London extravanganza!

After my shenanigans of this morning, I finally found people like me: tourists, and LOTS of them. And NONE of them seem to speak English? Where are all the Americans? I expected loads - but the Germans, French, and Japanese crushed the U.S. in terms of crowds.
That being said, the crowds were not horrible. Only around the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum where a bunch of absurd, Japanese, short ladies decided to shove their way through me to the front. I stood my ground, but eventually was consumed by the masses. I got my picture and moved on.

The British Museum is cool, but it didn't take as long as I thought it would to finish. Well, probably because I was tired and didn't feel much like reading every placard. The highlights? Elgin Marbles, Egyptian mummies/statues, and the Lewis Chessmen. In addition, I visited the National Art Gallery, which had a surprising amount of quality Monets, Cezannes, Rembrandts, da Vincis, van Goghs, van Eycks, and even Michelangelos. But no pictures allowed there though. :(

I decided to walk everywhere too, because the metro (the Tube) is absurdly expensive for non-residents. That meant i probably walked ten miles but i was able to see some areas I wouldn't have otherwise (e.g. Covent Garden, Soho)

I also waved to the Queen at Buckingham Palace (she may not have actually been there, but whatever), trekked through Green and St. James Parks, visited the London Eye (big ferris wheel), Trafalgar Square, Parliament/Big Ben,Westminster Abbey, and even got in some time to relax. Not bad for a day's work.

Two lessons learned today:
1. I no longer want to be considered a "tourist" after reliving the horrible experience of being around tons of them.
2. British people are pretty mean - they don't say "bless you" when you sneeze, they sit around and do nothing if somebody gets clonked in the head, and they glare at you if you drop your knife on the floor on accident (oops...).

Also, the food that i had was disappointing: a ham omellette (awful) and tomato and mozarrella sandwich (equally bad). Maybe I didn't try too hard though. The tea was yummy, however.

Anyway, 4:30am wakeup tomorrow to get to my 5:30am train to Paris! Ahhh, I have to get up early AND speak French!!

Bonsoir,
Andrew