Tired Feet, Happy Soul

At the time of writing this, I am currently sitting outside a small cafe a short distance down the road from the British Museum where I have just come from. This scene could not be more perfect. Currently sitting at the light is a red double decker bus, a man just walked by with an outrageous accent sporting a shirt that reads "If found, please return to nearest pub", and I of course am sipping on a cup of Irish Breakfast tea, immensely enjoying the life around me. I just put milk in my tea. Kind of regretting that. But my tuna fish sandwich looks great, and for the cheapest thing on the menu, it tastes pretty good considering.

Savta, if you are reading this, I hope you know I still think of you whenever I eat tuna fish ;) And hurray! You opened my blog successfully!

Anyways, I just walked around the British Museum for an hour, listening to my Rick Steves Guided Walking Tour from my ipod. After just an hour my feet are killing me and with good reason. Yesterday was a very long day, starting at 8:00am. (Yes mom, early for me I know). But being in a foreign country, and also waking up in a tiny, hard bed, gets you out of bed faster in the morning. The day started with a tube ride to Westminster, where I walked along the 2-3 mile road connecting the Parliament building and of course, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and eventually Trafalgar Square and the National Museum.

I had been inside and took a tour of Westminster before with my family years back, but it was like seeing it for the first time. Though I have to admit I wasn't much into the entire room dedicated to pictures of the recent royal wedding (full of teenage girls of course), I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the burial spots of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, and thought it was funny that they were buried in such an important Christian building considered what they contributed to modern knowledge can easily be interpreted as disagreeing with key aspects of the Bible. In a way though it made it that much cooler that the Church would recognize their importance and give them the honor of burying them in their grounds. The National Museum was also so enjoyable I spent more than two hours perusing the art. I quickly was yelled at for trying to snap a picture, but that didn't stop me from pretending to be on the phone and steal a picture of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers", a favorite of mine since reading Vincent, a book on the life of Van Gogh.

Finally I spent some time walking along the Thames river enjoying the surprisingly nice weather (it then rained 30 minutes later of course) and got some great pics of the heart of London, which I hope to upload to the blog when I get back to the hostel a bit later.

For now its off to St. Paul's cathedral for more stereotypical tourist stuff. Till next time...cheers!



- Matt

Location:London, England