Trip to London, part the third (final bit)

[thebratqueen]

Sunday morning we went to the Tate. This was yet another instance of signs being snarky at us. What happened was we got out of the proper Tube stop, saw signs pointing the way to the Tate museum, and followed them.

Now let me ask you this: if you're on one side of the street and you see a sign on the other side of the street and it is a *perfectly straight street* would you not assume that it was okay to stay on your side of the street so long as you were going in the direction the sign was pointing in?

Well clearly you'd be wrong. And the sign would mock you mercilessly. Oh it would do it quietly, but it would do it. Oh yes, yes it would.

Vicious signs aside, we made it to the Tate proper and Cin was able to go in and molest all the sheep related paintings that she wanted, though I was not able to pee on or in any of the artwork, which left me feeling a lack of closure on that need. I couldn't find the outdoor toilet and I didn't have time enough to ask anyone about it, though I suspected in the end the *real* art exhibit was a performance piece and it involved people manning the information desks at both Tates sending hapless tourists back and forth between the two of them in the quest for artwork that most people would rather not talk about. I've got no proof for this theory though.

Lunch was a proper roast, since Cin and I had both decided that on this trip we would do some of the typical Britishy stuff that we normally don't get around to doing. We ate at a pub called the Duke of York, if memory serves me right, which was the same pub we ate at two nights previously. It wasn't far from our hotel and the food was very good. Not to be outdone on the "food establishments named after royalty" scale, somebody had put a Burger King right across the street but for some odd reason Cin and I never went into it.

After lunch we booked over to the British Museum and plowed through that in about two hours. Lest you think this is another Portobello Road incident, I hasten to add that Cin and I have been in the BM before so really this was just revisiting the things we really cared about and not seeing it all for the first time.

I was happy, though, because I was able to find the mosaic that's got the first known picture of Christ on it. I couldn't find it on my last trip so it was neat to see it again. Also the Roman dog collar. Which I hasten to add is *not* on the picture of Christ.

And speaking of things that don't belong together, who the heck allowed a Starbucks to be placed right across from the BM? How was that even legal? Sheesh!

Anyway, BM taken care of and not enough time to hit the library, Cin and I wimped out for the hotel and spent the evening like a couple of old ladies by getting sandwiches and snacks and watching TV.

The snacks were the most marvelous part because I was reintroduced to how *woefully* inadequate the American crisp/chip industry is. How can I say such a thing? Three words, my friend: Chicken flavored crisps.

This blew my mind. I knew that British crisps had flavors that US chips did not, but *chicken*? I couldn't handle it. I was having flashbacks to that Fudge Oreo cookie commercial where the woman holds up the Oreo and says "In *fudge*?" in the same tone of voice one would reserve for marveling at the fact that "The tumor's *gone*?" as though somehow taking an Oreo and dropping it into a vat of chocolate was a scientific wonder that clearly overshadows the invention of computers *and* the creation of on demand cable television as the sliced bread miracle of our time. However that was a fudge covered Oreo and this, I remind you, was a chicken flavored crisp.

And it actually tasted like chicken!

Blew my mind. Still blows my mind. I've got two little bags of it that I smuggled back with me to the States. Part of me wants to eat them, part of me wants to cradle them to my bosom so I can comfort myself until such time as I can buy more.

Crisps. That taste like chicken. *Amazing*.

*Cough*. Anyway. We also watched television which proved to be great fun for us Americans given that you guys get way more documentaries than we do. We watched one on Michelangelo which not too subtly put forth the theory that ol' Mike wasn't gay, he was just *chaste* while at the same time using an actor whose mannerisms were so swishy that Cin rather accurately pointed out that if we had a copy of the show we could easily cut a redux vid of "My West Hollywood Lifestyle, Whatever" using Mike as the lead character. We also watched a comedy show whose name I can't remember, but which amused us greatly by doing parodies of Bush which weren't so much parodies as fairly accurate renditions of things he's done. (To be fair they did this to British stuff as well, but the UK perspective on Bush was much more interesting to me.)

***

Monday morning we went to Westminster Abbey, which neither Cin nor I had seen for a while since the last time Cin was there they'd roped everything off to keep the billions of tourists who came there in the aftermath of Diana's funeral from hurting the monuments, and the last time I had been there it had been closed off for some function or another which meant that I couldn't go inside the Abbey itself but on the other hand I was able to stand out front with my dad and watch the Queen and the Prime Minister enter.

Still, nice as that British Politics TRL moment was I would much rather go inside, so it was a happy change of pace for me and Cin to go in and discover that we were pretty much allowed to wander around as needed. It was especially enjoyable for me since I know much more about history than I did the last time I'd been in the Abbey (Lord knows how long ago that was. College, possibly.) so now instead of simply "Oo - king!" I could have almost fangirly moments of oohing and aahing over people I actually knew something about, which is how I ended up nearly molesting Henry Purcell's grave near the end. Though in my defense I was a fan of Henry's long before he went all commercial and did Pirates of the Caribbean. (Or am I thinking of someone else?)

Seriously though it was nice paying respect to people that I knew about and/or admired. And I managed to restrain myself and not actually grope the clothes of King Charles II so I think some credit needs to be given to me accordingly.

After the Abbey we did the London Eye, which means we can successfully make people stop asking us if we've ever done that. We lucked out with a mixed day weather-wise, so there wasn't much of a line to get tickets or to get on the Eye itself. The view was nice and it was interesting seeing everything, but I have to say that about halfway through you do get bored and start wondering what you're going to do next. It's okay enough but definitely not something that would have been worth waiting an hour or more on line for, which is what I would have had to do if I'd gone on the Eye the last time I'd been in the city.

The Museum of London was our next stop. Cin and I both adore this one because it gets into the little day to day things people used which Cin and I would so buy out of the gift shop if only they sold them.

We unfortunately spent too much time in the prehistoric parts, especially considering our real interest lay in the Medieval stuff for Cin and also in the Great Fire and Restoration for me (see above re: Charlie II) but in our defense we were thwarted by an exhibit that was intended for children. I won't get into too much detail. Suffice it to say we were trying to find out when the Thames evolved into those perfect right angles that you see on the Tube maps and, well, we didn't realize that the exhibit needed to reset itself first. I'll say no more.

We did watch the teeny tiny recreation of the Great Fire though, so that was a moment of nostalgia for me. Other than that it was mostly us drooling over the exhibits, then bitching about how the gift shop either didn't have what we wanted (recreations of all the items in the displays) or how we couldn't afford what it did have (all the books on cooking - or, I believe in Cin's case, all the books period). In the end I got a book about the evolution of cooking over the past 10,000 years, complete with recipes, and then we ran out of there posthaste in order to clean up and get changed for Fifteen.

***

Fifteen, which is the restaurant Jamie Oliver (aka the Naked Chef) created as part of a charity idea that he had to teach underprivileged kids the valuable skills of cooking, was a-freaking-mazing. Seriously. Worth every penny, even though with the exchange rate it worked out to about me leaving the mortgage to my apartment. I'd still do it again.

Prior to getting there, though, Cin and I had joked that with the curse of St Martins upon us it was entirely too likely that we would show up only to arrive there on the night that Jools sued Jamie for divorce and Jamie himself was locked away in the kitchen throwing glassware and refusing to let anyone make any food. Which, granted, might possibly up our chances for sex with him but would significantly decrease our chances for having something to eat.

When we got there, though, our fears about that were immediately reassured when they sat us down and offered us a drinks menu. I got a Coke and Cin got some mango drink the waiter recommended, only to be told five minutes later that the blender wasn't working so could she possibly have some other drink instead?

Whoops.

We sat and sipped drinks for a while as they were still setting up. They then led us to the restaurant downstairs where we were told they were doing a tasting menu, which Cin and I figured translated into "this is what the kids actually know what to make this month" or something like unto it, but honestly we didn't mind since it answered the question of how we could possibly try everything.

First up was tuna marinated in soy and various other things. Next was beef carpaggio with a beet salad. Both were amazingly good (I'm going to use that word a lot), though the raw nature of both items did lead Cin to lean over the table and whisper "Maybe the oven's broken too".

I might possibly screw up the order of this but we also had gnocchi with a leek based sauce, fish of a type I can't remember but served on top of insanely well-flavored lentils, a honey and yoghurt sorbet for a palate cleanser, oxtail ravioli, slow-cooked lamb on top of a broad bean and artichoke stew, then a plate of desserts "presented in the most pretentious and cheffy way possible" which consisted of brownie vanilla ice cream, a slice of Jamie's famous chocolate tart, and a vanilla and basil pana cotta which had Cin ready to propose marriage to the waiter just for bringing it over. Oh - and there was foccacia as well.

The whole thing was seriously good. From a food standpoint you could really see where Jamie (who was not there but who, AFAIK, comes up with the recipes) gets his reputation from. The food was amazingly well put together. Everything had layers to it. There wasn't a single bite where you went "Oh, that's that then". Instead it was a bite and you get one set of flavors, then a second later you get a whole new sensation, and so on.

It was done very well too. Like none of the dishes felt *overdone* or like they'd been too fussed with. From the way I'm describing it I might be making it sound like the food was too fussy. Far from it. Instead it was just right. I guess one way to describe it would be to think of an interior decorator. First they get the main stuff for a room - couches, chairs, and the like - then they add in accessories to round out the empty spaces. The food at Fifteen was like this. You had the main thing, like lamb, then the rest of it which supported the main thing and filled in the empty spaces. But it wasn't cluttered or too much.

The service was amazing as well. You never lacked for somebody pouring you more water or giving you new silverware or anything else. Also you could see them working under the principle that I'd glimpsed on Jamie's show about the restaurant, where apparently he does *not* like the idea of food sitting around waiting to be served. If the chef serves it up it is *done* and you give it to the customer *now*. This translated to multiple people bringing us our dishes and explaining what they were, which at first made us wonder if there was simply a waiter for each dish, but as we watched the other tables we could see that it was just a matter of whoever was free brought the dish out, regardless of whether that was their table or not.

We had a table that wasn't far from the kitchen, which was funny for me because I kept looking over and then feeling bad about it because I didn't want the kids in there to think that I was staring at them because they'd been on TV (not that I recognized any of them, but I've been told they've done more versions of the show that haven't aired in the US yet). Really what I wanted to do was watch the *cooking*, but unfortunately all I could see was their heads. If you ask me they need to put a mirror on the ceiling, just so I can watch them work. Because, after all, it's all about me.

***

After Fifteen we then had time enough to hop over to Virgin, so I could pick up a copy of Angel season 4 on DVD. To say that the curse of St. Martins hit us again would be a vast understatement, the likes of which is only highlighted by me pointing out 1) That Cin and I have been to this Virgin many times 2) We'd passed by it just the other day, in fact 3) It's on the same block as the Tube stop and 4) It's actually *connected* to the Tube station as well. Nevertheless, we somehow managed to get mixed up and nearly miss it. This, by the way, after we had consulted a map in the station and wondered why it listed the Tower Records but not the Virgin Megastore. Upon later finding out that one could enter the Virgin Megastore without even having to leave the Tube Station per se, we then decided the reason why it wasn't listed on the map was because if you were too stupid to figure out how to get into it via the huge "Virgin" sign that was inside the station, they wisely didn't want you shopping at their store.

Nevertheless, in we went and I procured my Angel DVDs. This then started the trend of helpful Brits, including the sales clerk (who I admit does get major props from me for doing this instead of not caring and simply ringing up the sale), doing a thoughtful head tilt and, in the same tone of voice one would use to gently inform you that Nibbles, your pet gerbil, has just died, trying to somehow find a way to, as kindly as possible, break it to me that, not that this is my *fault*, of course, but, well, the thing of it is that, and *don't* take this the wrong way, but it's a *British* DVD and if I've got an *American* DVD player, then, well, the thing of it is that, well -

Which eventually, after about the thousandth rendition of "Sorry to break it to you about Nibbles" that I'd just save a lot of time for everybody if I either skipped the topic, or instead phrased it as "I got Angel season 4 on DVD andyesIhaveamultiregionDVDplayer." which was just the kind of breathless delivery needed to get the information out there before the head tilt could even begin.

Of course I still need to hook *up* said DVD player and make sure that it works, but don't bother me with the small details.

***

Tuesday brought us to Hampton Court, which is where I want to live.

More accurately this is where Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and all sorts of other nifty people lived, but in truth that was a small detail compared to gorgeous palace with working Tudor kitchen. My conversations with many of the staff went like this:

Ticket lady: Can I help you?
Me: Yes, I'd like to live here.
Ticket lady: Erm… what?
Me: Barring that I'd like one ticket.
Ticket lady: Okay, that I can do.

Man at gate: Can I help you?
Me: Yes, I'd like to live here.
Man at gate: Erm… you can stay until 4:30.
Me: I guess that's okay for a start.

And so on and so forth. Personally I don't see why I *can't* live there. I'm sure there are many things I could do there which would be helpful, plus I have those large breasts which are apparently in demand in the UK. Sadly we were thrown out at 4:30 so I cannot claim it as my new home, but I remain hopeful. One day I shall live there! Or possibly I'll just steal the name and use it for my apartment. We'll see.

***

That evening we did Sir John Sloane's museum, which all of our guidebooks had sworn was an orgasm and a half to go through, plus it had the advantage of being open late on the very night we needed some late-open thing to be available to us. Unfortunately none of the guidebooks mentioned the late night queue, and the house itself was certainly atmospheric in the dark but without some kind of guide to explain everything all we could do was look without really understanding. At some point I'll have to go back when it's not as crowded and possibly someone is giving a tour.

***

Wednesday morning was the Imperial War Museum, which I'd often heard was worth the visit but never bothered to go to it until one of the other people staying at our hotel said they'd been and it was absolutely wonderful. I then checked it out in our guidebooks and pounced on Cindy, crying out "They've got spy stuff!" and Cin very kindly let me drag her off to it.

For the most part the Museum covers WWI and WWII. There's a bit about wars after that but if you're looking for, say, the War of the Roses this might not be the place for you. That being said, the museum lived up to its hype and managed to keep our interest in spite of the hoards of school children actively trying to convince me and Cindy that we should really get our tubes tied.

We didn't have time enough for all of it so we stuck to the recreation of the Blitz and the recreation of the trenches, then went through the display on the 1940s house and all the stuff about the war at home. I then dragged Cindy off to the part about spy stuff and geeked out over the Enigma machine, bitched about there being none of Turing's bombes, and then regaled Cindy with the intricacies of the cracking of the Zimmerman telegraph which, for some odd reason, failed to make her want to rip my clothes off and have sex with me right then and there. I've no idea why.

The gift shop lived up to our ongoing disappointment in shops not having what we wanted them to have. To be fair the kitchen shop at Hampton Court was all we could have wanted it to be, but the Imperial War Museum shop was more like the Museum of London shop in that it had lots of books and not much else that we'd want to buy. I despaired because I'd heard of a small book on cooking during Rationing that I wanted to get, but for some odd reason the IWM failed to have it. They had *some* books on Rationing but not the one I wanted, which was this tiny book that was part of a series which also covered things like Tudor cooking and Medieval cooking and so on. Sadly, it was not there. Possibly it could be found over at Churchill's rooms, since apparently they'd done a whole thing on ration cooking complete with cooking lessons which ended, naturally, just before Cin and I got to London, but we didn't have the time to nip over there and check.

***

That afternoon we did Tea. Proper Tea, at Fortnum and Mason, which I rather liked though Cin would have preferred a meal that cost approximately three thousand dollars American to consist of things that she could not easily make for herself back home. Still, there was a piano player. Plus the fun of people watching. We then went downstairs to browse the shelves and wept bitter, bitter tears that we didn't have stores like this back home.

It was around then I decided that I needed to get a sugar daddy.

***

The V&A was next, since it too was open late at just the time we needed it to be open late, which was Wednesday evening, for those of you playing the home game. We pounced upon it with great glee, then immediately felt gleeless when poor Cin discovered that yet again she was being denied the third floor, which is where the arms and armor and other Medieval things are located. However there were other sections open to us and off we went!

Going to the V&A at night is an interesting experience. It's not as crowded as it is at other times, and there are musicians playing so as you wander through you're serenaded by the echoing sounds of string quartets and the like. It's also about as dark as an unlit Tube station so you have to prepare yourself for a lot of squinting.

The V&A has undergone a lot of changes since the last time I was there (which, much like the Abbey, was also probably college) and I would say all of them are good. Particularly the interactive stuff, though the ability to play with a lot of things nearly got me into trouble when I found a washstand that I utterly adored and Cindy had to snatch my hand back before I started poking it to see how it worked. Personally I think they should have let me play with it. Or keep it. Or at least give me a reproduction of it in the gift shop, even if it's in miniature. Nobody listens to me, I'm telling ya.

We then limped back to the hotel to get ready for our jaunt up to Oxford.

***

Prior to Oxford we spent Thursday afternoon and evening with C, in her home town which shall remain nameless on the odd chance she doesn't fancy people knowing where she lives, but suffice it to say there are sheep there because if there weren't well, frankly C alone isn't a big enough lure for Cindy. There, I've said it and I think we're all happier for having that out in the open.

C picked us up at the station around lunchtime, then left us to our own devices in a village which to C was disgustingly the size of a postage stamp and about as appealing to the tourist trade, yet to Cin and me was filled with all kinds of nifty things to look at and explore. For instance, this was when I discovered that people could simply name their homes and make other people *use* those names when referring to their residences. Also there was a church. I now give to you the following conversation:

C: There's a church down that way. I haven't even bothered to look at it yet.
Cin: [explores church, comes back to C] That thing was made in the 12th century!
C: Yes, and?
Cin: Okay, you are *not* allowed to live here anymore! You go to America until you can appreciate this old stuff! Out! Shoo!

And so on and so forth. The church itself was made entirely of flint, which had Cin in raptures because it's not often you meet a church that, with the right amount of patience, can be turned into a razor-sharp weapon. It also had a cemetery where a famous person was buried, and said person shall remain nameless so as not to identify the village, but it actually doesn't matter since we couldn't find the grave due to the warning that anybody wandering off the paths by the graveyard was liable to find themselves getting up close and personal with the bodies, as the ground apparently liked to give way at random moments just for a lark.

Also C treated us to yummy Indian food. Though nobody there ogled my boobs.

***

After dinner with C we hopped the train again and met up with secretrebel in Oxford. SR was kind enough to offer us couch space for a couple of nights and also kind enough to play tour guide for Oxford itself, where she went to school. She was insanely nice as a host and eager to do her part, which lead to the following conversation:

SR: So tomorrow I was thinking of taking you to [college] and [other college] and [still another college] and [yet another college] and then maybe nipping around to [place] and [other place] and maybe seeing [thing] and [other thing].
Me: Okay, you realize that was all clicks and buzzes to me, right?
SR: You didn't have anything in mind that you wanted to see?
Me: Oh I want to see as much as you can show me. You just need to realize that my knowledge of Oxford is limited to "It exists" and "That's where they make Gileses".
SR: Ahh. Okay, Oxford is a medieval institution -
Me: Okay, that much I knew.
SR: And you know not to ask which one is the university?
Me: Yes.
SR: All right, there may be hope for you yet.

So SR and her friend killalla played tour guide and I mostly whimpered and drooled and wondered what it would have been like if I'd even tried applying to any of the colleges there or perhaps realistically remembering my grades and skipping the middle man by sleeping my way into an admission, since the feel of it all was wonderful plus they don't do classes the way US schools do classes and I *hated* US schools, so that's definitely one to ponder. In more lighthearted news I got to see Harry Potter film locations and the pub where Tolkein did his brainstorming. Then it rained on us and I got Martian Death Flu, though I still say it might have been the plague.

We then nipped back to SR's place where I also got to meet metame and triskellian and others whose LJ names I don't know offhand but who were fun to hang out with and sang along to the Buffy musical, which is always a sign of good peeps.

***

Saturday we headed back into London so we could try the V&A again and yes! Cindy's years-long standing streak of bad luck with the 3rd floor was broken and verily she *did* see the jewelry and the arms & armor and lo' it was good. We then headed over to Harrods, which I believe Cin had never been to before, and were quickly frightened off of the first floor by the insane crowds, but perservered in our quest for the pet shop which we'd been told was the most insane thing *ever*. To which either Harrods has another pet shop that we couldn't find, or they were out of tiny elephants that day because all we saw was overpriced cat toys and a couple of guinea pigs. On the plus side though I did find a book that I wanted in the bookstore (not the one on rationing)

***

And then Sunday we went home. All in all I would say it was a most marvelous trip. I'm sure I'm forgetting some details (such as the horror of wine gums, and the many, many bathrooms that looked as though they'd been built out of Blitz shelters) but I think I've covered all the relevant bits. Ask questions if you like and other than that I hope it proved to be entertaining for you. =)