england #9

I REALLY need to quit dilly-dallying around and FINISH MY TRAVELOGUE. Or whatever this is. Because it’s gone on forEVER and soon it will be Christmas (I’m finding that even harder to believe than usual – I think because we’ve had such horrible weather it feels much more like January or February, and like Christmas was far in the distant past) and best of all we’re going to our lovely Charleston sometime in the next week. My work schedule is all up in the air — I’m off all of the week after Christmas for sure, and we’re off Friday for sure, and we can take off next week as soon as we get all our graduation madness cleared up, which consists of getting the “Duuuuude, you did NOT graduate” letters off to all the little darlings that didn’t get their deficiencies cleared, and thus did not graduate. Or who failed required classes this semester. Thanks to the horrendo weather last week, exams got pushed up an extra day so grades were later getting in so the final grade reports are probably going to be late getting run. They were hoping for sometime tomorrow, and if that’s the case we should be able to get the letters done and emailed by sometime Tuesday at the latest. In that case I can take off Wednesday. So we may go to Charleston Wednesday-Friday. Or we may go next Sunday. All of Baker B’s nieces are coming to his mom’s house for Christmas from their various far-flung homes, so we can’t go to Charleston ON Christmas like we’ve become so fond of doing. We’re having to figure out when we’re going where. It’s hard, especially when I don’t know exactly when I’ll be able to leave. Oh, well. It will all work out. But all this is to say, there’s a lot going on very soon and I need to finish this. I can’t believe I haven’t even finished the London part yet. And I don’t want to rush through it — not because I think everyone is finding it totally thrilling, but because I’m really enjoying writing about it, and having this record. I of course kept a journal while we were there, but this has pictures.

So all that just to get to the actual More London part.

The day after Kew Gardens, we set off bright and early – as always – to the British Museum, where we were actually getting to meet OD’s very own Tall Guy! I was SO pleased that worked out. I wasn’t really expecting it to – he doesn’t live in London. But, by happy circumstance he was there for an art exhibition. Tall Guy is getting all KINDS of press lately for his excellent comics, and especially for Psychiatric Tales, which has already been published in England and is now getting published in the US by Bloomsbury. I TOTALLY recommend it. He uses the graphic form to explore mental illness. It’s amazing. And…

 

It was in the front window of Gosh Comics on Great Russell Street right across from the British Museum!

 

How cool is that?!?

SO we met Darryl at Gosh Comics and had tea and got to catch up and it was fantastic. We were hoping MargUK would be able to make it too, but she couldn’t get to London this weekend — but we got to meet her in Nottingham on our last night so that worked out too. Anyhow, it was really great meeting Darryl, and he took us on a quick tour of the British Museum before he had to leave to catch a train home. I oddly enough didn’t get a picture of him — why did I not take one with him in front of the bookstore?? Who knows!!! But Kim took one of both of us at the museum so if I ever get copies from Kim I’ll post it. To prove we both exist!

The British Museum is amazing inside –

And amazing outside too –

 

But we didn’t stay very long after Darryl left. I think we were both eager to keep moving. We had SO MUCH TO SEE!!!!

Next on the agenda was St. Paul’s Cathedral.

See the ring right above the top of the dome? (Obviously that picture was from later on, but it’s far enough away to get a better look at the dome)

 

I went all the way up there. Kim and I both went to the ledge that’s right under the dome itself below all the little squares, but you can also go all the way to the little ring-shaped area that’s immediately above the dome itself — and I went ALL the way to the top.

But of course we toured the inside of the cathedral first. Sadly – TRAGICALLY — they don’t allow you to take pictures inside the cathedral. That was really really difficult. It was absolutely stunning, and I could hardly stand not being able to take pictures. Torture!!!! We did get to have a very interesting audio tour. I highly recommend that too. But.. no pictures!!!! You can go to the St Paul’s website and see some of the inside, but honestly it’s nothing like seeing it in reality. Pictures totally don’t do it justice. So I’m sure if I had been able to take pictures, I would have been disappointed in them. But, still – WAAAHHH!!!

I more than made up for it on the top of the dome, though. It’s a long walk up to the top of the dome, and you go through very narrow little passageways to get there. It’s kind of claustrophobic. Kim is a little afraid of heights, and although she was okay with the first level, she didn’t try going all the way up. Which was definitely for the best. Not only was it very very very high -280 feet, 528 steps from the ground floor — you also have to go up a VERY narrow spiral staircase to get all the way up there. A very very narrow spiral staircase. It was so narrow and so spiraly that I was getting kind of weirded out and claustrophobic myself by the time I finally got all the way to the top. And then once you are on the top, you’re on an extremely narrow ledge and if you want to pass someone as you’re walking around, or they want to pass you, you have to really squeeze past each other. It’s a little unnerving.

But the views were unbelievable.

This is from the first, lower level:

Kim thinking, “it’s time to go back down now!!!”

 

This is what I faced going all the way to the top. Narrow open spiral stairs.

 

That got progressively more narrow the higher I climbed. By the time I got to the top, my big American feet would not fit on the steps and I was having to turn them sideways. I was VERY glad to finally arrive.

But OMG the views!!!

I stayed up there for AGES. It was all I could do to drag myself away.

And now I must drag myself away from OD, and get ready for bed. Next stop, Millennium Bridge and The Globe!