Last day in London

[xiphias]

We picked up a replacement lapel pin for me from WSET, as I lost mine at work. We then went to the Tower, which was pretty awesome. Ravens are cool.

There are a few things I'm not crazy about in London -- the pretty-much universal closed-circuit camera monitoring, for instance, creeps me out. But, in general, everything's pretty cool.

However, I'm now at the I WANNA GO HOME stage. I've now been away from Boston for about as long as I can really stand, and I WANNA GO HOME. And we've still got weeks in Italy ahead of us. I'm hoping this is just something I'm going to be able to get over, and work through.

After the Tower, we went to Westminster, and saw the Horse Guards in review, and saw Westminster Abbey. We got there a bit before 5, and we COULD have gone in for Evensong, which, I have heard, is the most beautiful Anglican service, but I just couldn't feel comfortable going into a Christian service. We tried to listen in from outside, but not much sound gets out. Still, it was pretty cool to see the choir line up ahead of time for the service, and the older choir members whack a couple of the younger ones on the head to stop them poking each other, and one choir member come tearing around the corner at a dead run because he was late.

We went around that neighborhood for a while, and eventually went more Piccadilly-ward and Leiscter-Square-ward (which is more or less where we are now), and we saw "Windmill Street" and decided to see if that was where the famous "Windmill Theater" (as in "Mrs Henderson Presents"), and there WAS a strip club there called "Windmill International", so there WAS a place with naked women, but the bouncer didn't know if it was the same as the original Windmill.

So we neither went into the Windmill to see naked women, nor Westminster Abbey to hear Evensong. I'm not actually sure about which of those I regret more.

Oh, yeah, and there was a really good upscale Scottish restaurant, so I had haggis and whiskey for dinner. Which was awesome.

My brain has pretty much melted and I want to go home and everything nifty here and I'm still WEEKS away from home but my body is holding up better than one would expect since I'm not randomly bleeding yet which normally happens after about three days but it still could yet happen.

Comments

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

How was the haggis? I was too afraid to try it in Scotland...

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

It's sausage.

That's it.

There's no mystery to it, really.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

A

[(Anonymous)]

Amazing. It was fantastic.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Why were you uncomfortable going into a Christian service? You've been to them before, although you were really young at the time, and you don't seem to have difficulty with Christians coming to Jewish services. Or do you just keep it to yourself?

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Visiting the Vatican and other churches in Italy, I always felt a bit weird. I'm not particularly religious but don't want to be disrespectful of others in their place of worship, by not worshiping or believing what they do. I tend to over-empathize what I think others feel.

Hmm...haggis and scotch. Wish I didn't have to go to work or I'd at least start in on the scotch.

Seriously, a down day, where you can hole up in a room, with some fav dvd's and comfort food might be something to try, if the Go Home thing keeps bugging you.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have a problem with it, and I wouldn't have a problem with anyone ELSE going to Evensong. There isn't a reason for it -- there's no strong religious reason, the way I practice Judaism, for me NOT to go. I just wasn't comfortable.

If I was in London longer, if I had more time to think about it, I think I would have gone. If I find myself in London at about five pm sometime in the future, I may well go. It wasn't logical, nor is it something I think was the right thing to do. And I think some of it may have to do with us expecting to go to lots of cathedrals in Rome.

Mom says hi, by the way.

[rosefox]

I tend to hit "wanna go home!" around day three of being in a new place. I generally spend that day hibernating and eating comfort food, and after that I'm okay.

I hope it passes as easily for you.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Did I randomly post "I wish I'd known you were in London at the time!" on one of your London posts? Can't remember now, it's been a bit of an odd few months.