The Brave Little Illustrator Goes to Europe PART 6

For all of you Sherlock lovers, eat your heart out: 

That's me standing next to the big guy himself. And if that wasn't enough to boil your biscuits...

Yeah, that's me in front of THE Speedy's next to Sherlock's apartment as seen in the current BBC show "Sherlock." And we ate there for lunch too. Later that day, Who did we go see? Yes.

That's a rack of a bunch of Dr. Who stuff... We went to the "Official" (?) store located on the east side of London, complete with a backroom "museum" of authentic Dr. Who paraphernalia. This place had official comics, novels, movies, DVD series, CDs, creepy photos of the 70s Dr. Who, helmets of the cybermen, action figures, and on and on.

And there's me next to one of the previous Doctors. You can't see it, but I'm in front of a sign that says, "This booth featured in the movie 'Dr. Who and the Daleks.'" But where are the Daleks?

Right here. Complete with plunger arm. That paper there says something like, "Do not take photos unless given permission." Did I get permission? Only after I took the photo... heh heh.

Speaking of strange stores, we passed one where this was apparently the advertised fashion. I'm not sure if the Wario suit really comes like that or if you're supposed to be fat in the first place. Or pregnant.

The Tower Bridge is all decked out for the Olympics, and I'm there to see it like a boss.

Because apparently they are the most dangerous people in the area.

Found the RIGHT Abbey Road! And here I am in front of the studio.

The wall under the fence surrounding it had all these names graffitied onto it, so I added mine.

And I wrote this there while I was at it. Don't get it? http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0823592/#Actor

And after alot of fussing and dodging traffic, we recreated the Abbey Road image... more or less.

We passed a restaurant today and I felt like I had to share this. Can't say I ate there. I think you can guess why.

Found the Peter Pan statue at Kensington Gardens as well. Paid my respects to it as you can see.

The Brave Little Illustrator Goes to Europe PART 5

This weekend we took a visit to the British Library. We visited a gallery that held the original compositions of Handel, Schubert, Beethoven, early publications of Shakespeare, original copies of the Magna Carta, original pages from Leonardo da Vinci's workbook, and hand-written first drafts of some of the Beatles' songs: Hard Day's Night, Help! Yesterday, and others. While feeling this Beatles-y mood, we set out to find Abbey Road, and find it we did! We felt so proud of ourselves...

Until we realized that it wasn't the right Abbey Road. 

Bummer.
Sunday after church, a group of us headed to the Kensington Orangery to have the British Tea Time experience.

When in doubt, pinky out.

Eating some of the tiny finger sandwiches that came with the full-out tea time set. There were a total of four: cucumber, ham and mustard, egg and mayo, and smoked salmon.

Also included were an assortment of tea-time pastries...

And a scone with butter and jam. 

This is me with Kensington Palace in the background - apparently that's where William and Kate are going to move in soon and it's some sort of big deal.

This is all of us that went out to tea with the Orangery behind us. The tea time was an interesting experience and I'm glad I tried it, but I don't think I would do it again unless I had alot of money and some really close friends and here's why: it was crazy expensive. The tea time set that we got was supposed to be for 1 person, but it cost the equivalent of what would be about $35. On top of that, the service was very deliberately slow. Because the Orangery (and pretty much the majority of London restaurants) can demand higher prices for meals and food service, and because of the general culture of the UK, they don't rely on the turnover of tables like we do in the states. So mealtime conversation lasts much longer, which is obviously more comfortable with people who are closer friends.