Before we even got up to that, I had my own little adventure, or series of adventures, to be more accurate. I woke up feeling muddled. I hadn't slept well; I don't know why. I went out and had a coffee, which helped a bit, and walking helped a bit more, but it still didn't feel right. But this was the time to rent the car, so it had to be done.
On the way over, I need to use the loo. Why not? It's fun to say. There's a hotel next to the rental car agency and I knew I could go there, but I was also walking through a park where there was some kind of festival going on all week (though not at 8:30 AM). There was whatever you'd call the trailer version of a portapotty there, which I had to check out. It was pretty cool- running water and everything. I was impressed.
Got to the rental car place and realized as I went in that I had forgotten to bring the voucher that I was supposed to give them for the car. The guy at the counter was very nice and said I could take the car as long as I brought him the voucher later, but I didn't want to have to go back later. So into the hotel I went and I plead for help. They couldn't have been nicer. A porter told me how to get on their wifi and email it to their front desk, and then the front desk person printed it out for me. It only took a couple of minutes and I was relieved about that and grateful for the help.
So I got the car. I had driven right-side drive cars in Ireland last year, so I wasn't really worried about that. I managed to get it out of the parking lot, which was cramped and difficult. Then I tied using a navigation app that a friend had told us about that doesn't consume data the way Google Maps or Waze do. Well, it may be helpful once we're out of the city, but it sure wasn't this morning.
First of all, the damn thing never stopped talking, repeating the same thing over and over and throwing out different names for the same street. It turned me the wrong way (I'd walked there, I knew what direction I was supposed to be going), and instead of telling me to turn around (as my car's nav system would say, "make a legal u-turn") it kept saying, "Turn right on A4 in 400 meters" Turn right on A4 in 500 meters" Turn right on A4 in 550 meters" and so on. Putting aside the fact that A4 is more commonly known as Shaftesbury Avenue, at what point would it have realized that I was going the wrong way?
So I made a (legal) u-turn and turned it off. I knew where I was trying to go and just figured I'd spiral around and around until I got there, the way you do in an unfamiliar place with one way streets. I stayed on the one way streets as much as possible, but I actually only made one wrong turn the whole way and got it into the parking lot quickly and without further incident.
Given that I was already feeling off, I was now pretty much wiped out. And it was only 9:45 AM. Yay! So then the actual day's plans started.
We began at the British Museum. Let me note at the start that very few things in the British Museum are British. I mean, I guess they are now because they're here, but they weren't originally. Sort of like immigrants. Or like the slave trade. Or both.
Anyway, you go to the British Museum to see old stuff. We saw some beautiful and impressive yet very old things. You also see many many many other people, and on a warm day, it made the museum very very very warm. We realized, too late, that if you wanted air conditioning you needed to find rooms with things that might decompose, like old books. Nobody's worried about limestone or obsidian being damaged by it being 85 degrees.
What we saw was pretty amazing really, reaching back to the Bronze age. And of course the Rosetta Stone was there with all its groupies. I would have enjoyed that more if I could read ancient Greek or hieroglyphs. All kinds of ancient civilizations were explained, though not a definitive answer to the key question, "What is the capital of Assyria?" I know it was Ninevah for some time, but apparently those kings liked to move the capital and build new castles to outdo their predecessors, so go figure.
From there we went to Borough Market, an outdoor food market near London Bridge. It had all kinds of amazing food, prepared stuff and fresh foods to (I suppose) cook yourself. It was really crowded as well, but we had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch that were probably the best I've ever had (at least the best that didn't have Velveeta in them).
Then we walked around an area called Shoreditch. I'll talk more about how the British name things later, but it's an up and coming, trendy kind of area. There were some cool shops, but we'd had enough, so back to the hotel and room service for dinner. Ronnie's feet were hurting and my legs, especially after doing all those steps at St. Paul's, were kind of tired as well.
Tomorrow we're off to the west, to see gardens and pretty country. More stuff to say about today, but it'll have to wait.
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