June 19th: museums and meetups

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June 19th: We now have a Brummie bricklayer in our hostel room who is only paying £10... why am i paying so much?!
Anyhoo, woke up at 6.30 which is much more reasonable than 4am! Very full of breakfast & sun and ready to enjoy the day! ~later~
Another bit of hanging around Hyde Park (wearing pants though) while waiting for the Natural History Museum to open... well worth the wait; it's one of those places where, no matter how much you see you're sure that there's more to go! If I ever have children and they start up with that "where do babies come from?" business I'll just take them to the NHM because it's all spelled out in some fairly graphic, yet totally scientific displays also saw dinosaurs (t-rex was off being cleaned, boo) sea creatures and experienced the simulation of an earthquake... because obviously i've never been in one of those (ha).
After a delish lunch and coffee with my book I decided to go and have a look inside the Brompton Oratory, and I'm glad that I did, it is one of the more beautiful churches that i've seen, the air smelt of churchy incense and (though there was no service in progress and the church was just open for general prayer and visiting) they have an organist filling the place with complicated almost gothic, frantic music!
Feeling kind of mixed emotions about leaving tomorrow, on the one hand I'm getting to like London a bit, and it's tempting to stay put somewhere that you're comfortable... on the other hand, i don't know that i'll miss the consant flow of traffic, shops everywhere, people, people, people and the general feeling of being in the middle of this vast beast that you need to travel for an hour or so to escape. i've been out to Westminster and taken the necessary touristy "i was there" kind of photos of big b, the millenium wheel etc and then headed back to the hostel, I was due to meet some folks from a LOST (2004) forum that I post on. Tubed out to Kings Cross and saw the very impressive St Pancras station (not St Pancreas as I kept pronouncing it). Went to O'Neills (which is an irish pub chain kind of like 'the bog' in NZ) and had a few drinks and some good conversation with Amber, Indy & Marcel and watched England beat the Ukraine in the Eurocup which seemed to make everyone happy. after a few more drinks we went our separate ways, it was good fun and yet again made me slightly sad that so many cool people have to live on the OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE WORLD and therefore we can't hang out more. luckily wherever I go in the world there will always be at least ONE cool person 😉

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Photos

Natural History Museum
Yes, the Brits know how to house knowledge!

Barracks Folk
the steam opens my pores