The Smalrus Web Site

For everybody else, it was their last day in London.  However being that I made the trip on frequent flyer miles, my flight had a few caveats, enabling me to stay an extra day.  I woke up, had some breakfast in the dining room, and talked with Sedami a little about languages and learning French and the sorts.  Our exams were due in, so I finished some last minute squeezing some effects in my suitcase, went to exchange about £5 of change for a banknote, and headed back to hand in the the exam.  Here are my answers.

Everyone else had started to check out and I figured that since checkout was at 11:30, I might as well move my stuff next store to the Astor Museum Hostel, where I would be lodging for the night at £15.  Check-in there wasn’t until 2, so I went back to the Ruskin and Charles and I went to Covent Garden so that he could pick up a few last minute gifts.  On our way back, we stopped at an iCafe so I could print out my e-ticketing boarding passes and then went out to the Museum Tavern for one last drink together.

I figured it was worth a try to see what Pimm’s and lemonade tasted like.  Luckily, they don’t sell it in the States because it’s not that good.  Tim and his girlfriend had also decided to grab lunch there, but Charles headed out and I had no cash on me, so I decided to head to the Tate Modern and check out the British version of MOMA.

Personally, I found the exterior to look like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.  But the inside of it only had three floors worth of exhibitions, one of which was out of commission since they were readying a new installation next weekend.  So I decided that, since it was free anyway, I would walk around and see what the remaining two floors had to offer.  There was a lot of neat works there, but I did find that since no one was accompanying me and I had no one to converse with on the different artworks, it was not really much fun.

Thus, I decided that I would head all the way across town to see the Beatles’ infamous Abbey Road.  My Oyster card ran out and I didn’t top it off correctly, so I ended up needing to go to the Baker Street stop at the edge of Zone 1 and walking past the Lord’s Cricket Grounds and up Grove End Road.  Surprisingly, Abbey Road is still not much of a tourist attraction, although a couple of girls were trying to snap a shot as on the album’s cover.  The neighbourhood is still residential (and wealthy at that – these houses looked like colonial Britain as in the islands or in Africa), so traffic was still moving and uninterested in the tourists.

I took it as an opportunity to explore a new place in London; one where not many of the tourists were going.  However, I also knew that I couldn’t really stick around for too long, since I wanted to be back near the Bloomsbury area for the UEFA Champions League final, where Liverpool was playing AC Milan.

I left for Covent Garden around 5, making sure that I could take Zone 2 fare, and then started to walk around, looking for a suitable pub to catch some dinner and the match.  I settled on The Freemason’s Arms on Long Acre.  For dinner, I kept up with the Steak and Ale pie and started to talk to some of the people already sitting there and staking out their seats for the match.  These guys Danny, Ben, and Albert were Liverpool fans like most people that showed (well except for Ben, he was a West Ham supporter – but everyone was rooting for the English team, so it didn’t matter).

We all had some drinks and even though Liverpool lost 2-1, it was still an experience for me to be in that pub, rather than by myself in the hostel, at a movie, or at a rock concert.  The only thing I have to say is that since the smoke-free ban doesn’t affect England until July, I found that the smoke was really bothering my lungs.  New York made a smart decision in passing that legislation a couple of years ago.

The match ended with the final ceremonies around 10 and rather than continuing along with the consolation activities, I decided to head back to the hostel, check-in, draw up my bags, and hit the sack for an early evening and early morning.