The Space Elephant and Southbank
With jetlag a thing of the past and nothing but beautiful, sunny days ahead of us, mornings were relatively doable.
We started another day of museums, this time hitting the Dali Universe and the Tate Britain.
The Dali Universe had a surprisingly detailed and extensive collection, with many of his lesser works represented.
They had a number of his illustrations from famous books (Alice in Wonderland, The Divine Comedy, Romeo & Juliet, Don Quixote, the Bible) that were awesome.
I also particularly liked the couture clothing inspired by his drawings.
...
We had to mail some postcards back home, and the hunt for a convenient post office was proving elusive. So, being the industrious sort, I suggested stopping in at a hotel and asking at the desk where the nearest post office was.
We picked perhaps the most swank hotel on the south bank.
We walked in like we were supposed to be there, and very politely asked the concierge.
She immediately offered to include them in their outgoing mail. We smiled, paid for the stamps, and thanked her kindly.
No need to tell her we weren't guests... after all, she didn't ask. Right?
...
After lunch at The White Swan (Ploughman sandwich for me, lamb burger for Natalie) it was off to the Tate Britain.
It was meh. There were some pretty things, but it didn't have nearly the personality or thoughtfulness of collection that some of the other museums have.
...
Then an afternoon walk through St James's Park and some public knitting.
When we finally got around to heading down to The National to get tickets for that evenings show (we had scheduled Panic, by The Improbable Theater for that day) it turned out they were already sold out. So we bought some for the next night, and headed over to the TKTS booth.
There was nothing but crap playing. Our options were Spring Awakenings, Grease, or a nude ballet.
As hysterical as nude ballet sounds, we just weren't in the mood for dropping 25 pounds on it.
Instead we had a leisurely dinner of cottage pie and a delicious toffee waffle for dessert.
We strolled home, but the walk got way long. WAY LONG. Natalie, who is all 3 Day Marathon training had no problem, but poor Carin's feet couldn't really take it. We ended up walking from Tower Hill down across the tower bridge and all the way to the Southwark Bridge. That's like 10 miles. Ooof.
But once we got back to the hostel, it was quite and comfortable, and with a little knitting and kinder eggs under our belts, all was right with the world.
We started another day of museums, this time hitting the Dali Universe and the Tate Britain.
The Dali Universe had a surprisingly detailed and extensive collection, with many of his lesser works represented.
They had a number of his illustrations from famous books (Alice in Wonderland, The Divine Comedy, Romeo & Juliet, Don Quixote, the Bible) that were awesome.
I also particularly liked the couture clothing inspired by his drawings.
...
We had to mail some postcards back home, and the hunt for a convenient post office was proving elusive. So, being the industrious sort, I suggested stopping in at a hotel and asking at the desk where the nearest post office was.
We picked perhaps the most swank hotel on the south bank.
We walked in like we were supposed to be there, and very politely asked the concierge.
She immediately offered to include them in their outgoing mail. We smiled, paid for the stamps, and thanked her kindly.
No need to tell her we weren't guests... after all, she didn't ask. Right?
...
After lunch at The White Swan (Ploughman sandwich for me, lamb burger for Natalie) it was off to the Tate Britain.
It was meh. There were some pretty things, but it didn't have nearly the personality or thoughtfulness of collection that some of the other museums have.
...
Then an afternoon walk through St James's Park and some public knitting.
When we finally got around to heading down to The National to get tickets for that evenings show (we had scheduled Panic, by The Improbable Theater for that day) it turned out they were already sold out. So we bought some for the next night, and headed over to the TKTS booth.
There was nothing but crap playing. Our options were Spring Awakenings, Grease, or a nude ballet.
As hysterical as nude ballet sounds, we just weren't in the mood for dropping 25 pounds on it.
Instead we had a leisurely dinner of cottage pie and a delicious toffee waffle for dessert.
We strolled home, but the walk got way long. WAY LONG. Natalie, who is all 3 Day Marathon training had no problem, but poor Carin's feet couldn't really take it. We ended up walking from Tower Hill down across the tower bridge and all the way to the Southwark Bridge. That's like 10 miles. Ooof.
But once we got back to the hostel, it was quite and comfortable, and with a little knitting and kinder eggs under our belts, all was right with the world.