Unfortunately, this Internet access thing hasn’t worked out quite as well as I had hoped.  The hotel has only one computer, and since I’m too cheap to find and pay for access in an Internet café, this blog suffers.  However, I have been enormously busy here in London for the last week, and I’m finally starting to feel as if I have a little bit of a handle on the place.  Here’s a short list of relatively important things I’ve done:

Friday the 18th

• Arrived
• Walking tour of the city

Saturday the 19th

• National Maritine Museum
• Royal Observatory at Greenwich
• Boat ride up the Thames
• Swing dancing with the Hërrang "swing bus."

Sunday the 20th

• Imperial War Museum

Monday the 21st

• first actual classes
• British Museum
• Swing dancing at the 100 Club 

Tuesday the 22nd

• Windsor Castle
• Eton College

Wednesday the 23rd

• Stonehenge
• Salisbury Cathedral

Thursday the 24th

• classes
• University of Essex in Colcester (for a lecture)
• England v. Portugal at the Rocket

Friday the 25th

• Sir John Soane’s Museum
• The National Gallery

Saturday the 26th

• Portabello Road Street Market

Obviously, based on that list, it probably sounds like I’m managing to be a tourist extraordinaire.  That’s kind of the feel I’ve been getting too.  But the truth is, it’s kind of nice to have the opportunity to take advantage of all this, even if I am just one of a million badly dressed American tourists.  On the other hand, I think that the value in a travel experience like this really comes from doing the little things, and from occasionally straying from the beaten path just long enough to find out something new about the character of the city.

Hopefully, sometime in the near future, I’ll have time to talk about all these experiences a little more in depth.  In addition, I hope to be able to upload my pictures soon, so that I can give a little more storied meaning to these things I’ve been talking about.  Sometimes it’s tough to slow down, even for a minute, especially to get time to blog.  But then, that is the city for you.  Nonetheless, expect more spectacular things here soon.

Posted on June 26th, 2004 by Lee
Filed under: Uncategorized