog Marry Avoid." It was... unbelievable. Find an example here. And here. And look forward to an American version premiering sometime in the near future.

Although we had started the day not feeling totally happy with where we were, we ended the day very happy, a little bit drunk and stretched out in a wonderfully comfortable bed. A little bit of wine and some warm hospitality can go a long way. But neither could quite erase the unavoidable from our heads--our impending last full day abroad.