Juliacentralicious

The Country Mouse visits the Town Mouse

Don't laugh, but Edinburgh has softened me. Imagine: a city where you can walk (pretty much) anywhere, not only because the distance is short enough, but also because it's safe enough! I have never felt so small-town as when I went to visit Erin in London last weekend.
The weekend started out well-- I went to ceilidh class on Thursday night, then ran straight to the bus station for the eight-hour ride (unfortunately, they had turned off our personal lights, so I had to finish Kidnapped by ambient light, which was a challenge). I arrived in London around 7am on Friday-- surprisingly refreshed and ready for the day, though the coffee helped ("white coffee" here-- when just specifying "with milk" isn't cool enough). I hung out at the station, and Erin (the angel that she is) made her way over to collect me at that ungodly hour. We got me a weekend Tube pass and I was all set to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people.
I dropped my things off at her place, and we set off adventuring. We started in Hyde Park, strolling around-- the leaves were all yellow, the grass was still green, and the pigeons were too jaded to fly away when I ran at them. We had a run-in with some magical squirrels of magic, who, after years of being fed, climbed up our legs and ate M&Ms out of our hands. We then walked up and down the same street trying to find Herrods before finally giving up and taking the bus. Herrods is the same breed as Jenners-- super expensive and high-class in every way. There is an entire section of Christmas things, including a pet store-- kittens and bunnies (sadly no puppies) within the store! Rooms of chocolates and seafood and butchers better than any grocery store could hope to be (we had some of their salmon sandwiches and we in heaven). Then we decided to catch Casino Royale at one of the massive cinemas, since, hey, we're in Britain after all. Without giving an entire review, the movie was incredible, and Daniel Craig was perhaps the best Bond ever. We spent the entire Tube ride home waxing poetic about our love for him. Then it was a dinner in, chilling with some TV and girl time to round out the day.
Saturday I got up early to attempt to buy some discounted tickets for a West End show. I navigated the Tube by myself, even got to be third in line for the choice kiosk, before being informed, five minutes before they opened (after a 45 minute wait with a book and the cold wind) that they had no tickets for my first choice show for that night. On to another kiosk, with a significantly longer line, but I finally obtained tickets for Avenue Q that night. I returned triumphant. Then Erin took me around to the markets: Camden, Portobello (and yes, we sang the song from Bedknobs and Broomsticks there). Street musicians with cute dogs and antique shops abounded, the sort of place where I would like to go back early in the morning and spent hours wandering around. We stopped by Erin's favorite tea shop, and then headed home for some food before I had my show.
If you haven't heard of Avenue Q, it's a musical with puppets-- the cute twist is that it's a Sesame Street aesthetic, but addressing adult issues, like sex and purpose in life. So yes, it was funny, but it actually managed to pull off some surprisingly poignant scenes, considering that it was a puppet singing about wasting time on love. I thought it was just fantastic, despite the horrible balcony seats.
On Sunday, I got up early again, and made a pilgrimage to Westminster, the geek in me wanting to read Wordsworth's poem in the morning. I failed when I arrived to discover that I had lost my copy of the poem. But I wandered the area still, the bridge, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey. It was rather nice in the morning, peaceful despite the already-noisy traffic. I arrived back in time for us to leave to catch the Changing of the Guard. (Thank god for Erin's college student knowledge of the city! She always knew where to stand for the best view, best picture) So we saw that, Buckingham, took the traditional picture with a guard.
On the way to the Tower, we stopped by a pub for lunch-- bangers and mash with Guinness-- though I got carded (do I look seventeen??), and then she dropped me off for my tourist fun. The guided tours, given by the Beefeaters, are highly amusing, and then there's the halls of weapons, architecture, the Bloody Tower, and Crown Jewels to ogle at. Then it was home again, some more downtime.
Monday it was up (slightly) early to go to the Tate Modern. Great galleries of modern stuff-- some great Dalis-- and exhibits on surrealism and dream, though not particularly organised well. The highlight, however, was the installation. It was SLIDES. As in, the playground ones. There was one from each level-- and there are five levels to that museum! (Though we only rode the ones from the third and fifth.) It was a blast, you got canvas to slide down on, and a protective helmet on the fifth-level one, though they flew off halfway down. It was the most fun I've had in a museum-- god bless art!
Then we quickly crossed off the other things on my list: Paddington station (only because we learned a Scottish country dance tangentially related to the bear, and I felt I had to pop in), Trafalgar Square (it's hard to climb those lions when it's wet and rainy!), and of course ogling all the Christmas lights. Then it was home again, and after some down time, I departed, caught my bus and ended up home in time for a shower before my class.
Now I've got Shauna and Emily here, but that's going to be another matter entirely.

posted by Julia @ 7:22 AM