I’ve been back in NY for a week. Cait and Brieanna’s visit this past weekend was the highlight. Mostly I’ve been stumbling around, jet-lagged, ears popping, scheming about how to get back to the UK as soon as possible.
Bookending the trip with two extra days in NYC was nice, though.
London, first postscript.
How could I forget HIGH TEA at the Hurlingham Club with Victoria, who I have not seen since I was a wee thing of fourteen? The English really know how to do tea and tea-related snacks, oh my goodness.
We walked around the club’s grounds afterwards and saw some duck rape and got very flustered and didn’t know what to do. Yet another occasion of English woodland creatures who just have no scruples whatsoever about public indecency.
London, final round.
The tallest Ferris wheel in the western hemisphere is the London Eye, on the south bank of the Thames river. It takes half an hour to make a full rotation, and it moves slowly enough for people to get on and off without needing to stop. You get on this little glass-enclosed pod, about the size of a very large elevator, and it lifts you way up in the air and gives you a really stellar view of the city before gently lowering you back down.
The first pictures that Ben and I ever took of each other was during this ride into the sky.
London, round fifteen.
Went up north for a booze & bonfire shindig at Ben’s friend’s house, which happened to be a beautiful little quasi-rural retreat, where we drank ourselves silly and met a whole medley of English (and two Scottish!) fellows who mostly just called me “Hey, American girl!” and told me stories which I have largely forgotten because of all the cider, you know how it goes.
My coat still smells of the bonfire. I never want to wash it.
London, round fourteen.
Road sign puns were everywhere, but I saw this one most often. I giggled every time.
London, round thirteen.
Little things. Regular and “MANSIZE” tissues, sinks with two faucets, drug lingo that goes right over my head, and a dirty magazine with my name on it.
London, round twelve.
Stair porn.
London, round eleven.
Directing the navigationally challenged, one helpful sign at a time.
London, round ten.
Favorite statues. Peter Pan, some guy watering himself at the Tate Modern, and Paddington Bear.
London, round nine.
Scenery: you’re doing it right.
London, round eight.
Forgot to mention that before leaving NY I had an excellent crepe-and-the-High-Line date with Kat.
London, round seven.
Two more museums: the Churchill War Rooms, in which I was smashed on cider at the time, and the Natural History Museum, in which I came face to face with, among other things, the skull of a crocodile whose mouth was big enough to fit my whole body inside without effort. Alarming.
London, round six.
Museums and markets. The Tate Modern, the Clink, the Golden Hind, Covent Garden, Borough Market, Jubilee Market, and the brain exhibit at the Wellcombe Collection. Not pictured: Camden Town, Oxford Circus, some cathedrals whose names I forgot, the Tate Britain, Trafalgar Square, Somerset House, and probably something else.
Having so much fun that you forget to take pictures is great in the moment but then you kick yourself for it later.
London, round five.
They’re quite fond of building adorable cottages inside public parks and then putting fences around them with a sign saying you can’t go in. Bastards.
London, round four.
The native cuisine is really something, y’all. Meringues as big as [American] footballs, cock soup, Marmite (which tastes like fermented swamp ass), and Utterly Butterly, a name which is best spoken in a genuine English accent because the way they deliver those t’s is really a thing of beauty.
