I am TIRED. Though not as tired as I was yesterday.

Now I am only kind of tired.

Since I haven't posted any pictures yet, I give you this one.

Oddly enough, it was from the plane.

 
I know. You wouldn't have guessed that, would you.

The colours were even better than the picture shows, which was why I took it. It's still a pretty picture, I think.

Anyway.

Where was I.

 Oh yes. This morning Miriam tried to feed me everything under the sun. David has informed me that this is usual and she doesn't take offense if I don't eat everything offered to me. I had meusli, and it was nice.

Both Miriam and David left for their respective work places, and left me alone to totter off.

And totter I did!

Went to the train. Miriam very kindly supplied me with an Oyster card.

I wandered around for a while. Topped up the phone that Allison lent me. Wandered around some more.

Then I came across Trafalgar Square and this fellow hanging out with Mr. Nelson!



Hilarious.

Also the National Gallery. Took a totter in. I forgot that they owned The Tailor. I like that painting. I'd put it on my wall. They had a few other pieces that I'd forgotten they had. A whole room of Rembrants! Good grief! A couple of Vermeers. A few of the rooms were closed up, which sucked, but there you go.

I didn't stay long. I lingered in the bookstore a little bit. Drooled on a giant tome of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, but I didn't buy it (but I DID write down the ISBN).

Went to meet David at the Google offices. Got lost. Everything in London is WAY closer together than I'm used to, so I keep overshooting things by a long, long way.

Eventually found David, but had to phone him to figure out where the hell I was ("Do you see the Starbucks?" "Yes." "Do you see the strange man in blue waving his arms like a rediculous person?" "....ah. Hello.").

Google's cafeteria is AMAZING. We were greeted at the door by one of David's coworkers, a very, very, very skinny computer engineer in a faded, holey rock and roll t-shirt, pants that were a little bit too short, and sock feet, and I thought: "MY GOD! It's just like hanging out with my friends!"

(I love you all, friends.)

We had lunch. I was very jealous the whole time. David gave me a tour of the Google offices, which included a coffee room with TWO baristas to make your coffee, a 'garden' with a napping capsule (WHICH I REQUIRE), a games room (darts, pool, and a large selection of console games), and a music room (with professional instruments and microphones and everything). Apparently they have a double decker bus on the third floor, which they use as a meeting room. It was, apparently, a sulky consolation prize after the landlords refused to allow them to install slides or firemen's poles.

They also have a life sized horse sculpture with a lamp on it's head.

Also this:

Why, that's just a bathtub! you say.

Why would Google have a bathtube in their reception area?

(Though to be fair, why would they have a horse with a lamp on its head in the cafeteria, but I digress.)

This, my friends, is Douglas Adams' bathtub.

Apparently some engineers saw it go up for auction and decided to buy it and put it in the office, and then the bosses heard and told them to spend what they had to to get it.

I understand that it used to be filled with blue foam balls and had a sign inviting people to have a sit in it and get some great ideas (as a great man had done before), but there had been some issue with people getting drunk on gin in it, and since it's in the reception area...well, they decided to slap some plexi on it and use it as a coffee table instead. (The red you can just see is a towel, in case you were wondering. The cards are quotes from the books. I don't know why the globe with the pirate flag was in there.)

Yep. So after that I left and went to Regency Park by way of Baker Street (passing 221b, if course). There I read my book and lay in the sun and watched the ducks and the herons and eventually fell asleep.

I'm not sure how long I slept for, but I felt a lot better when I woke up.

Wandered around the part some more. ALL the flowers are out. It's very pretty.

Then came home and wound down. Tomorrow I was hoping to catch a matinee in the West End, but everything I want to see doesn't have a tuesday matinee.

Who knows. Tomorrow is a mystery now.

Ow. My brain.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

I did not sleep at ALL on the plane. Not at all. I dozed a little, but no sleep.

There were so many screaming children on the plane, I can't even begin to tell you. There were these two girls which were really bad, but they were so adorable I couldn't loathe them. It was obviously their first time on a plane and they were SO EXCITED and poor mom had another baby strapped to her chest, so it was dad's job to chase them around the plane.

Anyway. No sleep.

So I land in Gatwick. Train it to London.

What do I do now? Look at the tourist map.

Head to Covent Garden Market. It's too early.

Find a McDonalds, because I know they have free internet. Manage to find the sketchiest McDonalds in the whole world. Relish in free internets.

Head back to the market.

It's getting busy. I have a huge backpack.

Stop and listen to this very good quartet. Two violins, a cellist, and a flutist. The guy who was kind of leading the group was one of the violinists. He was black and had teeth that had a space between every single one, and when ever someone dropped money into their hat he would scream: "THAAAAAAAANK YAAAAAAAAAOUUUUUU!!" as loud as he could.

They played classical music, but it was very excellent. They could do schtick and play at the same time, which always impresses me.

The opera singer that followed them was not nearly so well attended.

Left there. Went to the British Library. Discovered the manuscript room was closed on sundays, and anyway, I wouldn't be able to handle them because they require government ID plus proof of address in order to get a pass to handle the manuscripts (let that be a lesson to you all).

I am disappoint.

But only a little disappoint, because let's face it, I'm in London. Life is pretty awesome.

I found I could not stay awake any longer while I was in the library. If I stopped moving, I was nodding off.

So I pulled a Dad and found a bench. I didn't want to stretch out entirely, because the security guards were like bad tempered cats, and I didn't want to look like a hobo. But I leaned against the wall.

All told, I think I had about four half-hour naps, all on different benches.

I feel like I can last until tonight, even though I am still very tired.

I resisted most of the things in the bookshop, even though there were some interesting books on the Lindisfarne Gospels (which the British Library owns; I saw it!), and a massive tome on medieval dress as depicted by illuminations...but I resisted.

Until I found a DVD of illumination-how-to, using all period materials. I ALMOST passed it over, and then I thought: "WHAT THE HELL ROSEMART? WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO FIND SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN?!" Especially with all period materials.

So I bit the bullet and bought it.

And now...I am stealing internets from McDonalds again. Gonna go meet my lovely cousin Miriam soon. Perhaps I should go find an adapter so I can actually plug in my computer...

LONDON?!

What the shit?

I'm in the airport AGAIN?

How the hell did that happen?

Oh. Wait. $300 round trip ticket to London.

NOW I remember.

Anyway. I never did my last post about Paris and Amsterdam, did I?

Well, no time like the present.

These here are my favorite pictures. They're not great pictures. They're not like Miss Kelly Shpeley's photos (www.kellyshpeley.com), though even if you follow that link you won't see any of her photos because SOMEBODY won't do a show of her photos even though they're FABULOUS (you can also see them here: http://floconsdejambon.blogspot.ca/ )

Yep. So. Some are 'artsy'. Some aren't. They're not great, but I like them, so what ever.



Awww. It's a dove in the blossoming trees in the garden of Notre Dame. It was giving me the hairy eyeball. Probably because I said its mother was a chicken.

 Oh HAI! It's a swan! In the Red Light District in Amsterdam! I like swans. I apparently like birds, since there are three photos of birds in my favorites.

 It's a canal. I'm standing on a bridge. Or possibly hovering over the water, but you'll never know for sure. It was in the same area as the swan.

A seagull gazes quietly out to sea, pining for her lost love, what flew off with a whaling ship some five years before. (I don't remember where I took this. Probably Amsterdam. I only ever saw one seagull in Paris.)

Did you know that Amsterdam became such a powerhouse because of their fleet of flying battleships? TRUE STORY. I wouldn't lie to you, because you're my friend. (This was in the Old Church in Amsterdam.)

Ah, drugs. Aren't they great? (Another shot in the Old Church in Amsterdam. All the chandeliers had these magnificent giant brass balls hanging from the bottoms. I would say they were trying to compensate for something, but I'm pretty sure they weren't.)

A 'what the hell is around the corner' mirror along the canal in Amsterdam. Can you see me?

Sparkling canals, bicycles, and sunshine. That pretty much sums up Amsterdam.

A window of Notre Dam, with the flowering trees. Artsy, or 'artsy'.

The sun coming up over Notre Dam, with a different flowering tree. Did you know there were lots of rats running around the grounds while I was taking this picture? Try not to think about the rats while you look at this.

The sun coming up over the Seine. It was very quiet in Paris at this time. 

You've seen this one already, but I like it. It's in the gardens at Versailles. I like the way they prune the trees over thar.

Stained glass window, in one of the little building thingies, in the Cemetary at Montemartre.

The sun through the Eiffel Tower. Again, 'artsy'.

The sun coming out over Sacre Coeur. I told you I took a million of these.

An angel in the ceiling mural at the Pantheon. I mostly liked the expression on the angel's face.

Yep.

That's about all.

Those are all my favorites.

And now I'm going to England, bitchezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

zzzzzzzzzz...

SEE YOU ON THE FLIP SIDE.