london, part two

I'm back in NYC now, but my clothes still smell like London — the ones I laundered in our flat on Fleet, that is. I open up my suitcase (which British Airways misplaced on the return, so it had the pleasure of spending more time in the U.K. than I did) and I'm taken back to gray skies over Soho, blue Christmas lights in Oxford Circus, Harrods in its gaudy holiday splendor.

The last leg of our London journey proceeded at a slower pace than the first, partly because we were tired from all the walking and also because I think we started to feel less urgency, were able to slow down and enjoy the city more.
On every trip, the BF wants to experience two things: parks and outdoor markets. Not sure what that's about — I'd just as soon spend all my free time in museums (or old churches, see below) but he always seeks out these big public spaces and makes us go there. On Friday we rose early and walked around Hampstead Heath, which is wilder than any public park space I've ever experienced. It was also gorgeous.
After, we headed south of the river and checked out Borough Market, a thriving bazzaar where you can purchase game rabbit, skinned sharks, tubs of sea salt — you know, the usual.
It was also close to the Tate Modern, sort of a modern art playground, with an enormous spiral slide that looped from the fifth floor down to the grand lobby. The States should lift this idea and start to incorporate more carnival rides into our museums — seriously, attendance would skyrocket.


We walked across the lovely Milennium Bridge — a truly triumphant pedestrian space — and landed at St. Paul's, sadly after closing time, but still a sight to behold. The rest of our trip went by in a blur: Taures and his band of SF faeries arrived and swept us into the nightlife, an appropriately big finish to a fantastic journey.

In three weeks it's more travel, this time home for Christmas. But it's 60 degrees in NYC today and doesn't feel like the holiday season at all.