After a long day of commuting by plane, train and Tube... after walking all over the Tower of London and Piccadilly Circus, fewer things are more appreciated than a comfy king-size bed. Lisa and I went back to the Hilton and slept like royalty, waking up early and refreshed for our first full day in London.

After showering and dressing, I made the fateful decision to make a cup of tea using the provided electric teakettle. Now, I'm not a moron - the kettle only had one button, and I know that most British electrical outlets have an on\off switch (which I made sure was in the "on" position). After going all Homer Simpson on it, the damn thing still wouldn't work. That sucked. I asked Lisa to remind me to ask the concierge about it later.

Lisa and I hit the Edgware Road Tube station, where we were reminded that today was not a holiday - the trains were jam packed! We headed out to Notting Hill for breakfast, where I knew of a little place called Café Diana. This place is just a little creepy. It's dedicated to the late Princess of Wales and almost every single square inch of wall space has either a picture of the princess or a newspaper clipping of the same. What's even scarier is that the place was open whilst the princess was still alive... in fact, just behind Lisa's head was a personal letter signed by Diana herself, addressed to the owner and staff of the restaurant, thanking them for sending her flowers on her birthday. I was kind of spacing out, looking at a picture of Diana standing in the restaurant next to a Middle Eastern looking guy, when the very same Middle Eastern guy snapped me back into reality by asking if we were ready to give him our orders. Weird.

But Diana isn't the reason I wanted to go there. Oh no. I wanted to get a traditional English breakfast, colloquially known as a "fry-up". Lisa made do with scrambled eggs and chips (fries) whilst I feasted on two fried eggs, two rashers of English bacon (which is also known as "Canadian bacon" here in the US), three (yes, THREE) hot-dog sized breakfast sausages, baked beans, toast, hot tea and Diet Coke. What makes the English breakfast so glorious is that even something seemingly innocuous like toast is actually deadlier than a Marlboro. You see, most of what is called "toast" in England is actually fried bread, as if you were making a grilled cheese with no cheese and a single slice of bread. And of course you have to put more butter on the toast, right? My arteries actually cried as I ate, but I didn't care. Sometimes you eat a huge breakfast and just want to go back to sleep; other times you eat a huge breakfast and want to climb Mount Everest. Thankfully, this time was the latter of the two... which was good, given our next destination.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (locally known as "the V&A") is located in the Kensington neighborhood in west London - near the world-famous Harrod's department store. According to Wikipedia, it "was established in 1852 as the South Kensington Museum, following the success of the Great Exhibition of 1851". Unlike The British Museum - which focuses for the most part on 'larger than life' antiquities like the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone - the V&A's collections are based in the applied and decorative arts - sculpture, glass, jewelry, church plate, armor, weapons, clothing, textiles, musical instruments, wrought iron, stained glass, metalwork, ceramics and furniture... things that you are likely to own.

Well, maybe not. Although most of us are far more likely to own a piece of clothing than a Rosetta Stone, most of the museum's collections are nevertheless the antiques of the rich. Which presents an interesting paradox: Although on one hand it seems almost offensive to look at the opulent playthings of the rich and influential of centuries past... who'd want to look at the common people's stuff? Think about it - a hundred years from now, are people gonna want to look at Princess Diana's wedding dress or my lousy Old Navy sweater?

Damage to the exterior of the V&A from WWII.

Lisa drinking Diet Coke out of a glass bottle -
the way God intended!

The stereotypical English "phone box"

Shot of the V&A's exterior

Shot of the V&A's exterior

*     *     *

One of the things I was really excited to see was "Tipoo's Tiger". As you might know, I am fascinated by the British Empire, especially when it comes to the British Empire in India. Several of the books I have read on the subject mention "Tipoo's Tiger", which is an automaton (a self-operating machine). It was built in 1795 for the Tipoo Sultan, the King of Mysore. The Tipoo was a thorn in the side of the English until May 4, 1799, when he was killed defending his capital of Srirangapatnam from a combined army of British and Indian troops. Incidentally, one of the English commanders on the scene was Arthur Wellesley - the future Duke of Wellington who would give Napoleon his final defeat at Waterloo.

What makes Tipoo's Tiger so interesting is that it's a model of a tiger (the Tipoo's symbol of power) ravishing a "European" (i.e. British) soldier. The tiger included a bellows that mimicked the sound of a tiger growling and a man moaning, but unfortunately past "restoration efforts" have damaged the bellows beyond repair and the tiger is now silent. There is also a full-fledged organ on the inside of the tiger (if you click on the picture, you can see the keyboard running down the side of the tiger). It's just one of those objects you've heard about over and over in books but have never seen in person,.. It was really cool to see it!

*     *     *

Whew - that's a mouthful! And to think, the handful of pictures above represent only a tiny fraction of what we saw that day, which in itself was only a teeny, tiny fraction of what the museum has to offer. If you want to do the V&A right, you have to plan for multiple days there. Alas, we didn't have such a luxury. Here are a couple of pictures of the "Grand Entrance" to finish off the V&A pics:

All in all, the V&A was great, but I do have two small quibbles with the place: 1) fix your maps, they're confusing; and 2) if you "no longer provide lockers" for people to put their coats and bags in, why are the lockers still there and why is the signage saying that we can rent one for £1 a day still up? Get with the program, folks!

Anyway, by now we had spent the entire day at the V&A and were starving. It was then that we decided to go to one of my favorite restaurants in the entire world:

The Star Kebab House is located in Earl's Court and is a short (long) walk from the Earl's Court tube station. There's nothing particularly special about Star Kebab - they don't offer food that no one else does, nor is it cheaper than any other place in London - but there's just something about the place... the food *is* cheap and it's just sooooooo good! Star offers a huge variety of samosas, kebabs, pakoras, papadoms, curries and burgers to hungry folks until 5am on the weekends.

Now you have to understand that kebab stands are as common in London as Waffle Houses are in the South, so to native Londoners Star Kebab House must be "no big deal". In fact, the employees were laughing at us when we took the two pictures above. But still, it's great stuff! With my first bite, I made a bizarre hiccupping sound... my eyes got really wide and I remember saying something to the effect of "My God - all the spices have finally caught up with me!" hehehehehe!

Seriously, the last time I was at Star I was a a little drunk and feeling adventurous. I asked the guy for the spiciest curry they had. The conversation went something like this:

"I want the spiciest curry you guys have!"
"That'd be this one", the employee said, pointing to a dish of curried goodness.
"OK then, hook me up, man!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"That's this one you know... it's really spicy!"
"I know, man! Gimme that!"
"You sure you wanna do that?"
"Yes! I want spicy!"
"But it's really spicy...."
"I know, I know! I want spicy!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"Oooooookkkkaaaayyy then..."

I'm surprised that the damn curry didn't melt through the Styrofoam container on the way back to the hotel! I remember sitting on the bed and eating it... within two bites I was sweating like I was in the last mile of a marathon and my face was as red as a strawberry. Lisa asked if I was OK, and I replied like a stoner desperately trying to hold in the last teeny bit of smoke... "I'm fine, really"

Ah... memories!  Anyway, we finished the kebab goodness and walked back up Earl's Court Road to take care of some business: I bought some stamps, then stopped in at Ryman's to buy some postcards for the peeps back home. After that we hit the Internet café to call the parents and check on our email. On the way back to the Tube station, I stopped in at a little corner shop and bought several cans of beer and some Diet Coke. We hopped on the Tube and got off at Edgware Road, stopping by the food hall at Marks and Spencer for some tasty treats, then walked back to the hotel... only to find that the hotel had been invaded by teenagers from Nebraska! It seems that several marching bands were to perform in the London New Year's Day Parade and they all decided to stay at the Hilton. Wonderful! What had been an pleasant, sedate British hotel was now something out of spring break. Pimply faced teens were running around like chickens with the heads cut off, while all we wanted to do was go back to the room.

Once we finally made it back to the room, things started off OK. I opened a beer and started filling out the postcards. You can even see a picture of Lisa working on the postcards there on the left. But then one beer led to another. And another. Soon I was hungry again. I opened my snacks - a "British ham and cheese" sandwich, some "Red Leicester and Spring Onion" crisps and a small block of Red Leicester cheese... which just made me thirsty again. So I drank another beer. The next thing you know, I'm on beer number four (remember, these are around 24 ounce beers, so by now I've had like 8 standard American beers). I'm starting to get into my "drunken Andy Rooney" stage ("You ever notice that British people are supposed to keep to the left when they walk, but they never do? Why is that?") Lisa, of course, wasn't innocent, either. She had a couple of drinks, and they next thing you know we're getting all Andy Rooney together ("You ever notice that this hotel has 2 German language TV channels but only 4 English language ones? Why is that? And why does Sky News run the same news stories for like... three days in a row? And how come if the UK money is finally on a decimal system they still have 20p coins? Wouldn't 25p coins make more sense? Why is that?"). Eventually we fell into a drunken slumber, but not before I took a few gem pictures:

End of Day 2. Click here to go to Day 3!