I had lunch at the Churchill Arms, this semi-famous pub that's wedded to the Churchill Thai Kitchen. It's very strange, you walk into a fairly traditional pub that's covered in Churchill memorabilia and down some steps and suddenly you're in a butterfly-themed Thai place covered in potted plants. I sat in the Thai place and had a duck dish that was a bit sweet for my tastes. I have not had good luck with food so far on this trip. On the other hand, I'm doing all right with beverages, if you call starting to enjoy Starbucks black coffee without any sweeteners good. Hopefully American Starbucks has the same coffee.
After lunch I found a little stationery shop that luckily enough sold a camera. It seemed pretty decent (a Canon IXUS 132, don't know if that's something sold in the US but it's about as good as my old A1200 before it started malfunctioning, and it's got twice the optical zoom) so I got it for 60 pounds, which included a free 8Gb SD card. It's working out pretty well so far! I went to a Starbucks to charge the battery (good thing I have an adapter now, I'll need it back in the States because this thing does not take AAs) and met this very friendly, very chatty woman named Stephanie. I ended up spending three hours in her company because I was too passive to say that I wanted to be alone, so we wandered around Hyde Park and saw Kensington Palace and the outside of the Natural History Museum because it was closed.
Statue of Queen Victoria by Kensington Palace (where Prince William currently lives with his wife and son)
Queen Victoria's memorial to Prince Albert
I finally escaped (she was actually very nice and I'm glad I met her, I just wish it wasn't for so long) and went to Leicester Square to see if I could get a good deal on the musical Once (I'm hooked now) and wandered home from there. I got a bit lost and popped out into Trafalgar Square, which has some impressively tall statues.
I don't remember which king this is (I think it's a king), but he seems to be looking up at Lord Nelson who is apparently looking in the direction of the battle where he died
I wandered into St. James's Park, which is quite pretty and has a nice little Birdkeeper's house we could look at but not enter. I tested my camera's macro capability (it seems pretty good) and got a firsthand experience of how fearless the squirrels are in this part of the world.
This guy introduced himself by jumping onto my shoulder. Nearly gave me a heart attack.
I walked home via Westminster and finally got a good view of Big Ben, heard it ring the :45 bell but not the hour. I was mostly really hungry at this point, so I was more interested in finding a place to eat.
Big Ben looking majestic as usual. I was lucky enough to come by around magic hour, when the light is just so pretty.
I had been told to eat all the Indian food I could, so I decided to try to find an Indian restaurant while I walked back along the river. No dice. I was practically doubled over in hunger and I really needed a restroom by the time I gave up and went into the next decent-looking pub I saw. Aaaand their kitchen wait was about an hour because of some snafu, so I got some fries and a cider and that was my dinner. Again, terrible luck with food so far, although my grocery experience has been quite pleasant for the most part.
This was about the time that it started to get really dark. The sun finished setting while I ate (it was quite a nice sunset) and the lights were coming on in some of the buildings. I strolled home enjoying the evening atmosphere (but not the temperature, it was a bit cold for the little cardigan I had brought for the day). There were street musicians providing a nice ambience and really interesting water reflections from the lights on Millenium Bridge (the one that the Death Eaters broke in the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince if anyone needs some possibly helpful context).
I don't know what this place is called but it had the coolest lighting
St. Paul's Cathedral
I tried photographing the reflections under the Millenium Bridge but had little hope that I could catch the swiftly shifting patterns with any success. I got some really interesting shots, though, completely surpassing my expectations. Go little camera go!
One thing I forgot to mention was the interesting street performers I saw on the way back from Leicester Square. There were some really cool breakdancers and also a magician who had some great patter, he was pretty funny.
I was too slow to catch the bit where one of the guys (there were three together) was spinning on his head like an upside down figure skater; these guys were impressive
He's shuffling a deck of cards behind his back
All in all, a pretty good day despite not going quite as planned.
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