Derek and I had two things we wanted to do on Tuesday: visit the British Museum, which I had fallen in love with back in November, and shop along Oxford Street, because I'm always hearing about the amazing shopping. My hope had been to go to the museum first, and then walk back along Oxford St. afterwards (once we were a bit tired), heading back to the hotel. But we watched the weather reports and with the threat of 34 C heat we decided it'd be best to spend the hotter hours inside. An excellent theory...
Oxford Street was busy and bustling with tons of people, double-decker buses and massive clothing and department stores. We stopped in at M&S, Adidas and Selfridges (where the first item of jewelry I spotted cost over £11000, and there was the cutest little pink Burberry jacket for a baby girl on sale for a little over £100), as well as a little mall where we spotted one of many pianos around the city centre which are there for the public to play on. I loved seeing Stella MacCartney's Adidas designs, including a beautiful purple handbag/sportsbag which I fell in love with and which was way out of my price range :)
A couple blocks north of the far end of Oxford Street was the back entrance to the British Museum, where we spent the rest of the day. I was wiped, and Derek was a great sport about sitting and resting at various points in time and throughout the building. It hadn't occurred to us that this very old building wouldn't be air conditioned, and with all of the skylights it was pretty warm throughout the building. Back in November it had been nice and cool, just like outside. It was quite frustrating to look inside the display cases and see that they were temperature controlled, yet the building isn't!
Lunch was a nice break that day. After checking out the prices of sandwiches in the museum, we walked back to Oxford Street and picked up a couple BLTs and an apple at a chain sandwich shop, Pret et Manger, which we stopped at regularly on the trip. We walked back to the museum's grounds and sat along the edge of the new Indian garden outside the main entrance. It was beautiful, peaceful and very hot lunch.
After an afternoon admiring the Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts, and the various displays on money, Derek and I headed home for an evening in and a good night's sleep.
Day Four (Wednesday -- Canada Day!)
We had reached the day that was the inspiration for the entire trip -- July 1st, Canada Day. While Canada Day London activities were going to start at Trafalgar Square around noon, we decided we'd rather spend the day seeing other sites and museums, and then attend at the square before dinnertime as the ball hockey games wrapped up and the performances really started. We had made plans to meet up with a friend of mine from Western (we did our MAs in History together before she went on to take Museum Studies here in England and now works for the Queen organizing and installing exhibits, based out of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle -- so cool!).
First up was the Science Museum. On the way we spotted a massive structure at the south end of Kensington Gardens, which turned out to be Albert Memorial. Beautiful. And right across from the Royal Albert Hall (what a coincidence!). The museum was awesome. They had so much stuff! It's currently celebrating 100 years of being open, and there are some amazing displays and objects, including an impressive collection of airplanes (some of which were donated right after making history, like the first airplane to make a transatlantic flight back in 1919 which was then donated to the museum in 1919).
There was a very cool exhibit on 100 years of plastics which included commentary on the famous McDonald's wrapper debate which I have grown up listening to. I laughed out loud -- I thought Dad was the only one who felt so strongly about McDonald's decision in the early 90s to move from styrofoam containers to non-recyclable waxed paper. There were also some surprising items, like a small collection of Barbies (including several which I had), a Super Nintendo and an original Gameboy. As we stood there looking at the Gameboy and reminiscing, two little girls came along and stood in front of us, looking at the electronics. The one turned to the other and said something along the lines of 'Did you know Gameboys used to be Black and White!?' She had us feeling about 50 years old. As Derek said so beautifully, 'I think I died a little inside.'
While the initial plan had been to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum for the afternoon which was conveniently located across the street, we were enjoying the Science Museum so much that after a lunch of BLTs in the beautiful grounds of the Natural History Museum we headed back for some more science! Next time I'll be sure to hit the V&A.
On the way back to the hotel (we had to change into our Canada shirts, of course), we searched out the Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain which was lovely. Lots of big trees for shade and a fountain not like any I'd ever seen kept in a fenced-of area. It is a huge oval which stretches along the sloped ground and sunk into the ground, so that you can sit along the edge and dip your feet, or walk around the edge (or in it, as a number of parents did walking their toddlers). The fountain's base is textures so that the water runs differently at different points, and the water was so cold! We sat for a while with our feet in the water, cooling off and people-watching on the beautiful sunny afternoon. It was just what we needed.
After stopping at our room to shower and change we headed to Trafalgar Square to join a sea of Canadians (and Canadian-wannabes) to celebrate. Our friends showed up after work and we each grabbed a Sleemans beer (it was too hot for Tim Hortons coffee, but I sure would have gotten a doughnut if they'd had any!) and got caught up. We left the square for dinner, but as the Maple Leaf (the Canadian pub nearby) was packed and had a massive queue, we went for burgers before heading back to the square for Canadian music and comedy and lots of chatter. The show wrapped up with a great rendition of Taking Care of Business. We were really glad we went, even if the whole production was significantly smaller in scale than previous years, likely due to funding.
On the way home we had one more site to see. We headed to Picadilly Circus, which I was pretty amazed at. On the way we came across the Spar with a Tims inside, so that was exciting to see. The ads at Picadilly Circus are much more high-tech than 10 years ago, with new massive screens all over. Derek led us over to a crowd gathered in front of the HMV across the street, where we came across a number of Michael Jackson-style dancers in costume and a huge memorial on the walls and ground. I'd never seen anything like it in real life. It was a very interesting time to be there.
The next morning we caught a 9 am train out of Kings Cross home to Edinburgh, and therein ends my tale of our trip. I can't believe how long it's taken me to write about it all. No wonder I was exhausted practically every afternoon we were there! I hope you enjoyed the story. We sure enjoyed the trip, and I've enjoyed sharing it with you all :)
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