Your mom and I made plans to meet up with her English friend, Sam, and his long-time girlfriend, Bex. They live in Manchester and graciously made the long train trip to London to visit with us. Sam and your mom met on the deviantArt website way back when, just like she and I did all those years ago.
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| St. Pancras station is a cool blend of modern and classic architecture, kind of like the whole city! |
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| We actually ended up seeing very little of the gray drizzly days that are quintessential London, but today was more like it. |
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| We explored the cute neighborhood around Argyle Square as we waited for them. I'm sure locals wonder why we like these charms, seeing how these are just plain old neighborhoods to them. |
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| They toured us through some of the famous London sights, giving us a new perspective on some of the places we'd already wandered around on our own. |
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| It may just be a chain Japanese joint, but it's a British staple and Sam and Bex insisted we give it a go. It really was damn delicious. |
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| Then it was off to the Tate Modern to take in some art. I don't think any of us quite had the head for modern art, as a lot it struck us as kind of silly. Some pieces were easy on the eyes, though, but I constantly felt like I didn't "get it" enough. |
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| Sam has that absolutely perfect "dry British wit" and was cracking us up the whole time. Here he's fashioned his own piece of modern art by propping up his umbrella in the corner. Quite the bold commentary on modern sheltered life, you see. |
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| The gallery itself was bustling and we appreciated the expansive modern style. |
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| They ushered us to a quaint little neighborhood... |
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| ...with an incredible tiny pub which hit the spot right away. It felt absolutely classic, traditional, and was as relaxing as we needed after a lot of museum walking. |
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| We stepped out on the town for a long night of exploring nightlife. We lost track of time and of place as we let them guide us around. |
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| We stumbled into god-knows-where, where the nightclubs were letting out and people packed the streets. |
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| It was the latest we'd been out, and our hearts skipped a bit when we learned the Underground was stopped. We figured out the bus situation with a little traveller's ingenuity (thankfully the buses take the same Oyster Card as the trains) and made it home in one piece. We planned to meet up with Sam and Bex again for some more art and history appreciation tomorrow. |
