FEB 4-7 LONDON, ENGLAND

FEB 4-7 Last Stop: LONDON

Well, this has taken entirely too long to finish up, so I'll just sum up by saying I had a wonderful time in London with good friends Phil & Sarah and let the pictures do most of the talking. Phil at one time was our bassist, and his wife Sarah is from London. They are fantastic hosts!

They took me all over London...

First, Sarah & I went to Liberty Department Store where we played dress up with high priced jewelry, scarves, and sunglasses, prompting one or more clerks to ask if they could help us in that "Don't touch" kind of way.

Liberty has beautiful displays in a great old building. Since it was February, they were getting ready for Valentine's Day...

After shopping, we went for cake in the crypt--Phil & Sarah know I like to read gravestones so we had some cake & coffee and walked around reading the gravestones that covered the walls and the floor.

Sarah ponders whether her coffee is too beautiful to drink...

Our favorite gravestone discusses the piety and virtue of the late Edith Bilson but does not leave out mentioning her "conjugal affection." Way to go Edith!

Afterwards, we had a walk through Trafalgar Square and Chinatown on our way to a dinner splurge at a great little French restaurant. If I had been blogging about this in a timely manner, I might even remember the name of it.

Street performer in Chinatown:

I took this picture without looking, because contortionists really freak me out. This guy dislocated his shoulder to get his entire body through a tennis racket and I can still hear the sound it made. Ick.

The next day we went to Camden Town, which is possibly the greatest stop on the Tube, and the best people watching spot I've ever encountered.

You see all types there and it's crowded and there are all kinds of stalls of cheap t-shirts and cool bags and shoes and hippie dresses, and God knows what else. It's insane and at one point got to be a bit much so I decided that it was time to relax and try smoking the shisha for the first time.

It was Phil's first time too. We went with apple.

After a bit, we were pretty chilled out. If I lived in London, I might take the tube here every Saturday and watch the world go by. You can't see it, but from where we're sitting here, we heard the Grease soundtrack playing from the hot dog stand next door, saw punks, hipsters, tourists, business types, hippies, etc. walk by, with a view beyond them to a rave fashion store with bouncers and lots of metal fabrication on the outside. It was like several worlds colliding.

Later that day, we made our way to the Tate Modern, where Phil educated me on some modern art pieces and we both got really freaked out by a video installation that ultimately gave me a migraine.

This double-decker bus pulled up in front of St. Paul's Cathedral just in time for my perfect London photo:

The Sunflower Seed Exhibit at the Tate Modern.

(The artist has since been arrested by the Chinese government. Boo.)

Viewed from above:

And up close...

A look across the bridge...

And there you have it. Another great vacation. Planes, trains, and automobiles in the reverse order got me back to Denver where I was happy to see Randy & Diego.