London

This is way overdue, but finally getting to it.

I got into London the 16th of Feb.

Once I got settled into my hotel I decided to head over to The Victoria & Albert Museum. The V&A is another huge museum, with a collection that includes plaster casts of important architectural pieces (apparently a popular effort undertaken during Victorian period), Japanese Armor, Furniture, silver serving pieces etc.

After a number of hours here I headed out and did a little shopping at Harrod's then I picked up some food at Marks and Spencer. My hotel room had a little refridgerator which came in handy since I was able to buy some stuff to keep in my room. Buying some stuff at M&S saved me from having to go out and spend a lot more money. I decided to walk back to my hotel, big mistake.

Walking around Hyde Park to get back I was getting beat, my right heel was hurting, so it slowed me down. Then about 15 minutes or less from the area where my hotel was I caught my toe on raised piece of concrete and did a total face plant. In retrospect it could have been much worse, I hit my face, hand, knee and probably my gut on the concrete so the damage was distributed. The worst was my left heel, which must have gotten jammed back hard when I fell. Now here I am with BOTH heels seriously strained. This was to be a problem the whole trip in London, trying to cover everything with both heels really stiff and hurting. Favoring the heels fatigued my legs elsewhere too so it just didn't go well. Enough on that for now.

To shorten this up, my next stops were Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, & the Imperial War Museum. Westminster Abbey is quite a place. Impressive design, but the amount of memorials crammed into some of the chapels made parts seem very slapdash. Tower of London has the Crown Jewels, that right there is worth the price of admission. Between the Crown Jewels proper and some of the other decorative pieces you have a pretty amazing collection to gawk at. I love armor and the collection at the Tower is quality. Be sure to check out Henry VIII armor. He was getting pretty portly when that armor was made for him, but the highlight is the cod piece, Henry thought he was packing some serious lumber. Imperial War Museum had a nice variety of vehicles and artillery. The best aspect was the discussions of the 2 World Wars by breaking them into themed rooms with uniforms, weapons and memorabillia. Nicely done.

Now we come to the REM concert. We had found out that there were supposedly 700 Fan Club wristbands sold for the Apollo show. So in talking to Lesley and her daughter Sophie at dinner the night before, we decided to get there really early to get up front. So I got there about 8:40 AM and Lesley and Soph were already there. Not much later Grace and Etty arrived. We stood out there and froze, it was windy and goddamn cold, even the locals were miserable. Fortunately I had good company out there which made it better. Other feaks arrived later, Lucy, Alexandra and many more. So we hung out, taking turns walking back to the shopping center across the street to warm up and go to the bathroom.

The people running the Apollo were just stupid as can be, they had us queueing right next to the door where people had to walk up to get tickets and enter with VIP passes so we had to squish one way or the other to make room. Then of course when it was time to go in they had a hard time keeping people from running past/over those who were in front of them. Of course I got directed to a ticket taker who hadn't mastered the fine art of ripping along the perforation so people were jumping my space. Then as I quickly hobbled into the auditorium they were yelling "NO RUNNING" my response was "I Can't fucking run, idiot". Fortunately Annabelle ,who I met in line, saved a spot for me. I was next to Matea another big fan from Croatia, she called both the opening song and the beginning of the encore, nice to have knowledgable fans next to me. The crowd there was how I pictured a "typical" European crowd. People on the floor were singing along way more than US show, and they were bouncing around. It is fun in general, but it can be annoying. I know I was getting crushed by the masses surging a couple of times not bad, but I can imagine what was happening to smaller people in rows behind me. It was a better setlist than Paris, but they still didn't vary it nearly enough. Still, great show. After the show I bid farewell to everyone and head back.

The next day I went to the British Museum, but my legs were shot and so was my energy so I didn't get to too much there. The next day.. I headed home. I really didn't want to go home, I wanted to get my legs back under me and see more of London, but another time. Overall this was an amazing trip, the next tiem I would like to have friends around a bit more, always better to share the experiences. But if not, I'm stil going back