That, my friend, is a Teapot.

So, if you could not guess by this post, I am back in Deutschland. I had an absolutely AMAZING week in London and I think that the best way to tell you about it is to go day by day:

MONDAY: While planning for this trip I kept having to remind myself that a trip to this foreign country did not involve so much pre-planning, since every thing is in English in England—go figure—meaning I would have no trouble figuring things out. On the flight over, at the airport, on the train and the tube I got this little jolt when it struck me anew that the advertisements were in English and most of the people around me were speaking English. Frankly, it was a really weird feeling to feel so astonished that I could understand what people were saying in my native language.

TUESDAY: Did the whole tourist thing—London Eye (I did not go on it), Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Saint Margaret’s, Harrod’s (I bought some tea—for some reason I felt sort of bad free loading on their amazing interior), Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Wellington Square. Very touristy—most of my pictures are from this day (see the link to the left). If it was within walking distance of the south bank of the Thames, we hit it. The only day that it was cloudy and mizzling—typical for the day that I am taking pictures.

WEDNESDAY: While Shana had coffee with some friends, I spent most of the day at the Victoria and Albert Museum. To all of you who said that I should go there if no where else, were right. It is an amazing museum, however I was not as impressed with the clothing exhibition as I thought I would be and some of the galleries I would have like to see best were closed. (They seem to be in the middle of an exhibit remodelling.) After being museumed out (I was at the V&A from 11:30 until sometime after three), I got a picnic lunch and went and sat in and wandered around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. I also got a start on the sun burn that I am currently sporting.

THURSDAY: Another great day in a week of great days. Shana and I went out to Notting Hill and wandered around. Man, those are some amazing houses. We also walked down Portobello Road. And before you ask, yes, I had the song from Bed Knobs and Broom Sticks stuck in my head for most of the afternoon. Such is the way my brain likes to work. After Notting Hill, we made our way down to Covent Garden. From there we wandered down through Trafalgar Square and passed Whitehall on our way back to the River, where we wandered down in the opposite direction from Tuesday and saw the Globe Theatre, the Millennium Bridge and Saint Paul’s Cathedral. After that wander we went to a play. It is called Landscape with Weapons and the main reason we went to it was because one of Shana’s favourite characters from a show called Green Wing (a British medical comedy-drama a la Scrubs) was in it. And, of course, because when you are in London, you just must see a show. As it turned out, it was the premiere and the play was quite interesting—it is about a scientist’s moral dilemma in the development of technologies that could be used as a WMD: Quite interesting to me, since the scientist was an engineer working on swarming UAV’s (unmanned aerial vehicles). Hence, he worked in the aerospace/defence sector. Hmmm, what am I currently attempting to get a degree in?

FRIDAY: Friday was concentrated shopping day. We went to Oxford Street and made our way down that street. After some partially successful shopping (I bought the aforementioned teapot as well as some books—Victoria’s Wars, Ireland Awakening- sequel to Dublin, and The Interpretation of Murder. I will let you know what I think of them as I read) , but did not see any clothes along what I was looking for), we headed down to Tower Hill to the last of the major attractions that we had not hit: the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Those are two quite imposing structures. It was also Shana’s last day in London. This was very sad, but since she is in medical school, it is probably good that she went home to revise for her exams.

I will pause in my daily recounting here to say that it was really, really great to see Shana again. I had not seen her since the last time I went to Saint Paul (i.e.: A criminally long time ago.) We stayed at Shana’s friend, Alison’s, flat on the east side of London. The tube station that we used was Bromley-by-Bow which manages to remind of both Lady Catherine de Burgh and one of my favourite nursery rhymes, Oranges and Lemons* . After Shana left on Friday night, Alison was kind enough to let me continue to sleep on her couch, since I had three more days left in the city.

SATURDAY: Really the most amazing day, and great timing on my part. From the first time I got on the Tube, I noticed that they were advertising The Boat Race. After inquiring as to what that was, I found out that this was none other than the boat race; otherwise known to Americans as the great duel of the crews from Cambridge and Oxford. I cannot even begin to explain how overjoyed I was when I realised that I was going to be in town for the event. So, I spent all of Saturday down in Putney on the banks of the Thames working on my sunburn and watching one of, if not the, most historic races in the history of sport. Let me tell you, the number of people who where on the banks of the river was amazing (there are a couple pictures of across from where I was sitting to illustrate this, and I was only at about half way… not the starting line or the finish). Granted most of them where there for the party and I heard one group on the Tube back say that they had managed to miss all of the race, but it was still amazing to see that many people there. The whole thing was also broadcast over the radio and television all over the world. Evidently it was aired for the first time this year live in the States on ESPN. Way to go crew. I think we owe a lot of that to the amazing performance of the men’s national squad at the Olympics in 2004. (By the way, I have I ever mentioned that I have also met the US Men’s Olympic Eight? Yeah, yeah, you know how much I like to brag.) Anyway, in case you are curious, Cambridge won both the second boat race as well as The Boat Race. Which is good, since they were heavily (both literally and figuratively) favoured and Oxford has won the last two years.

SUNDAY: And if anything could top off Saturday, which I do not think anything can, my activities on Sunday come pretty close: I went to a couple Easter services at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Which, I have to tell you, is an amazing structure. After church, I continued my sunburned ways by sitting along the river and reading and snoozing.

MONDAY: I took my last day in London slow. I did not have anything planned, so I slept in, watched a TV Agatha Christie movie, purchased provisions for my bivouac at Stansted Airport, and then made my way to Green Park (near Buckingham Palace) to further acquaint myself with London’s many and beautiful parks and read and snooze. A nice lazy day, and since I hate feeling like and looking like a tourist, it suited me just fine.

MONDAY NIGHT/TUESDAY: My journey back to Braunschweig started at ten o’clock Monday night, since my flight left too early for me to get to using the Tube, and the last train to the Airport left at 22:55. I spent a not too sleep-filled night on the floor at the Stansted Airport with at least hundreds of other people. I was quite amazed at how many people were there so late. But it did put me in mind of the article on NPR last year on young people staying overnight at London’s airports because the cheap flights went out early in the morning. Now why does that sound familiar? I got back with no snags, and was way too tired to make it into work like I had been planning. So I spent all of yesterday catching up on my blog reading and on everything that was going on while I was in Happyland.

To summarise my first England experience: AMAZING. And I am trying to figure out the way to get back the fastest and I am thinking of switching to banking or law, since there are not too many engineering firms in the city…. Well, I can dream, at least.
* This is the closest I could find to the rhyme as I know it. In the version I am familiar with the last lines read: 'Here comes a copper to put you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop of your head'. Here and here are a good history and alternate versions, but, again, not quite the same words as I know.