Tuesday, March 18, 2008

London Diary Day Five - The Blitz


With time running short on our visit and with just one day left of unscheduled touring, we had to hit our list of must-do sites hard. The morning covered St. Paul's Cathedral, the Globe Theater, and Tate Modern.

In the afternoon we headed over to the British Museum and Harrods. While it may seem sacrilegious to mention both in the same sentence, they are similar in many ways. Both are over-the-top unimaginably vast archetypes of their respective niches. The British Museum proudly displays the fruits of centuries of imperial exploration and conquest. Harrods, on the other hand, is the pinnacle of conspicuous consumption marketing run amuck. My wife chided me for gasping in horror at a purse that was 985 pounds (price not weight).

The evening took us to The 39 Steps, a very British comedy. It had to be British because it included one guy playing multiple female roles. They've loved that cross-dressing thing since at least Shakespeare.

Since it was Saint Patrick's Day, I celebrated with a double shot of Bumiller and then a pint of cider. I did hear the bartender jokingly warn one of the female customers that no snogging was allowed at the bar. Good advice for life as well.

4 comments:

Elizabeth said...

OK, dumb question, but what's the food like? I've heard it's kind of, um, different.

yellojkt said...

The food varies. It is definitely worth a full post by itself.

Jeff and Charli Lee said...

Second dumb question... what's snogging?

yellojkt said...

According to our tour guide it's "enthusiastic kissing". She said she sent a tour group out once to get person on the street answers and got some bizarre reactions. Basically, it's heavy tonsil hockey.