There, And Back Again
The British Museum is everything it's supposed to be (except air-conditioned), including far too big to see adequately in a couple of hours. I did see the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles (which are absolutely amazing) and the Sutton Hoo helmet and some other fine things.
Nearby was St.-George's-Bloomsbury, a fine Hawksmoor church, which made me weep for the missed chance to see the other five or so.
Nearby also were a dozen or so bookstores, all of them tempting, none of which I went into, except for the Atlantis Bookshop, as patronized by Aleister Crowley.
Lunch was okonomi-yaki, which is essentially a Japanese omelette-pizza kind of thing, in various flavors. (Mine was prawn, squid, and I forget.) The restaurant (Abeno? Something like that.) was, we were told, the only place to buy it in Europe. It was interesting, although it won't replace sushi in my heart any time soon.
After the B.M. closed, our route wended us through Trafalgar Square, but George Washington's statue was behind a giant hoarding, which ticked me off.
The evening ended with lots of drinking at matchbar, one of a swank London chain of cocktail bars. Lots and lots of drinking. Oh my god, the drinking. Among the matchbar's claims to fame is a full caipirinha menu (the cherry caipirinha, which adds pulped, pitted cherries to the mix, is stupendous good) and the "Match-nificent Seven," seven drinks named after the Magnificent Seven cast. Dinner was upscale bar appetizers, including something made with duck that was probably a very bad idea in retrospect. I closed with two Horst Buchholzes, vodka-and-espresso blends.
Then, back to James Wallis' sumptuous terrace, to chill out and run down the night with good music and good conversation.
In the morning, a successful transfer of Eight Zillion Pounds of Books to a taxi, to the Clapham Junction platform, to Gatwick Airport (and three huzzahs and a tiger for the person who put the check-in counter directly upstairs from the train platform at Gatwick), to US Airways, to Philadelphia, where US Airways promptly lost two of the bags. They arrived by delivery car today, but the moral is clear: direct flights only next time.
I blame the bag snafu partly on the delay at US Immigration, which I have decided should work on the same principles as a good nightclub: celebrities, well-dressed people, and cute girls get in free. The rest of us should have to prove that we know the bartender.
Home to blessed Chicago, where people drive on the right side of the road, and where it's nowhere near 100 degrees F.
Nearby was St.-George's-Bloomsbury, a fine Hawksmoor church, which made me weep for the missed chance to see the other five or so.
Nearby also were a dozen or so bookstores, all of them tempting, none of which I went into, except for the Atlantis Bookshop, as patronized by Aleister Crowley.
Lunch was okonomi-yaki, which is essentially a Japanese omelette-pizza kind of thing, in various flavors. (Mine was prawn, squid, and I forget.) The restaurant (Abeno? Something like that.) was, we were told, the only place to buy it in Europe. It was interesting, although it won't replace sushi in my heart any time soon.
After the B.M. closed, our route wended us through Trafalgar Square, but George Washington's statue was behind a giant hoarding, which ticked me off.
The evening ended with lots of drinking at matchbar, one of a swank London chain of cocktail bars. Lots and lots of drinking. Oh my god, the drinking. Among the matchbar's claims to fame is a full caipirinha menu (the cherry caipirinha, which adds pulped, pitted cherries to the mix, is stupendous good) and the "Match-nificent Seven," seven drinks named after the Magnificent Seven cast. Dinner was upscale bar appetizers, including something made with duck that was probably a very bad idea in retrospect. I closed with two Horst Buchholzes, vodka-and-espresso blends.
Then, back to James Wallis' sumptuous terrace, to chill out and run down the night with good music and good conversation.
In the morning, a successful transfer of Eight Zillion Pounds of Books to a taxi, to the Clapham Junction platform, to Gatwick Airport (and three huzzahs and a tiger for the person who put the check-in counter directly upstairs from the train platform at Gatwick), to US Airways, to Philadelphia, where US Airways promptly lost two of the bags. They arrived by delivery car today, but the moral is clear: direct flights only next time.
I blame the bag snafu partly on the delay at US Immigration, which I have decided should work on the same principles as a good nightclub: celebrities, well-dressed people, and cute girls get in free. The rest of us should have to prove that we know the bartender.
Home to blessed Chicago, where people drive on the right side of the road, and where it's nowhere near 100 degrees F.