Our ride back down to London was uneventful and for some reason, a delay or something, we arrived later than expected. Perfect- just what we like to hear and no, I'm not being sarcastic this time. We probably got out onto the "road" around 8:30 and took the long walk down Victoria and Fleet Street back to Saint Paul's for church. On the way, we watched the set-up for the British 10K, saw more Gatorade in one place than we ever have in our entire lives and had breakfast on the steps of St. Martins in the Field. Our arrival at St. Paul's was met with some disappointment as it was now 9:30 and the next service was not until 11:00. So we sat down on the grass near the Thames in order to wait and plan and relax and guess what? IT FRICKIN' STARTS TO RAIN!
WTF, mate?
Church was amazing though. St. Paul's is an absolutely gorgeous Romanesque cathedral with beautifully domed ceilings, mosaics, paintings of Christ and the apostles and the prophets. The service was also beautiful- the music was taken from Mozart's Coronation Mass and unfortunately, we did miss some of it because we were both nodding off. The choir boys and the choir sang beautifully and the music just filled the halls with glorious melodies.
Upon leaving St. Paul's, the original plan had been to go to Camden but it was raining and windy so we stopped in at Tescos, our new favorite place, and tubed it over to the British Museum. After getting slightly lost (dude, the map we looked at could not be more incorrect!) we arrived at the Greco-Roman building that holds everything the British stole from other countries and civilizations. We ate lunch in the Great Hall and then headed into the exhibits. Our favorite, by far, were the Roman, Greek and Egyptian exhibits. There were this awesomely huge Egyptian head that looked incredibly jolly- who knew the Egyptians could be jolly? But this bloke certainly was. The Romans also had some excellent statues, especially the one of Marcus Aurelius who looks bored out of his skull (we also encountered an American family who was slightly obsessed with Marcus Aurelius. It was slightly odd....).
It wasn't too wet when we left the BM and it was only a short tube ride away to the Natural History Museum. This building was gorgeously gothic and didn't look like it was a museum. Inside we were amused by dinosaur skeletons, large moving t-rexes, a dinosaur hand giving us the thumbs up and a replication, bones, muscles and all, of a dino leg. Also, of course, the massive mammal section, with everything from red pandas, the dugong, horses, elephants, marmots (for Megan!), dolphins, blue whale, etc., etc., etc. We also went to the marine section, passed by the creepy crawlies, enjoyed the creation of the world and rode the escalator up into the center of the earth (passing by the solar system). The Natural History museum definitely rivals other awesome NHM like in New York, LA and Washington DC and comes highly recommended by US.
Our last adventure of the night was the Jack the Ripper tour. We headed down to Tower Hill and enjoyed the Tower of London, the City Hall building, the Thames and the aptly named Tower Bridge (NO, this is NOT the London Bridge, people... Fergie.... idiotic people.... etc.) We crossed under the bridge by St. Katherine's dock and walked up onto the bridge and then back to Tower Hill. This was probably our first meal of bread, chicken, grapes and of course, the raisins, what did not conclude with us running for shleter. Hurray. That was lovely.
The Jack the Ripper tour was also pretty sweet. As a preview, imagine this- a cool tour guide named Molly with a penchant for drama, a fainting Spartan, lots of blood, guts and gore and Johnny Depp. Be prepared....
Our ride to Newcastle was excellent. We are going to check facebook to see how our picture uploading is going and shall return soon.
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