january 11 1997 - day sixteen - london, england

last full day in europe.
today was a good day. i had a decent night's sleep even though we started out early as usual. the first thing we did was catch the tube to camden, a peace-love marketplace up north. it is a great place. there was a lot of weird crap for sale there, but there was a lot of neat stuff too. one store in particular caught me. it was called 'the vintage magazine co' and it's my favorite store in the world. they had everything from star wars paraphenalia to a 'shaft' t-shirt. it was great. i also found some great clothes like an orange, rubber shirt. pretty cool, right?
party in camden market
anyway, we headed back to liecester square again to get tickets to another show. this time, 'laughter on the 23rd floor' with gene wilder. we ended up going to the matinee. wilder is amazing. it was just a great show. i want to make it a point to see all of neil simon's plays. 2 down, a million to go.
before the show, geoff and i had just enough time to climb to the top of st. paul's and look at the city. it was a fantastic view. after spending some time at the cathedral, we went to the tower of london and to tower bridge. it was pretty neat because i remember that area so vividly. like i was just there. it was at the tower of london that geoff was hassled by an old, french woman in a hat store. apparently she didn't like him. not sure why. it was good comedy. from there i met dave and sara at the theatre.
tower of london
give way, sucker!

after the show i met back up with geoff for some hagen-daas and we finished up our shopping while the other two went to another show. our shopping took all of 20 minutes, so we went to harrod's, which was closed...again. still never been. we walked down past the v and a museum and the natural history museum and caught the tube back to picadilly. we still had a lot of time to kill so we went to a place called rendevous. at rendevous, geoff was again acosted. this time, by a fat, cockney that was, shall we say, a little slower than us. we'll just call him, 'jolly mr. shabby.' we left. but not before i introduced caramel hot chocolate to the english population.*****

walking around liecester at night makes me realize how interesting a city london is. black is the fashion. scary people are everywhere like mr. shabby and the hat wench. street performers are on every corner and are not that great as a whole, and there are a lot of people. it's surprisingly warmer here, though. it's the furthest north we've been. i guess that's just the charm of england.
well, we go to gatwick tomorrow to fly home. it's been an interesting and great trip. i'll summerize and wrap up later. cheers.

*****while i have no proof that i was the first person to ever order hot chocolate with caramel syrup in england. the girl who took my order, certainly acted like it.

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