Walkin' in Sunshine

Faithful readers may be wondering how you do laundry on an extended trip like this when you stay at a fancy hotel – since fancy hotels, unlike Best Westerns, don’t have washers and dryers available. We figured we’d use the laundry service they provide, but then it turned out that they wanted £3.50 for each piece of underwear, which just wasn’t feasible. Fortunately google maps found a launderette with drop off service not very far away.

I was moving a little slowly, and Dave was starting to pace the room like a caged lion, so we decided to split up for the morning – I’d deal with the laundry, and he’d go to the London Museum. I may have gotten the better end of the deal, because I had lots of fun taking a cab to drop off our suitcase full of dirty laundry and taking the bus back, while he ran into some service issues on the Central line and ended up having to do a lot of walking and a little getting lost. He did enjoy the museum, though, and came out with Useful Historical Knowledge.

We have 100 text messages between us for the month, so we used 5 or 6 to arrange a meeting at the Holburn tube station by the British Museum. When we got there I did a little yelp searching and found a 4 star Indian restaurant called Punjab. The food was really yummy. We split an entrée, which they didn’t care for, but between Dave’s giant Indian beer, my mango lassi, the order of naan and the rice we were stuffed full by the end of the meal. The spicing on the lamb was Punjabi and just on the ok side of too hot for me, and it was really delicious.

Who knew there were ROUS in antiquity?

Thus fortified we headed to the British museum, where we saw many Assyrian artifacts. We especially enjoyed looking at the hieroglyphics and various slabs of things. I reached my limit before Dave did, but not by much. What really staggers my mind is just how much weight was moved, and that the British were able to get it all out and home. Also here’s what I thought was weird. Many of the statues don’t have heads. (Short digression: when we were at St Paul’s yesterday, there was a plaque on the wall entitled “Heads of Staff at St Paul’s Cathedral” with a list of names and dates. I completely misinterpreted it to mean that their literal heads were buried there. Back to the British Museum and the headless stautues) Then when you read the signs, it says that the heads are in such-and-such museum. Wouldn’t it make sense to do some trading, so that each museum had a complete figure, rather than bits? I’m clearly lacking in culture.

I convinced Dave we should walk from there to the National Gallery, and we headed off. There was a little confusion about which direction, but we got it worked out and had a nice walk through SoHo park (outdoor ping pong tables) to the gallery. We don’t know anything about art, but we had a good time walking around looking at paintings, mostly from the 17^th century on up.I have to admit that although I enjoyed it while it was going on, it’s something of a blur in my head now. Except that they had a Van Gogh called A wheatfield, with cypresses, that I really liked. We realize what we should have done was to front load the visit with museums and such, and save the bus tour for this afternoon when we were walked-and-museumed-out. We’ll just have to come back soon and try out the new way.

The National Gallery is at one end of Trafalgar Square, and there’s a tube stop at the other, so we were ready to head home. But I want to mention a couple of things. 1. Last time I was in Trafalgar Square, the big thing was to feed the birds. I was approached by a birdseed seller and when I refused to buy any, he dumped a handful on my head, which caused a major bird attack. I feel I have had my revenge, though, because it’s now illegal to feed the birds. 2. The square was full of mildly inebriated Turkish football supporters. 3. The Nelson column is surrounded by a railing that seems to indicate that you shouldn’t sit at the base of the column or on the lions. It has no effect whatsoever.

One of Dave’s friends from Intel who lives in London had recommended a spot for dinner, but they didn’t have any space, and it was only 5-ish. We decided to take the tube back to the hotel, but there were some very confusing bits where embankment, the station where we’d transfer, was showing up on some maps and not others, so we ended up going the long way around and getting off at Pimlico, then walking to the launderette and taking the bus home with our suitcase, which was pretty painless. I’d messed up and left the do not disturb sign on our door all day, so our room hadn’t been made up (arg!). Fortunately housekeeping came by and asked if we wanted some, so we went down to the bar for a drink, and then decided to make dinner reservations here at the hotel at 8.

We got our laundry unpacked and got spiffed up to go to the restaurant – we had been very underdressed in the bar, which was full of men in black suits and women in long black dresses (Not that it really mattered). The restaurant is called The Library, and is a small quiet space with glass enclosed bookcases with old-timey books on the shelves – what I’ve always imagined the Old Boys’ club to look like. The food was good, and we had more of the South African Pinot Noir that we liked so much at bbar. It was a quiet, restful evening – exactly what we needed. And the crowning glory was that afterwards we just went upstairs to our room.

Big day tomorrow – stay tuned!