The Smalrus Web Site

Ultimately, I went to Starbucks thinking I had found a connection, but I failed. Judi called me because she had woken up early and we were able to to talk for about an hour, which was good because without WiFi, with outgoing phone charges otherwise costly for me, and with a 5 hour time difference, it’s been difficult. But as I told her, she’s talked to me a lot longer than any of the other guys have talked with their girlfriends on this trip.

Around 2:30, Charles, Mike, and I headed out next door to the British Museum, home to the Rosetta Stone. From a linguistic perspective, I find it fascinating that this one tablet was able to bridge the gap between East and West. I spent about three hours touring the museum, though one could probably spend a month looking at everything in detail. Ultimately, you start to notice that all the Roman artifacts are similar and all the Grecian artifacts are similar and so forth… What fascinates me more is not the difference in techniques of Assyrian stonecarving, et al., but the concept that 2000+ years ago, there were actually people that touched these carvings, made them with crude tools and used them for a functional or aesthetic purpose. I mean, in 2000 years, I’m sure that archeologists will unearth our remains and notice that a screwdriver is not much different from another screwdriver, or that a comb is still a comb. But the fact that someone actually used the artifact – that’s what’s interesting.

The museum must have closed around 6, because at 5:30 the docents started to get traffic flowing toward the exits. I went back to the hotel, talked to Professor Flowers and then waited in the lounge until about 7:30. I went up to get Charles and we met up with Mike, Amish, and Mahesh and ultimately Charles, Mike, and I went to dinner at Cagney’s, off Southhampton Row. After Amish and Mahesh joined us later, we all left together, thinking that it was not really a place that we would be eating at again for the remainder of the trip.

We stopped for some snacks/drinks and headed back to the Amish and Mahesh’s room, where I had a Strongbow cider and the other four guys (since Tim was at Stonehenge) had some scotch. Charles put on some Miles Davis and all of us started talking about the university, different courses and professors, and what we’ve done thus far. It was a pretty good discussion and then around 11, we headed up to our room and hung out til we fell asleep.

We walked down to Trafalgar Square, where there stands a monument honouring the Admiral Horatio Nelson. The column itself is rather tall, but the statue is small, making it all look oddly disproportionate. There were a couple of cool fountains next to the monument, but we kept on going, continuing along past the cabinet offices and Downing Street. It would have been neat to see 10 Downing as did Seth and David via our old roommate, however it is ordinarily closed to the public, and was as such on this day.

Keeping on going, we walked by the Parliament building and Big Ben, crossed the Westminster Bridge and the Thames River and then decided to take in a museum. After finding that the Star Wars exhibit that just opened last week was like £16.50, we went the cheaper route and hit the Dalí museum for almost half that price. The Dalí museum was interesting for two reasons: 1) it was more of his later workings and sketches, rather than the usual paintings that are featured in nearly every museum and; 2) it also contained a couple of works in different media, allowing for us to get to see more variety.

When we got out of the museum, it was raining (as always), and we headed back up to Trafalgar Square to the National Gallery. The National Gallery is a lot like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. There are a lot of the older paintings accumulated from various estates, but no real significant works or modern art forms. Admission was free but the temporary Renoir exhibit was an extra £12. We went downstairs to see a couple of the modern art works, but on the whole it wasn’t that interesting. I think the Louvre in Paris offers more.

We left and walked up to Jermyn Street to see all the bespoke shirtmakers such as Charles Tyrwhitt, Pink, Turnbull & Asser, and more. I thought it might be nice to get a bespoke shirt made and Tyrwhitt makes them cheapest of the bunch at £30, but that’s a luxury I might not actually get to take home.
A couple blocks from Jermyn Street is Savile Row. I somewhat expected more from it since a lot of the shops on Old Bond Street seemed to be more in line with what Madison, Park, and Lexington Aves offer back in New York, but apart from a few stores, I thought Savile Row to be a bust. I enjoyed Jermyn Street more. After walking about 4 miles worth without sitting down, we decided to go back to the hotel and get off our feet for a few hours before heading back to dinner.

A bunch of people that have visited/lived in London before recommended going to Brick Lane in Spittlefields for the best Indian food in the city. It took a while for us to find, but once we were there, we definitely had our choice of restaurants, so we settled on Preem. It was good, but nothing you couldn’t find made comparably well in New York (boy, I feel like I’m getting that “New York is the best at everything” mentality).

After dinner, we walked over to Charlotte Lane to The Bricklayer’s Arms, a pub that was recommended to me by my rane buddy, Justin Novick. He claims to have spent many nights drinking pints on the street, and though no one was drinking on the street, it wasn’t hard to find it as the local destination in the middle of a seemingly nowhere corner. An older, bald, toothy man with a goatee – Paul – asked me if I wanted to fight him, but it was obvious he was looking more to have a good time and for some reason, that included a round of fisticuffs. Charles and I had a couple rounds there and then headed over to Night & Day, where Tim and Mike ended up showing and joining us.

It was actually a pretty good night because Charles and I got a chance to talk about our girlfriends and compare stories and highlight the commonalities that actually do exist among women – everything from arguments, the things you do/n’t say, going out with friends, drinking, and more. The more we talked, the more universal truths came out. No matter how nice the girl, no matter how much the guy loves her, men really are from Mars and women really are from Venus. And as Dalí put it, “man has two defects: modesty and women.”

After class, we went out for a brief lunch before taking off to the Bank of England Museum. There, we got to tour around the museum and then were shown a movie about what the purpose of the Bank of England is and how it adjusts the interest rates to control inflation. Since the Bank of England is analogous to the Federal Reserve Board in the US, I think getting inside the museum, seeing the history of banking, and even hearing a more in-depth explanation of the banking system seemed to give me a better understanding of the American central banking system. The docent followed up with a nice informal discussion with us on central banking, what conditions have been like here in England, Eurozone potential, and more. It was actually a real neat experience.

The museum tour wasn’t overly long, so when we were done and everyone else had headed back to wherever, I decided I was going to walk over to the London Stock Exchange before it closed, hoping to get a a glimpse at the NYSE’s transatlantic rival. To my dismay it was actually rather dull, lifeless, modern, and boring, requiring little more than a cursory look before I jumped on a double-decker bus home. Charles and I went to seek a WiFi connection at this small cafe around the block and then out to dinner at Spaghetti House. When we got home, I fell asleep nearly right away.