Yes! You know you were waiting for it... another half-assed photo thread featuring cell phone pictures of middling quality. My partner and I just got back from a week in the UK, where we visited London, Cardiff, Bath, and London again just for good measure. I can't wait to report to you the many exciting things we saw and did. For example, I'm pleased to say that I will never again be able to view an image of the iconic Tower Bridge, one of the world's most recognizable landmarks, without thinking to myself that I pissed in the north tower. Likewise Hampton Court Palace where, after reading Henry VIII's edicts on how to properly use the toilet off the throne room -- the King did not wish to hear others' bodily functions and they were required to cough to hide any erstwhile plops or whistling farts -- I was inspired to use the restroom there myself. And while we're on the subject, we also viewed King William III's velvet toilet there.
Meanwhile, considering that Europe is the arbiter of world fashion, I can report to you the looks that will be
de rigeur in America next year. We can expect jean shorts with the cuffs, such as they are, rolled up exactly two turns. We can expect unflattering, high-wasted, tapered-leg mom jeans -- as well as unflattering, mom jean overalls. We can expect floppy hats. Basically
this. And that was on men and women alike. Get ready, America! Europe wears it a year before we do!
...Unless, mind you, this is what fashionable young men and ladies in New York and Los Angeles are already wearing this year, in which case carry on. Sorry to have disturbed you.
Moving on, I can also report that, sadly, it it still considered
extremely unfashionable for a man to have an ass in London. Therefore, most men are still wearing indescribably unflattering skinny jeans and skinny pants, of the sort that compress your ass -- should you have one -- into a compacted mass of tissue the density of a bowling ball, thus rendering you flat as a board from shoulders to ankles. Occasionally we would see a rebellious soul daring to wear jeans or dress pants that showed off their ass -- in the case of one handsome African gentleman in line ahead of us at an ice cream shop, nothing short of surgery could have gotten rid of his ass -- but these were depressingly few and far between.
And I have to say to London that we really do need to have a talk.
Look at this, London. Look at it. It's called a tea urn and it is used to brew commercial quantities of iced tea, both sweet and unsweet, for sale in restaurants. We learned that Europe remains the land without refills, the land of eternal thirst whenever one is eating in a restaurant... That is, of course, unless one requests tap water. Request tap water and you'll get it, served refreshingly lukewarm, but you'll usually be able to cajole the server into another bottle. Sometimes even a pitcher! Sometimes, if you're lucky, even with ice! Nevertheless, America, and particularly the South, is light years ahead of Europe when it comes to providing adequate quantities of refreshing beverages, at the proper temperature, in restaurants. I will hand it to you though, London. You have discovered and incorporated the concept of the restaurant bathroom into your lives. This concept -- and follow me closely here, it's a bathroom
inside a restaurant -- still eludes New York, and is, in my frank opinion, the only thing that keeps New York from being a truly great world city.
But you didn't come here for sardonic commentary. You came for pictures. And here they are. I'll follow the trend I've seen here lately and put up a day's worth of pictures from our trip at a time, but keep them all in the same thread so I won't clutter up the forum with a bunch of different threads.
This was our first night in London, after a nine-something hour flight that arrived more than an hour late. We took off from Charlotte and were out over the ocean when we had to turn around and land again in Raleigh. Some lady in the back of the plane was having a medical problem. We had to land and get her off and into an ambulance before we could get going again.
Day 1: Friday, August 31 -- The Usual Blithering of Pleasantries
Did you know the National Gallery stays open late on Friday nights? We went in search of the Monty Python foot, which is located in Room 8, and comes from the painting
Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time by Agnolo Bronzino. After we found it, we toured the rest of the museum. Hopefully we can find prints of these two paintings, which we both liked quite a bit.
Then we had ramen and went for a stroll.
Then we went back to our hotel. This is the view from their rooftop bar.
That was our first night in London. The next day we headed off to see more of the country. Once somebody says something, I'll put up pics from the second day soon.