London, Days Two and Three

30 November 2013

We spent the better part of eight hours on our feet yesterday.  This is what we do in London.  We pick a place to go and start walking.  If we see something interesting along the way, we stop to investigate. Eventually we get to where we were going, and after that we keep walking.

Below are snapshots of what we saw on our way:

Compared to what we saw in Switzerland, at a mere $880, this is a steal. Plus, it has Jack's name on it.  We didn't buy it.

The iconic Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus is covered in a snow globe.

Throughout the city, lights cross the streets high above our heads:

We spent Friday in a couple of museums (the National Gallery and the London Transport Museum) and out on the streets of Marylebone, Covent Garden, and whatever was in between.

Anyone who's been to our house will recognize this London Underground poster:

Here's the original, from which the poster picture was taken:

The poster was created in 1986.  We picked up our copy in 1991.  It was then, and is still, according to the museum, "the most popular modern Underground poster."  Another placard explains, "The original mock-ups for this design were created in toothpaste before finally being moulded in plastic for the poster artwork."

Late in the evening, as a wine shop was closing, we went in.  Jack was instantly in heaven:  the place was dominated by geeky (his word) French wines.  As Jack enthused out loud, one of the two French clerks grabbed two glasses and reappeared with wine for Jack to taste.  "This is a red wine," he said.  It was white.

Jack sipped, paused, and said, "Rhone?"

Mederic held out his hand.  "What is your name?"

Jack has a new friend.  We've been back there three times.  The store is called Nicolas, and it's on the Marylebone High Street, if you're ever in the neighborhood.

At 9:30 on Friday night we went up to the Islington section of London to meet a friend of Jack's from grad school who teaches at Kings College in London.

London is expensive.  Living in London is nigh on impossible if one isn't working for a large corporation or a bank.  Islington isn't a shabby neighborhood either.  Lawrence explained how he, his wife, and his two kids get by on non-banker salaries:  "If we spend about four hundred pounds more than we bring in, it's been a good month."

Today we visited a friend from college who is over here for a three-year stint.  He's in the financial business, which goes some of the way towards explaining how he landed a flat in the heart of Bloomsbury (what Islington aspires to be).  "They don't cover my rent," he said. "They boosted my salary a little instead."  Even he couldn't afford to buy property here.  He showed us around his basement flat, two rooms joined by a long hallway that doubles as a kitchen.  "On the market this place would go for 800,000 pounds."

We took a walk north of King's Cross/Saint Pancras to an area that's being redeveloped at a breakneck pace.  One of the offices going up will house Google.  There goes any chance of affordable rent.

PDaniel (a nickname we gave him in college that we refuse to stop using) took us to the Grant Museum, a large, one-room hall stacked floor to ceiling with anatomical specimens in jars and cases.

First things first, though:  Jack poses with prehsitoric mule deer antlers.  Mooseasaurus.  There's a full skeleton at the Natural History Museum, but it looks as if we're not going to get there on this trip.

Skeletons watch us from the upper level:

Brains!  Because I had to:

Back at Nicolas in the evening, Mederic tends to a packed house,

while Helena describes a complex red wine to Jack:

Even though it gets dark here well before 5:00 p.m., late November is a good time to be in London.  It's relatively free of tourist crowds, and I can get a lot of Christmas shopping done.  It was only after we got back from our long day yesterday that I realized I'd been Christmas shopping on Black Friday.  I get a pass, though, because it's not Black Friday over here.  It's just Friday.

Anyway, my suitcase is full of chocolate and presents and chocolate presents.  And a kilo of coffee beans. Those are mine.

As things happened this time around, we didn't get to very many of our usual places, which is totally okay. There is always something new to do in London.  PDaniel said that, in his not quite three years working here, he's visited over 350 different places, and he's not finished yet.

Tomorrow we're taking an afternoon bus to Oxford, where we'll meet a professor friend who is putting us up for the night at the university.  It's a safe bet we won't have wifi in our room; unless we do, I won't be blogging.

Thanks for following along with us on this trip. I'll see you all on the road next weekend.

P.S.  This marshmallow-topped brownie is, apparently, a food thing in London:

I'll stick with Ribena, thanks.