London

We flew to London with EasyJet - a welcome change from RyanAir, which is terrible. The flight was relatively unexcpetional... except Kate was struck by the Pharaoh's Revenge about halfway through, something which carried over into the night and the following day, keeping her basically bedbound after meeting our host, Theo, an Aussie living in Elephant and Castle in London who was between roommates and, as such, threw the spare bedroom over to us. We got in a bit late and really only had time to say goodnight before bed and work for Theo the next day, which worked out alright as Kate couldn't really leave anyway and I had some research to do on Gumtree, an online classifieds website that we were using to locate a new used computer, which we did eventually find and buy for a bargain price of only £350, or about $520 for a Macbook. Nice... We also used Gumtree to then sell our beloved if broken iBook for a cool £90, making back the price difference between what we would have spent on another iBook and what we did spend.

Now, as we did so much stuff in London, this blog is going to follow a different outline than they usually do and we'll start with a paragraph on our most munificent HOST who ended up letting us stay for about two weeks, then again for three days at the end of our time in the UK. Definitely the host with the most as far as we're concerned, Theo worked long hours during the week so we didn't see him too much during the day, but we'd meet up with him at night for some drinks with his work pals (or Pippa, a friend from Argentina, but we'll get to that later) or just stay in and make some dinner and watch a movie or an episode of Generation Kill, a really intense and well-made show about the Iraq war. Theo also invited us to a good ol' house party one night, which was a lot of fun and gave us all the opportunity to wear some goofy hats and discuss Danish guys.

We also went to quite a few MARKETS, including the famous Saturday Portobello Road market for a stroll past antiques, cheap clothes, boutique eateries, and more. Kate picked up a few gifts and we munched some street food, but the antique maps we were looking at were a bit out of our price range unfortunately and the cold kept us from lingering too long as we just so happened to be in town following the coldest week in London with the most snow they've had in 18 years.

Nevertheless, we braved a few other markets, like Spitalfields, Brick Lane, nearby Walworth Road, and, most interestingly, the Borough Market. I had visited it way back in 2001, but it was closed when I came with Kate on our 05 trip as we showed up on a Sunday. Unfortunately, we made the same mistake again. But we did finally make it the following Friday and it was well worth it. The place overflows with stalls of everything and anything delicious. You've got your standard organic veg, of course, but also unpasteurized blue cheese, fresh game hanging at the butchers, kangaroo burgers (which I indulged in), and more. We picked up some wild boar sausages to go with our pasta dinner that night (delectable) and had such a good time that we decided to go back on Saturday, which just so happened to be Valentine's Day. It was miserable. You literally couldn't move and every food line was 30 people deep. Not fun.

London MUSEUMS are world-renowned for both their collections as well as the fact that they are largely free. And free warmth equals good so we checked out quite a few of those, beginning with the Science Museum, an epic, multi storied building the size of a city block dedicated to all things science. We only hit the first floor that day, checking out early forms of power generation, the history of space exploration and the debate over genetically engineered foods. The museum closed at 6PM and we didn't get to see too much of it, but we did eventually return a few weeks later for some more awesome knowledge. My favorite exhibit in the end was one of plastics - they have a ton of applications and will soon have a ton more. Some pretty interesting stuff, including biodegradable, compostable plastic.

Also on the list was the Natural History Museum, another free, geeky and oh so fun treat that we ended up visiting three times. Our first visit took us through the side entrance and up through a sculpture of the earth, through three floors of volcanos, simulated earthquakes and an impressive collection of rocks and gems. But by the time we figured out how to get to the life science section it was time to go so we went back the next day - a Monday - only to find the place overrun. Turns out it was the first day of a week long school holiday and thousands of parents who didn't know what to do with their sticky, snotty, screaming children mobbed the museum in desperation. We walked through what we could but were unwilling to wait an hour to shuffle through the dinosaurs and decided to come back a couple weeks later to see the rest of the place, which is really just an excuse to check out the beautiful building. And the scary dinosaurs.

The British Museum is probably the king of all museums ever. It's massive and informative and well done and one of the first. We'd been before but they'd made some changes this time around, like closing the famous Reading Room for renovations, which was particularly annoying as it was the main reason we went in the first place. We did go to a smaller library in the museum as well, but it really wasn't that great so we left and explored the collections, finding that they'd introduced a touching history thing where certain actual historical objects were displayed by docents who explained them and allowed them to be handled by anyone who wanted. There was also a really interesting little exhibit on Roman Britain as well as a room on the Enlightenment. Excellent stuff, of course.

Also counted in the museum section is the British Library which we decided to check out to see if we could get some work done. Turned out you needed to request a viewing of a specific item in their extensive collection and, as we'd done tons of research already, we chose to just wander the museum section, which has three parts: a temporary standing exhibit dedicated to Darwin's life and research, a rotating exhibit about rights and laws with a great history of UK and world politics as well as offered an interactive section which allowed you to vote on a variety of different issues which concern us today, and the permanent exhibition such treasures as the Magna Carta, Gutenberg Bible and other beautiful books, scrolls and documents. They also have recordings of poetry readings, music, a collection of Beatles paraphernalia and a computer program which allows you to examine books and documents on display in detail with explanations. But as we didn't have any pictures of it, we snuck in a random.

We also checked out a couple of CHURCHES, like St. Paul's Cathedral, which is massive and has some admission fees. But we, being sneaky, avoided these charges by going on a Sunday when you can enter the cathedral for free but cannot go to the crypts or tour the full thing. Still, we've seen enough churches that we really didn't care and we still got to check out the dome from within and the altar and all that stuff. It's a church.

We also went to the awesomely named All-Hallows-Barking-by-the-Tower church (yes, that is it's real name). This one is free all the time and is awesome. It's an old church, some parts of which date back to the Romans, but has been gutted by fire and rebuilt and added onto many times. There's a brass rubbings center located within, a crypt with a museum below, and some interesting woodwork in the main nave as well. Definitely worth a peek in our humble opinions, even if it is just another church.

Another pleasant interlude of culture was a night spent with an old friend from home I hadn't seen in several years, Kiera O'Brien. Kiera's had quite an intense few years since leaving high school, including university in Australia, getting married and divorced, learning Norwegian, and moving to London where she now works at a magazine. She took us on the famous THAMES WALK where we braved the cold to get some fabulous views over to the Tower Bridge (as well as getting caught up and eating some pizza along the walk). It's a pretty stroll through some revitalized neighborhoods, past the Tate Modern and the mayor's office and the only thing that would have made it better would be if it had been warmer.

But lest you think we only did cultural things in London, think again. We also checked out HARROD'S, the department store to end all department stores. Endless rooms, thousands of sections... If they don't have it, they can get it for you - at an fair markup, of course. But most of the stuff they've got there is too high end for us anyway, like the computer's designed by Bentley that look like chic handbags and cost about £10,000. A little out of our budget, but we could still look for free so we wandered through the vast space, checking out each differently designed room, like the Egypt room or the tiled/glass ceiling deli room...

And we also got some haircuts. Or at least Kate did. It had been about a year since her last chop (not counting my admirable if uneven attempt on Kea) so she sought out London's Vidal Sasoon Academy where, for £5 and 4 hours, Kate got a super-stylish haircut from a gifted student on her exam day. The haircut earned high marks from the teacher and another model even complained that her haircut wasn't as nice. So if you've got a few hours to spare in London (and/or LA or NY), check out the Academies and just tell them to make you beautiful as they know what they're doing.

There was more, of course, but this post is already enormous and we're not gonna get to everything anyway. But we will get to some daytrips, both to and from London. So stay tuned for those and enjoy this obligatory Big Ben photo...