London

I wouldn't say we've had a really good plan for the last half of this trip, in fact, things have been very last minute and ad hoc, but sometimes that works out for the better. Right now for instance, I'm on a ferry. On my way to Estonia. I certainly didn't see that one coming. But here we are., and I'm looking forward to spending the night in Tallinn.

So, to catch up a bit on the last while.

We've been to England twice, or to London I should say. Actually, we transited once on the way to Paris and will again on the way home, so we've been to England a fair bit. I had envisaged beforehand we would spend time in London, and I just presumed it would be longer. But our first stay was two days on the way to Iceland.

This was a quick stop, and we didn't plan to do anything more than organise the trip to Iceland. First business was a trip to the shops. It was so relaxing to be able to order a coffee without loosing something in translation. It put a big smile on my face. After two weeks in Italy, I felt like I could relax. So went spent the whole day in a shopping centre. Trying to buy shoes. We failed miserably, but had a good time. We ate 'Tapas for a tenner', continuing the trend of eating traditional food in the wrong region.

We also got in a quick bit of touristing the next day, seeing Trafalgar square, Piccadilly circus and Leicester square. We drank a bottle of wine in front of the British museum, and saw the arrival of Bruno, or more accurately, the crowd gathered in Leicester Square for him. Saw a show in the west end, it was one of the last nights for 'La Clique', a burlesque/circus acts show, I had a good time at that, entertaining dreams of running away to join the circus.

Then we went to Iceland. And we came back. We spent most of the first day back bickering about what to do fr the rest of the trip. We wanted to try to get to Scandinavia, but thought it would probably be too hard, and too expensive, so we kind of decided to spend another week in England. We planned to get out to the countryside, maybe go to Cardiff on the 8th maybe?

Visited lots more museums. I saw the Rosetta stone at the British Museum, the fabled object from Double Dragon 3. It turns out its real. Actually, I was really keen to see this, its such a cool relic of the past, and what it meant for translating language is quite remarkable. Also saw some more Monet, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, etc at the National Gallery. The National Gallery is a bit like an album of B-sides from chart topping pop stars. Its got all the stars, but none of the hits. But still plenty of good stuff. Also saw a photo exhibit of Bob Dylan portraits at the Portrait Gallery, which was good but quite short. And a trip to the Tate modern, to see... I don't even know what half of t was. There was some rope.

I caught up with Wes for a drink, which was good fun. We went to a few bars near his work (which I got lost trying to find). Yes, the beer is kind of warm and kind of flat. But it's pretty good and a damn sight better than Emu Bitter or VB. And most of the bars we went to would find you drinking outside in the street as they are packed inside. It was nice to see Wes. Its so easy to have a conversation with Wes, and I always have a good time when we catch up. Also went to Brick Lane to get a curry, but it turns out its just like Lygon St with offers of discounts and free wine, so we ate a few streets away at an awesome Indian restaurant that I'll never remember the name of.

Went to Brighton for a day. Its near the sea, the beach is full of rocks and it's expensive for a coffee, but still kind of cool. Got a haircut, which has proved to be fine (with hindsight). Went for a walk down the pier and lost some change into those coin machine games. I used to love them as a kid.

Perhaps the highlight of London, or even the trip so far, was spending a day dragging Liz around bookshops, continuing my quest for a copy of Green Mars. I had previously though my goal complete on our first trip, until I got back home to discover I had in fact bought a second copy of Blue Mars. But this time, with some grit, determination, and visits to 12 bookshops, I finally found a copy. Then I saw another one in Forbidden Planet the next day, but I don't want to talk about it. I am enjoying the book thus far.

Anyway, we didn't have a hectic time, as we planned to spend the next week getting out and exploring the countryside, but I got a message, more a demand really, from Sam telling us to get over to Oslo.

So we did.