of cabbages and kings

it's terrific and sad at the same time when i read about the fun that bostonian friends continue to have. i'm having a fairly good time myself, but i'm greedy and want more cake.

instead of studying for my exam saturday, i visited westminster in the morning. it contains more famous dead people than you can beat with a fat stick (or a chopstick, whichever you prefer). London is positively screwed if zombies attack. or maybe dead famous figures will be more gentle than dead commoners. i saw the graves of chaucer (in poet's corner), newton, darwin, bulwer-lytton, william pitt, elizabeth i, mary queen of scots, richard ii, handel etc etc. speaking of death, i almost killed an old woman, but it wasn't my fault. she shouldn't have been so close to my elbow. it wasn't even crowded. monarchs get really cool swords. wales is represented by a unicorn. i'm too tired to use complete sentences.

walked to victoria, shopping all the way. bought silk knots for my shirts because i can't afford bloody cufflinks. life is so different from mit. peed in a public toilet, but alas it had no seat. paid 50 pence for it ($1). 20 min time limit before the doors automatically reopen. when you leave, it hurries you along lest you be trapped in the disinfecting process. it actually says, "please leave the bathroom immediately!" makes me feel like i've pulled a fire alarm. took me a minute or two to figure out the sink. it has two spigots, but one is for soap and water and one is for blowdrying. everything, of course, is motion-sensored. waved under one spigot till it spit soap at me...tried to wave under the other spigot for water...process would've been embarassing, but luckily, i was alone.

tried st paul's again...walked along the strand. i like walking around london alone. they have amazing signposting, and every street is labeled. ate dinner at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. really old chophouse. they have a stuffed parrot that used to entertain monarchs named (originally) polly. food was atrocious. had steak and kidney pie. the cider was good though...got a bit tipsy...made eating alone a lot more comfortable. i like my tipsy company. also ordered bubbles and squeak...sounds like some asian version of pinky and the brain. turned out to be a mush of cabbage and unidentifiables...almost tasted like mashed potatoes...there's a reason the dish isn't found more commonly. dessert looked up. got custard and spotted dick. english custard is amazing. so good that it deserves to be said twice: english custard is amazing. spotted dick is sorta like spiced carrot cake. lots of raisins (those are the spots...haven't figured out the dick).

one the way back to st paul's, i found a dead pigeon.

one of my favorite things about london is that you're walking around this fairly modern (albeit short) city, and you'll turn a corner, look down an alley way, and all of a sudden, you're staring history in the face. it's like chipping away a thin layer of dirt and hitting...i dunno, coal or something. anyways, here:

i heard the best subway music ever. some guy on a classical guitar. good enough to elicit a pound from me. he mistook me for a jap, which was awkward. very holden caulfield moment. i felt like we could've connected because i liked his music so much, but then he had to go and ruin it by speaking. communication is hard. i beat a hasty retreat.

saw titus andronicus at the globe on monday. brought a picnic of french bread, guacamole, venison pate (good!), smoked salmon, blueberries, chocolate, and beer. i expected a tragedy, but the play was bloody and comical. four of the audience fainted, and many more left. they got very creative with their death scenes.

yesterday, they let us out of class an hour early. spent the night walking around leicester square and covent garden. street performers and markets. reminded me of roman holiday. found some pretty amazing ice cream at an italian place, but they relied on gimmicks. ice cream itself was so so, but they'd shape it into weird formations and put fruit and stuff in it. i got the spaghetti ice cream (it was supposed to look like spaghetti, with strawberry sauce for marinara and white chocolate flakes for parmesan). in leicester square, i saw an advert for a pub called the crooked surgeon (2 for 1 entres)...the name is distinctly unappetizing in the city that set sweeney todd. also saw a maclaren stroller. what a concept--do i want my babystroller associated with a sports car? power and speed and all that...hmm. bought street pizza. gotta try it. it sucked--soggy, fluffy crust. luckily, satoshi ate the rest. rode the fastest carousel i've ever experienced, which i will once again attribute to the english's brazen disregard for lawsuits. dinnered at kaitenzushi. the best sushi i've eaten outside of japan. not terribly expensive either. afterwards, walked along the river for a bit. beautiful view, liberating wind, bagpipe music from a distance. cherry on top was seeing two suits on another carousel--this one had turkeys and chickens and bears along with the traditional horses. a river really makes a city.

also found this guy, the singing handyman. he parks his truck in a busy intersection and sings for all he's worth. he's got a microphone in there, and he sprays bubbles from the back of his truck. so random and dick van dyke (a la mary poppins).