Last Day...of AWESOME

Which could also be called "The Almost Equally Long Walk But With Tube Pass Addition" (10.3 miles).

Our last full day in London was spent doing as many of the other things we had wanted to do as could fit in before midnight.

Or first goal was to find the traditional souvenir (singular.  There's a rule against getting more than one).  It's a tricky process because it has to fit a few criteria.

1. Be very small (so we can bring it back to the US with us and also to be used as a Christmas tree ornament)
2. Be inexpensive (we have a 10 euro limit).
3. Be distinctive. (We want it to really represent the place we've been to--maybe by being some sort of traditional craft or representing something we did or noticed particularly).
4. NOT from a souvenir shop. (I kind of refuse to spend my 10 euro budget on anything plasticky that is so soulless it has to have the word "LONDON" written across it in neon pink for it to count.)

So, where do you go when you need something unique, cheap, and unmistakably "London"?

"Anything and everything a chap can unload is sold off the barrow in...."

And it is no joke.  You really can find anything at the Portobello Market.

You know, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (see video above) is more or less spot on about Portobello.  Of course there weren't strangely dancing sikh soldiers, steel drum parades, or thinly veiled references to prostitution but there were storefronts and storefronts of paintings, antiques, cut glass, books, food, clothes, maps, bedknobs, and  broomsticks.

Paul found our perfect souvenir on a little table in the middle of the street covered with antique leadwork soldiers--straight out of Winston Churchill's childhood or The Velveteen Rabbit.  We chose this little guy to take home and he's perfect:

Bearskin hat, brass buttons, and bayonet-
the whole package

The Portobello Road song was stuck in our heads all day long, I'll have you know.  And we were sad to leave, but London called.  So we walked through the Queen's Gate in Kensington Gardens, bought our tube passes, and set off to see the sights...

Curtsy at the Queen's Gate

We kind of really love the new BBC series "Sherlock"--so we
took a trip to Baker Street to see where the detective "lived" (221b
Baker Street).  

 We walked from there to King's Cross Station, in a valiant attempt to find Platform 9 3/4 so we could do a daytrip to Hogwarts... but class must be out right now because the entire place was a giant construction zone  and I looked for that darn sign valiantly.
I blame my squibiness.
(sad face.  I wanted to watch Paul run through/into a wall...)

But, on the way, I got to see my beloved Regent's Park and
the newly revealed restoration work on the St. Pancras
Renaissance Hotel!  It was all in scaffolding way back in 2004
and only recently was re-opened.  Isn't it beautiful?

We popped down to the unbelievably huge 19th century
department store, Harrod's.  I wish I had taken pictures
inside of the faux-Egyptian decorations or the
world-renowned (for its diversity) International
Food Hall...but it was so incredibly crowded in there.

BUT we did buy a scone (sk-aaahn, not sk-own).  It was Britishy.

We walked from Harrod's, down the street, to the Victoria and Albert Museum where, at some point, Paul summed up most people's feelings by asking, "This museum is huge and awesome...but...what exactly is it about?"

We decided that it must be about...things that are decorated?

We got to see...

The reliquary of St. Thomas Becket*

If you look close enough at this blurry picture, you can see him being put in
his tomb on the top panel.  On the bottom panel you can see the famous moment when
the three knights from Henry II ("Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?!") attacking
him as he performed mass at the alter of Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.  The knights are
on the left.  Thomas in the middle.  And two horrified monks are on the right.

A plaster cast of Trajan's Column in Rome.

HOLY CRAP it was HUGE.

I'd heard about this column before in multiple lectures
but I had NO idea how massive it was--so wide and SO tall.
The V&A museum had to cut the plaster cast in half to fit it
in this gigantic display hall.

I saw the tomb of my great(x 234)-grandma Eleanor of Aquitaine.
We are definitely related since she even reads books when
she's dead.**

And we found this fish standard-bearer.
It was so, so, so funny.  Paul wants it for our house.

We tubed over to the Houses of Parliament really quick for another photo shoot before the sun went down.

Well done, Queen Victoria.  Well done, our cheap camera.

And ate our scone from Harrod's on
Westminster Bridge

And did another quick underground trip
 to go walk over the Thames on the Millennium Bridge
(the one the death eaters destroy in
a Harry Potter movie?).  We checked out the Tate
Modern (for about 5 minutes...no time!) and made sure we
saw the rebuilt Globe Theater on the exact spot it stood during
Shakespeare's time (Tamra, this one's for you).

For our last evening, Paul bought us tickets to the Royal Ballet's "A Night with Gershwin."  They were sold out, so we got standing-room only tickets.  But it was probably the best value purchase of our lives.  Ten pounds for two and a half hours of Rhapsody in Blue, American in Paris, Broadway songs galore, and gorgeous, amazing dancing.  (Thank you Paul!  You know me so well!)

Plus, we made two friends there in the back row who reaffirmed to me how much I love the British--how funny and kind and friendly they are.  By the end of the night, I felt like this man and woman were my siblings or something...that we would see each other again next Christmas.

I wish I had their addresses...I want to send them birthday presents...

But, I didn't get their addresses, so they'll always just stay in my memory as my back-row Gershwin friends.  Good times. We took the tube home again around 11pm and fell into bed.  Another amazing day.

Shoot...I really miss it already.

* Paul and I used to spend every Sunday watching episodes from the History Channel/BBC documentary series "The History of Britain."  So we get really excited about seeing these sorts of things.

In the National Portrait Gallery, we pretty much just walked around pointing at everything and saying, "That was in it.  That one was in it too.  That picture was totally in that one episode about Colonialism."

Or, whenever we'd see something that reminded us of a quote (yes, we've actually memorized quotes from....a documentary series) then we couldn't help but say it out loud in obnoxious ways.  I'm particularly good at doing an impression of the boy king, Edward VI's, letters about his sister, Mary.  I think I said a whiny, "My dear sistah, the Lady Mary..." about 25 times in all our museum trips combined.

HISTORY NERD POWER!

**  I'm related to Eleanor of Aquitaine, which means I'm related to Henry II (the King who inadvertently --so they say-- ordered the murder of St. Thomas Becket, see reliquary above).  

Which also means I'm related to Richard Coeur de Lion (as it says in French on his statue at Parliament...since he never really liked or lived in England anyway).  You'd know him as the Robin Hood hero, Richard the Lionhearted.  

Which ALSO means I'm related to King John, the bad guy of Robin Hood.  Who is also the King John who signed Magna Carta.

And I saw Magna Carta at the British Library (which we went to in between King's Cross and Harrod's).

And I said, "Grandpa.  I know you didn't want to sign this thing, but it's good that you did.  You get a lot of flak, but I still love you and your genes!"

MORE HISTORY NERD POWER!