London calling

Somehow, I ended up in London this week. It's funny how it happened. A month ago I was desperately wishing for a vacation with Ciprian. Friends were getting away to various locales and I was terribly disappointed that we could not afford to go anywhere. Then, on top of it, my kitty cat has a melanoma on his forehead and I felt like I needed to be home to care for him, not that he needs much care other than trips to the doctor. But I did not anticipate the actions of a friend. She came to London to visit for a month and invited us to join her. Furthermore, she offered to front us the dough to do it. In the interest of her privacy, I will just call her H. H is in London partly to visit her sweetheart and partly to decide whether or not she would like to go to medical school here. I think she is leaning toward a 'yes'. And I don't blame her. This is an amazing city.

Every time I visit someplace new, I think about this....'could I live here?' I inevitably answer 'yes' since I think I could adapt to just about anything, but then I begin to miss NYC and my friends and never end up living anywhere else. Maybe it will happen at some point down the road. Five years from now I hope to be looking for a job as an assistant anthropology professor. Working in another part of the world is most definitely a possibility. And one big benefit about working in the UK is that the pound is worth so much more than the dollar and I would be more likely to be able to visit family in the States than if I worked in say, Nairobi.

But I digress. I am in London for two more days. We are staying in South Kensington in a beautiful apartment. I forced myself to wake up "early" this morning so as to get some real sightseeing in. The past two mornings have been sleepy. We made our way to a couple of museums, but did not get very far. We have spent most of our time in pubs. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I am interested in the history of this city and what it has to offer, and I want to get out and about some more.

On that note, I should run. Finish breakfast, shower, hit the underground. Today we will try to make our way to the West End to see Westminster, Buckingham, etc. No extensive touring, I just want to see the buildings. Then we'll hop on the train again and go to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and other various and wonderful things that probably should not be in the British Museum, but that is another topic. So far, we have seen the Natural History Museum's Darwin exhibition and arthropod hall, and the Tate Modern's surrealism hall. Not a lot! Oh well, we did walk through Kensington Gardens on our first day and hit the Serpentine Gallery, a sweet gallery that had a beautiful exhibition on India. We may travel back to the Nat'l History Museum on Monday. We met a lady who studies moss (amazing) and she offered to give us a "behind-the-scenes" tour. How can I possibly say no to that!?

So today...we tramp about town....the sun is out...could not be more perfect.
Cheers.
P