Tuesday, St. Paul's and Free Musuems

I got up at 8:30 on Tuesday morning to catch up on my blog. When Kat woke up later I made tea and eggs for breakfast, as had become our usual ritual. Over breakfast we discussed our options. Tomorrow would be a big day in Paris so we both wanted to keep our activities to a reasonable level for the day. I wanted to go inside St. Paul's and climb to the top as our big activity, but after that we didn't really have a plan. Kat wanted to find some nail polish to fix her chipped nails at some point. We knew our tube passes would expire today as well. I wanted to go see some of the free museums, but didn't want to drag Kat through them if she didn't want to go. Kat knew I didn't want to hang around and watch her painting her nails and smell the fumes and didn't want to keep me from my museums.

We decided that after dealing with our tube passes, climbing St. Paul's and then getting some lunch we would split up. Kat would get some nail polish, look for some art and a watch, and then go back to the apartment to relax, drink a beer, watch a movie and paint her nails. I would go off and explore on my own and maybe go do the museums I wanted to see. Kat was a little nervous about being on her own, but wanted to try it out. I was excited for the chance to cruise on my own again, hoping to recapture that feeling I had wandering unfamiliar cities on my own.

At the tube stop our passes didn't work, as we had expected. Unfortunately, the attendants at the station were too busy with some equipment failures to help us sort out our problem. Adrian waved us through the turn-stiles regardless and told us to talk to someone else at our end-point. That's one thing about the Tube; it's always being worked on and stuff is always breaking, but they just muddle on through and always have a way around the issues.

We hopped on the District line and got off at Mansion House, a stop we'd visited many times before. We got to the exit point, but our cards wouldn't let us out; again as we expected. Luckily, there was a much more helpful attendant on duty there to help us. His name was Paul and he was cheerful and friendly. He sorted us out with calm efficiency and saved us some money, too. I was just going to get another week long pass for both of us, just to avoid any hassles of figuring out how much to prepay. Paul, however, quizzed us on our travel plans for the rest of our stay, did some quick arithmetic, and then recommended that we buy a simple paper ticket for the day and then put £10 each on our cards for the rest of the week. He ended up being spot on and saving us around £36. Thanks Paul!

With our newly charged Oyster cards and paper tickets in hand, we left the station and wandered over to St. Paul's. I was able to use our 20% discount code we had found on our map on tickets at the door. Inside, we wandered the nave and the side chapels and spent some time at the back where the monument to the United States' help during World War II was. My guide book said that all 50 states were represented on it somewhere. We looked for Oregon and Kat thought that the little wagon train in the stained glass window represented us, but we weren't sure about it. We finished the main floor and headed down to the crypt. As far as crypts go it was rather cheery, well lit, and spacious. Plaques lining the walls and floor of varying shape, size, style, and materials marked the burial sites of many important people from British history. We didn't linger long and headed back up to climb the stairs to the top of the dome.

After doing the Scott Monument in Edinburgh, these stairs seemed roomy by comparison. The ways up and down are clearly marked and separated for most of the ascent/descent to avoid bottlenecks and squeezing. We only paused briefly at the whispering hall to look back down at the nave before continuing our climb. There was one very narrow spot near the top that I remembered from my first visit almost 20 years ago where my mom had had a moment of claustrophobic panic. It was close and I had to duck low and squeeze sideways to get through, but it widened almost immediately afterward. At the top we got shuffled around with the crowd, but stopped long enough to take some shots. We made the circuit and headed right back down. At the bottom we felt like we had gotten our excercise for the day.

It was lunch time so we went in search of food. I had read about a cafeteria in the crypts below St. Martin-in-the-Fields near Trafalgar Square and thought we should check it out. St. Paul's had a cafeteria in their crypts as well, but it was busy and the menu didn't look like anything special. We hopped on the tube again (with our paper tickets) and got off at Charring Cross. Along the way to lunch, Kat spotted a drug store stocked with cosmetics. She dragged me inside with her in search of a French manicure kit. She scoured the store and finally found what she needed, along with some English chocolate bars to try out. We bought the stuff and then found the Crypt cafeteria just down the street. I was disappointed. I had imagined a moldering medieval crypt, but it looked like any other brick lined basement. We decided against eating there.

We were near Covent Garden yet again and my map said that Porter's was nearby and would honor my 20% discount code, so we decided to go there. It was nice. Kat's sweet corn & chicken pie had a huge puff pastry on top of it and my shepherd's pie was delicious. Kat had a fruit beer she really liked and I had another Guinness. We were highly satisfied, especially eating for a discount.

After lunch it was time to part ways. We said our loving good-byes and I made sure Kat knew how to find the closest tube station before we set off on our separate adventures together. Kat disappeared into the crowd of the Covent Garden markets and I headed back to Trafalgar square to start my free museum tours. First I hit the National Portrait Gallery, then the National Gallery. I flew through the rooms. I really didn't want to study any of the paintings or read about the subjects, I just wanted to walk through the rooms, to be surrounded by the artwork and catch glimpses of the past. Plus I was on a mission - I had to check these off my list and keep going; no time to appreciate it.

After the galleries, I headed back to the British Museum. We had done a short walk-through on our first day and been driven off by the crowds. I felt like I had missed some things and wanted to get it done. I powered through the exhibits, taking my time only when I got to the Greek pottery. For some reason, the relics of ancient Greece held my attention more than even the Egyptian mummies.

I looked at the time. We had planned to meet up again by 7pm at the apartment and then do dinner together. We had split up around 2pm and it was not closing in on 5pm. I figured I had about one more museum I could visit before I needed to head back. I looked at my list: Tate, Tate Modern, British Library. I was only a couple of stops away from the British Library and I had read that it held the Magna Carta in its treasure room, so I went that direction. The closest stop was King's Cross/St. Pancras. I got to walk around the front of St. Pancras station and take some pictures. It really is a beautiful old building. When I got to the library, you could still see the train station towering above it from the courtyard. I took some shots, being sure to get the statue of Isaac Newton sitting on the toilet in them, before I headed inside to see some cool old books and writings.

I found the treasure room without much trouble. The British Library is still a functioning public library, but it also contains a few museum quality exhibit spaces. The treasure room held their most precious books on display. Something about these objects, the written word, captivated me in a way that the paintings and other works of art held in the other museums did not. I looked on reverently at Beowulf, letters from Charles Darwin, writings of Shakespeare, illuminated manuscripts, and of course the Magna Carta and its copies. It was stunning. It made me want to go to Washington D.C. and gaze on the Constitution.

I also spent some time in the maps room in the neighboring exhibit room. I've always had a love of maps. There were huge hand-drawn maps lining the walls of the exhibit. You could see how people of early times viewed the world and how their misconceptions and prejudices skewed that view and how that view changed over time. I was very glad I went to see it.

I found Kat back home. She had finished doing her nails and was watching Notting Hill for the umpteenth time. We finished watching it together as we chatted about our day and wrote a few Thank You cards. Kat said that she had looked at more art but decided against buying any and then missed the tube station when she went looking for it. She told me that she suddenly felt weird being alone in an unfamiliar city and that she was uncomfortable so she just wanted to go home rather than do anything else. She navigated her way to Leicester square and took the tube home from there. I felt bad that she didn't have a good time in the city on her own, but she seemed to have enjoyed her time alone at the apartment just fine. Her nails looked pretty, but she was unimpressed with most of the chocolates.

I called and made reservations for dinner at PJ's Bar & Grill, something both my guide book and our friend Jared had recommended. It turned out to be a fancy place despite its bar-like atmosphere. We had some strange cocktails, a bowl of delicious tomato soup, and split a huge plate of steak with three kinds of sauces. We were stuffed with meat by the end of the meal. We waddled home full and happy and packed for our trip to Paris the next morning before going to bed.