The experiences and exploits of a college grad trying to make it in the "real world:" leaving school and friends in New England, moving south, and living with her boyfriend. Watch as I pretend to be an adult.
I asked Elija to write something about London, and he was nice enough to give in to my nagging. Here's his impression of our trip.
London is an amazingly cool city. It is full of old buildings and museums. Coming from America, it feels a little strange at times to be in a place with so much recorded history. There are surprisingly few high rise buildings and skyscrapers especially for a national capitol. The fabric of the old city is amazingly well preserved in places, and not just around huge historically significant buildings. The interiors of the flats may have been renovated a half-dozen times since they were built, but the outside looks much the same as I would imagine it did when they were built. Infill of modern offices and apartments closes the gaps between the much older, mostly brick ones. The public transit system is amazingly good, and no more expensive then taking the subway in Washington DC or New York. We got to stay right off the trendy shopping district (Editors note: That would be King Street) which meant posh clothing stores as far as the eye could see. Londoners are amazingly well dressed when they go to work, but apparently the hip, casual fashion statement of the season was to look like you were hit by a tornado straight from the 70s or early 80s. That and huge furry boots, or cowboy boots. For some reason there is something highly amusing about a bunch of young hip urban types going around in cowboy or Eskimo boots. We had a running joke for most of the week, based on this certain green and white polka dot dress that was in the display window of no less than three trendy clothing shops. The only things I didn't like about London were the air quality and the exchange rate. The streets are extremely congested, and there are an huge number of smokers on the sidewalks. Thanks to our good old war mongering president the American dollar has taken a huge beating on the international market. It used to be about 1.50 to the pound back in the good old days, now it's a little more then 2 bucks. Needless to say most of the nice restaurants were a bit out of our price range, but we did manage to find several good ones that weren't too expensive. There was one really amazing Indian place we found on the internet that lived up to its reputation. The curry was very good, and surprisingly cheap. The oddest dining experience was discovering that oriental restaurants charged 2.5 pounds for a small bowl of plain, steamed rice, which probably cost them a tenth of that to make including labor. The museum were really nice, especially the museum of London and the national gallery. I was disappointed that the medieval section of the London museum was closed, but the rest was very interesting. The national gallery has a very nice collection of impressionist works. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the British museum in time to see very much of it, but we did get to see the Rosetta stone, some Sumerian statues, and the Parthenon sculptures. We also managed to race through the Middle Eastern section but the Japanese rooms were closed by the time we got there. Unfortunately we didn't realize that we were allowed to take pictures until we left. Nick and Phuong were great hosts, giving us a street atlas and helping out in lots of little ways to make sure we had a good time. Olivia is a very cute and amazingly well behaved baby. Their apartment was realy conveniently located right down the street from a tube stop, so we could take public transport everywhere. Going to London was definitely the most fun I have had on spring break.
Libby edited to add: "...and that was my spring vacation, Miss Hoover."
After 22 posted at 6:40 PM
