We Take Ourselves With Us

We had only two goals today, both involving the Tower of London: (1) see the Crown Jewels; (2) ice skate at the Tower.  So, we were a bit leisurely in our path there. On our way to the Tube, we found that it was five pound Monday at My Old Dutch Pancake House .  Whoop!  Pancakes as big as manhole covers, on sale ... you had us at pancakes. After a failed attempt to book a "Ghost Bus" tour for the night (a possible 3rd goal), we decided to hop into a British cab driven by a cabbie on the job since 1968!  In addition to having " the Knowledge ," he was also a licensed tour guide so we had him drive us around a bit on the way to the Tower. We zipped around Buckingham Palace. And Mr. Nathanson (our cabbie) took us to a "secret" side entrance, where--as an RAF veteran--he talked the guards into taking a quick photo rather than shooing us away by marching back and forth. He took us past the Horse Guards ...

Another morning, another cocooned Penn.  The transformation into nonstop energy Penn begins with the emergence of one ever-growing foot :) Sunday, we set off for Stonehenge.  After an extended comedy of errors in which we insisted the coach did not have the four seats we paid for and the tour operator did.  This went back and forth for a while, which is odd, since settling it via empirical evidence (counting seats) was kind of simple.  Finally, two freeloaders were forced off the bus, and we got four scattered seats for the journey to mystical Stonehenge. But first ... sheep! Then, the sun breaks over Stonehenge.  It's historical, mysterious, and cool.  On the voyage there and back, I did a Mercury Prize two-play of Alt-J and James Blake --perfect Brit-y, trippy music for zipping back and forth in time. In the end, though, it's pretty much all there is in the middle of this field (well, outside of the sheep).  So here ar...

Our long day wandering through the history of the Doctor, clearly took its toll.  At 10:30 Saturday morning, the whole crew was still wrapped in duvet cocoons and still sound asleep. Eventually, we made our way into the Cote  off Kensington High Street, where two of us could have a late breakfast and two of us a proper lunch.  Boy, we can certainly "inundate a table with crockery" as our server remarked.  We made our way from there to the tour bus office via the TARDIS near Earls Court. Followed by some magical Boris bikes. Our goal, to engage in the most touristy thing ever: the double decker bus tour of London .  Because we're Upstaters, the fact that it was about 40 degrees out did not deter us for one moment from taking to the open, unheated top of the bus. We caught all the usual sites, plus some early Christmas decorations. Including the world's largest snow globe in Piccadilly Circus. ...