London, My Favorite City (so far…)

When I arrived back into London last week I met up with Gloria and Lee, who were in and around London on a tour for a week. That afternoon, they wanted to go and visit Westminster Abbey and I wanted to go to the Dali Museum, so we caught a cab down to the river and broke off for the afternoon. The Dali Museum, on top of being 10 pounds to get in, wasn’t nearly as good as the one I had seen in Figueres, Spain. That was probably because Figueres was his home town and they had most of his famous works there. This gallery was a lot of sculptures of paintings he had done, with only a few of his actual works.

Later, I met up with Gloria and Lee for dinner before we went to see Billy Elliott that night. I really enjoyed the show, even though when I had first heard the storyline it didn’t seem that interesting. The basic storyline is a kid named Billy Elliott grows up in a small mining town. His father wants him to take boxing lessons, but he accidentally stumbles into a ballet lesson and decides he enjoys that more. The story goes that he wants to do ballet, but his whole family won’t let him and he finally gets accepted into one of the best ballet schools in the country. A subplot that is going on through the whole thing is the government is trying to nationalize and close the largest mine in this city, which would put several thousand people out of work so the union is fighting it. I don’t know if that’s the best description or not, but I liked it.

The next day I visited the British Museum, which is one thing anyone who comes to London has to see. It’s gigantic and could possibly take a whole day to see everything. I spent about 2 hours and only saw the first floor. There was a really good exhibit about the Egyptians. I think I spent half of my time in there. Then there were African, Native American, and Asian exhibits that were really cool. Here are some pictures I was able to take. I took a lot, but these are some of the better ones.

The next day after I got back to my hostel, I went with a few friends over to the Camden markets. This is a huge market and you can pretty much find anything there that you would want, no matter how random.

During my time in London, I’ve come up with 4 things you have to do to look like a Londoner. First, you have to dress nice all the time (usually a suit and tie), even if you’re only walking up to the grocery store or something. Second, you always have to have headphones in your ears and act like you are oblivious to everything going on around you. Third, every time you’re on the tube you have to be reading one of the 35,000 free newspapers passed out everywhere. Fourth, and probably most important, you always have to rush like you’re 2 hours late to the most important meeting of your life, even if you’re only having a casual stroll through the park. It reminds me of the way New Yorkers are. If you follow these 4 steps, you too can look like a Londoner.