London - Day 4

In which the old and new are compared.

Oops – I totally slept in! Hey I’m on vacation right? Today was the day that Mike had to work, so I was on my own. I rode the Tube all by myself! I decided to trek over to the British Museum.

The double-decker bus experience is actually quite fun. You have to sit on the top level of course, and if possible, right in the front. It almost feels like a roller coaster as the bus swerves and careens around the corners (adding to the sensation is the whole driving on the left thing. It makes turning around corners exciting as it always feels like you’re heading into the wrong lane!)

On my way, wouldn’t you guess, but I found a board game store! It was a good store too. They had many games not out in Canada yet. They even had the English version of Agricola which is the hottest game to come out since that game about sliced cheese. It’s not in Canada yet – but I decided not to get it here as I had it on order in Canada already. I did get a different game, one called Monastery which had great review on BGG.



For lunch I stopped at the White Hart, which is the oldest licensed pub in England. It was first licensed in 1218! It was nice but I think I was expecting to be served by a wench or a Viking or something and got neither, so in the end it was just like any other pub.














From there I checked out the British Museum. H I got to see so much Greek and Egyptian sculptures, vases, coins, tools, weapons and sarcophaguses. I had taken a Greek Art class in University but that was so long ago that everything only seemed vaguely familiar. A highlight for me (being geeky as I am) was seeing some ancient board games, including the first ever known rule book!

One thing that really surprised me was just how many people there are in London. Whether it’s people jammed into the Tube or even how big the crowd gets as they wait to cross a normal downtown street in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.

For dinner I had a very tasty doner (we call them donairs). One thing I haven’t mentioned was the prices of everything. Pretty much everything has the same price as in Canada (maybe a bit cheaper) – but – it’s in pounds instead of dollars! That means everything is pretty much double!! Yeah, it’s pretty expensive.

Saw some cool street art. I've seen some of this guy's stuff online. Not a Banksy tho (yet).

Next I went from one extreme to another as I met up with Mike (again by using the Tube all by myself!) and we went to a rock concert. We saw a band called Mars Volta at a venue called the Roundhouse. The Roundhouse used to be an actual roundhouse (a giant station where trains can be turned around). It has since been converted into a concert space. It was definitely a cool place to see a show. Now I had never heard of Mars Volta before but they were a favourite of Mike’s. Unfortunately it just wasn’t my cup of team. It seemed like a lot of noise (yikes, that makes me seem like an old codger or something) with no discernable lyrics, rhythm or melody. Still it was an interesting adventure and provided some stark contrast to the first part of my day in the museum!

Here’s another Mike the Playa story for you. After seeing two girls taking pictures of themselves, Mike offered to take a pic of both of them with their camera. Nice. Later that evening, during the show, and without having any more contact with these ladies, Mike enters into his cell phone as a new name entry, “Cutie with great taste” and hands the phone to one of the girls, implying that she should enter her digits. It seemed to work (he hadn’t called her yet to verify it was her actual # tho). Pretty smooth Mike.