Honeymoon: Day Two in London

I woke up ridiculously early on Tuesday, April 11, 2006, at maybe 5 or 6 in the morning, because of my nap the day before, or going to bed earlier, or jetlag, or maybe even simply excitement. While Seppo slept, I read up on things we could do that day.

In a routine we’d find ourselves in the rest of the week, we got out of the hotel around 10:30 and grabbed breakfast at Prêt before taking the Tube to Picadilly Circus to drop by the British Visitor Center to get some info & recommendations.

It was like… Time Square, minus the specific buildings. :p Oh, I just realized that I was wrong in the last entry when I said things were different on Day Two insofar as feeling like we were in another country. I think we didn’t really feel that way until the third day. We walked from Picadilly Circus to Leicester Square to see if we could get half-price tickets to anything at the tkts booth. On the way, we saw Planet Hollywood, TGIFs, and ads for numerous musicals (Chicago, The Producers, Footloose), performances (The Blue Man Group, Stomp), and movies (V for Vendetta). WTF?! Where the hell were we, the US? We left US to go to another country and experience the culture there, dammit! Hehehe. It was pretty funny.

We went to the National Gallery, which I absolutely loved.

On reflection, from the perspective of me on Day Six of the Paris leg of the trip, the National Gallery (and indeed, all the other museums we went to in London) was spectacularly well-labelled and contextualized. With virtually no knowledge of art history, the clear labelling and grouping allowed me to make certain connections and feel appreciation for why a certain piece of art or a certain artist may have been seen as bold/quintessential/experimental/traditional/etc. at the time.

We stayed there for a few hours and left for a late pub lunch at what was surely a tourist trap called Clarence’s.

But it was cheap, tasty, filling, somewhat traditionally British, and friendly, so we had a good meal of meat pies.

I think we walked over to the London Eye next, crossing what I had mistakenly misidentified at the time as the Millenium Bridge, which is pretty dumb considering that they look pretty significantly different and that a cursory look at the map would have told me I was in the wrong place. *embarrassed*

The line was short because it was raining. We waited maybe 5-10 minutes total. The view was pretty good, even with the rain, not that you can tell from this pic:

We walked around to the outside of the Westminster Abbey around 5pm then headed back to the hotel for what was supposed to be a brief rest, but turned out to be a 2.5 hour nap. 😀

Around 9pm, we headed out and went to Wagamama for dinner.

It was pretty good, but not so great that I’d tell someone that they NEEDED to go or their visit will suck. 😉 But definitely good enough (and affordable enough) that I don’t regret going in the least. The service was nice and it wasn’t too busy.

We stopped by Tesco (a supermarket chain) to buy some biscuits and pastries and soup for a quick breakfast the following day.

We were exhausted from all the unaccustomed walking, so we went to sleep fairly early again. At some point, I’d like to map the areas we walked before I forget, because it was ridiculous.

I ::heart:: The National Gallery.