Museums and Birds

Well, I've arrived in Bath. Just about half an hour ago, not including finding my hostel. I'm only online because I was checking my e-mail and was forced to purchase a £3 block of time, thus I have the time. The hostel here is not bad. Above a pub, which seems trendy. I can get in a side door and walk the several flights to my room.

London was fun. It may not have been had I 1) not stored my luggage, and 2) not run into a guy (Greg) in my hostel who gave himself the job of friend and bodyguard for the whole of my two days there. Also, it may not have been if there had not been a brother and sister living in our room who were very nice and fricking hilarious. My favorite conversation goes like this:

Her: OW (hitting head on bed)
Him: Shut up!
Her: Get out of my way!
Him: Shut up!

I laughed and laughed. Ah, siblings. How I miss being young. ;)

So anyway, I saw a lot of sites in London. British Museum (plus lunch on the steps there), Leicester Square, "As You Like It" at Wyndham's Theater, for the first day.

Next day, I set off for Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard by 11:30, and Greg, who was just getting up when I left, found me there (which is pretty amazing, since there are huge numbers of people there, making the changing of the guard the tiptoeing of the silly people trying to catch a glimpse of red guard outfit).

From there we walked through the park, fed ducks, walked through Trafalgar Square to the National Gallery, and climbed those steps. There at the top, a man had a bag of seed and was feeding many, many pigeons. We got handfuls and held them out, and the pigeons flew onto our hands and arms to eat it. It was really fun. Then we went into the National Gallery. Saw that, left, had Burger King, went to the National Portrait Gallery. I liked that, especially the Tudor area and, more, the portraits of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Really cool. Towards the end of this excursion, I got a call from Jackie, who goes to my school and is also staying in London after Cambridge. We arranged to meet up with her and did so, taking her with us to the Victoria and Albert Museum. That was fun, and they have a garden with a large, shallow fountain in it. We took off our shoes and went in with the little kids; again very enjoyable. From there we parted ways with Jackie to go back to the hostel to nap and eat. We arranged to meet Jackie at Piccadilly Circus at 9 to see it at night. Greg went to the store and was way late getting back; we didn't get to Piccadilly Circus until 9:15. Jackie was nowhere to be found; and attempts to locate her amounted to nothing. However, she wasn't sure she wanted to come, so hopefully she just decided not to. We were worried.

After waiting a bit, we pressed on and walked through Picadilly. New York, but much smaller scale, I'd say. Crazy. We went down and hung a left into Soho as well, where a gay pride festival had recently (within hours) ended. There was glass and garbage everywhere, streamers hung from light posts, and one street was still full of people, a few dressed as the opposite sex. Very interesting. We departed and walked back down the street, ending up at Leicester Square again, where we sat in the park and watched people go by until it closed (Greg talked to some French guys who said they were studying law here as well). Then we headed back to the hostel. Ran into the brother and sister combo again, and sat in the common room with them for awhile. Greg found out his plane left at 8:40 instead of 1:00, so I stayed up and played a game of chess with him, then said goodbye and went to bed.

When I awoke, he was gone and it was time to pack. So I did, and went down for some cereal and tea, and then left. Took the tube to Victoria, waited in line for train ticket, found out after finally getting to the booth that I needed to get my Bath Spa ticket from Picadilly, paid to get back on the tube and go to Picadilly, got my Bath ticket, missed my train by about 30 seconds (it was still sitting still as I walked up to it, but doors had closed), waited for the next (went to the store and got a water and a nice southern chicken wrap with sourcream sauce and salsa in it), got on, got to Bath, actually asked for directions since the St. Christopher's online ones suck, and found this place. So here I am. For the next two days.

Am going to nap and relax for a little bit, then head out. Thinking about a bus tour, where I can sit on top and see everything. Then probably to the Jane Austen insitute for the rest of the day, then to bed early.

More later, when I feel like spending £3 again just to get online.