This weekend, I re-explored London. I set myself a goal after spring break to go to some more of the places in London that I hadn't been yet, but with a cold and a voice that cracked so viciously it would have felt at home in a puberty video, I didn't get too much wandering done during the week. My knock-off NyQuil and I did spend a lot of quality time together, though. This weekend, however, I sounded almost normal and my dear friend from school, Casey, was visiting, so we struck out on the streets of London.
We began with an egg hunt. It's the Diamond Jubilee in London, you see, and there are giant eggs scattered throughout a few different parts of London. I like to imagine the queen, disguised as the Easter bunny, hopping throughout the city at night with a basket full of eggs half her size. I am sure that is not how the eggs are hidden, but don't ruin the mysticism of Easter for the children.
In any case, we started out at Covent Garden, which, despite its proximity to my flat, I had never visited. There were about twenty eggs hidden there, according to the egg map I had printed off, but as we wandered in and out of the Piazza, we only located about a dozen. But we managed to find the most important egg: the dinosaur one.
They even put a ceratopsian dinosaur on it. Because that is the coolest kind. Ever.
We continued our egg hunt in Trafalgar Square, where we found two eggs before seeing Big Ben's clock tower in the distance. I led Casey there to take in more of the conventional attractions of London. After a bit of a tour of that area, we made our way back to my flat, stopping to check out a few more eggs on the way.
Saturday I had yet another optional field trip to Cambridge. Oh, the pomp! Oh, the silly rules about grass! Sure, they've churned out more nobel prize winners than any other institution as I was reminded of at least three times on my visit, but when will they figure out that grass is meant to be walked on? By everyone. Not just the fancy people with fur lined degree robes.
I am sure I am not the first person to say such things. Or surreptitiously step on the grass. I know, it's not as bad ass as peeing on a McCain Palin campaign sign, but it's just as irresistible. When people tell me not to touch things, it makes me want to touch them even more. Which brings us a bit ahead in chronology to the British Museum.
It was my third visit to the British Museum because it's monstrous. I still haven't seen everything in it. But they just have ancient relics hanging around with nothing to stop me from touching them except signs that say I shouldn't. There I have resisted because the British Museum has more legitimate reasons for me not touching their old, pilfered possessions. Half the statues are already missing penises. The museum is protecting the few phalluses they have left from dicks like me.
All penises and grass prohibitions aside, Cambridge was beautiful - mostly because of the weather, which actually hung around all weekend. I was able to give Casey tours of London on foot Friday and Sunday without a coat. Sunday we went to Harrods to marvel at the ridiculous shit rich people waste their money on, stopped by Buckingham Palace, which I had not been to yet, and made our way the aforementioned British Museum before Casey had to catch her bus back to Wales.
I came out of this weekend with my sense of London geography reaffirmed and a pair of sneakers that have finally been broken down by all the walking. I take comfort in the fact that one of their final adventures before being lost to the ravages of travel was stepping on the grass at Cambridge: one last taste of victory.
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