London, England (Aug 11th to 14th)

I actually fell sick and spent all of the 11th and much of the 12th unconscious in bed. I think it was more exhaustion from all the walking I'd been doing than anything else. Lesson learned - don't push self so hard, I'm on vacation after all. A and K flew in on the 12th, so I was no longer on my own. Our first meal consisted of the most expensive bowl of soup in the world (for me at least). We went to a chinese restaurant near the hostel and ordered the set lunches (5 pounds) which came with soup and an entree. The soup was excellent, thick and chunky. But, still recovering from my illness, I had next to no appetite, so I barely touched the fried rice. Get this though - they wouldn't let me pack it away. Have you ever heard of such a policy at a Chinese restaurant?? It wasn't as though they didn't have the containers, they did do take-out orders. I don't know what the reasoning behind it is, but that is how (with exchange rate of ~2.2) I ended up eating the most expensive bowl of soup ever.

The next day, we three met up with S from nano who had just flown in from Spain the night before. Our day in London started at the Covent Garden Markets after having bought theater tickets for the night. We ate Cornish pastries and watched the crowds. The market itself was smaller than expected, and didn't have so much of interest.

Our next stop was the British Museum. It has a very impressive central hall and even more impressive collections. This is mainly owing to it conquering so much of the known world and then 'acquiring' said world's artifacts.

Its collection includes the Rosetta stone (shown here), much of the Pantheon's friezes and statues as well as parts of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. That last one was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Mind-boggling.

After the museum, we went to the National Gallery for the hour before closing time. Dinner after that (Indian food) before heading to see our chosen musical - Les Mis. We sat two rows behind the orchestra pit but it was every but as good as I'd remembered.