London Week 2ish

---

Last Saturday we went to Portobello Market, of Notting Hill fame, and sorted through the throngs of people looking for a bargain on food, clothes and antiques on fairly sunny morning.

Next was an anthropologists dream as I went to the British Museum, which is simply the best collection of human history in the world. Period. We saw about 1/3 of the museum and were exhausted, but thoroughly enjoyed the Japan, Egypt, Roman and Greek exhibits.

Sunday we woke up and went to a choir service at St. Paul's Cathedral because 1) we wanted to hear the choir and go to church and 2) that is the only way to get into the Cathedral for free, as a parishoner during services on Sunday. The interior varies from St. Peter's because there is less in-your-face gold and statue wealth, but the vast hall is something to be seen. Then, we headed to the Imperial War Museum to see the Bond/Ian Fleming exhibit which was decent, but more about Fleming than 007. But the museum holds a very well done Holocaust exhibit, and I'm glad we saw that before heading to Berlin.

Yesterday was quite the experience as we went to The Masgouf House, an Iraqi restaurant, with our whole group for lunch. We filled up the place, which was empty because it is Ramadan anyways, but the food was DELICIOUS! Surprise surprise for a picky eater. Tabouleh, pita bread, delicious chicken and veal, with tea and a baclava-type dessert lasted over 3 hours, course after course. Then some of us went to Harrod's which is just ridiculous. The amount of wealth is pretty much sickening (£39,000 watch) and while this is a historical staple of London, the only redeeming quality about the whole experience was the Princess Diana/Dodi memorial in the lower floor. Then, we spur of the moment headed to Picadilly for another theatre performance (Phantom of the Opera). We didn't get the steal of the century like for Les Mis as our seats were beneath the balcony, obstructing the upper tiers of the catwalk and chandelier, but the singing was still excellent. Today continued with a performance of A Midsummer's Night Dream at the Shakespeare Globe. We were groundlings (standing) in the rain, but the play was so funny it didn't deter us much. It is quite amazing that after a couple hundred years of being written, the crowd was still writhing in laughter.

We are headed to Bath and Edinburgh, Scotland in the next few days so I look forward to a change of London-scenery!

Ta for now.

---

Comments

[Roaming Bulldog]

Eating
Lunch at an Iraqi restaurant while in London . . . sometimes I think the eating is the best part of traveling. Colleen will back me up here.