TTWW: London day 2

Our second day in London was Miles's work conference (the reason for coming). He left early in the morning to get there on time. After he left, I slept in for another 3 hours which really helped me to get adjusted to the time zone and feel more refreshed since I hadn't slept well prior to him leaving. Originally I had big plans for a busy day in London without Miles, but sleeping in cut that short.


I started off by heading over to Harrods. I knew Miles wouldn't be that interested in perusing an extremely large "mall." Granted, Harrods is much more than that, but still. However, at first I got distracted by the big H&M that was nearby and ended up doing some shopping. After stepping into Top Shop and Zara, I finally ventured to Harrods.


It was pretty confusing to me at first. It's not like most American malls where there is an open space in the center, around which all the stores are located. I guess it is like that in the sense that the Egyptian Escalator is in the middle and everything branches off from that. But you can't really get your bearings that well since everything is closed off and you can't see multiple stores at onces. Anyway, I kind of just wandered to begin with checking out all the extremely expensive items. The lip handbags pictured below were 400 pounds +. I wish I'd known more of what I should have tried to see, because I later heard the hat section is a lot of fun to explore. (Imagine William and Kate's wedding with all the crazy hats the guests wore).

They had all kinds of incredible things in this department store. Like an art gallery...

...and a Christmas store...

...and my favorite...a huge section they have dedicated to Harry Potter. They also had some of the dresses Hermione wore on display.

After spending a decent amount of time there, I decided I should head out to see if I could hit the Museum of Modern Art on my way to meet Miles. On my way over there, the tube let me out by St. Peter's Cathedral.

This is the building I thought was St. Peter's at first. (Yes, laugh away...I didn't know what I was looking for).

Then I turned and saw this: 

I thought, "Oh...what a cool building. It looks like our capital buildings do." And then I turned back to the other building. After a few minutes, I decided I must be wrong and walked toward the correct St. Peter's. I was totally awed by the sight when I came around and saw how big it was.

I enjoyed my walk past it while taking in all the protesters (occupy London stock exchange). Miles and I read an article later that week that stated multiple of the higher up clergy at St. Peter's ended up resigning over the protesters. I guess they were getting a lot of pressure from the city about whether or not to continue to allow them to stay on the grounds outside. Some of them didn't want to be in the middle of it, so they just quit from their positions. Pretty crazy.

After taking my time walking around, I realized that I was not going to have enough time to go to the museum and still meet Miles on time. (Later, I decided this was untrue). I walked toward the Millenium Bridge (a foot bridge to cross the Thames).


I liked seeing the International Headquarters for the Salvation Army. (Miles made fun of me for taking a picture of it).

This was a street performer on the walkway between the Cathedral and bridge. I thought he was pretty cool.

A couple pictures of the Millenium Bridge. You can see the Tate Modern (where I didn't go that day) on the right side, across the bridge. 

Then I walked along the river to get to the hotel where Miles was presenting. I thought this sign was pretty gross...and rather telling of how disgusting the river looks and how dirty I thought London was in general. Seriously...every night I would go home and blow my nose and my snot was black. I know...so gross. I guess it was from the dirt and stuff flying up in the tube stations? I don't know. 

A view along the river.

I eventually found Miles's hotel and sat down to let my feet rest. After a while of not seeing him (or any business people leaving the hotel) I wandered downstairs and found him. He was chatting with a Brit about his presentation. After a bit, we left to go find dinner. We had heard good things about the Indian Cuisine in London and asked the concierge for a suggestion. He told us about a place called the Bangal Tiger that was nearby. It was a good meal. And while some things were better (the nan specifically) than the Indian we get in Provo, we thought it was fairly comprable and in general kind of pricey. Not to mention the jerk waiter asked what we wanted to drink. I said water, and didn't realize he'd be charging us 5 pounds for the bottled water he poured us. Miles had even attempted to stop him from doing it and asking if it was tap, but he ignored Miles and gave it to us anyway. Ah well...another lesson learned - Always ask for tap water if you don't want to pay an arm and a leg for bottled.


We were both pretty tired after that and headed back to the flat. However, we first stopped by a grocery store to pick up some food for meals for the next few days. It was while we were grocery shopping that I realized that I was feeling strange about being in London as compared to other places I had been in Europe. I was expecting things to feel more foreign, but found myself staring at numerous American brands of food items. I think I was a bit disappointed that it felt so familiar, but at the same time it was nice to have the comforts of home.


Some differences are the bread. Most of it was really light and airy, without much substance. (At least I couldn't find any hearty breads). They also have some yummy rice puddings of all different flavors that we frequently ate for breakfast. And of course, they have WAY better chocolate than we do. Although, Aeros were suggested to us, and neither of us liked them and ended up giving them to our hosts. Another difference is these lovely flavors of Pringles...(we stuck with Salt & Vinegar).

After carrying our heavy load of groceries home, we crashed.