To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

A few Hyde Park pictures are you know where. Baby swans! Eeeee! There was a guy who had a squirrel eating out of his hand, but I didn't catch it on the camera. Ah, well.

( London )

Pictures are in the "London in February" gallery here. Can someone who has more experience with LJ's gallery feature tell me why my pictures upload in something that is not the order I tell them to, and why they won't move around no matter how many times I click the move-around buttons?

And I was going to have a few videos of us skating (courtesy Whitney and Ellen's camera), but technology is conspiring against me today, so perhaps tomorrow. They're fun videos, really. Yousendit just doesn't want to work tonight. *grumbles yet again about no FTP access*

Okay, there's no easy way to break this up in sections, so I'll just put the whole thing under on LJ cut. Pictures to follow in the next post!

( Nine days in Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and London )

Bajillions of pictures here, mostly from London, but also some from Exeter and one leftover from St. Ives (thanks, Ellen!).

( In and around the hotel )

( The London Zoo )

( Regents and St. James's Parks, plus general madness )

( Us and a random sweet cat we ran into a few weeks ago, courtesy of Chandra, plus random other pictures courtesy of Chandra and Ellen )

Well, London (yet again) was fun. I'm beginning to feel like I spend more time there than in Exeter. Meep.

It snowed on the way there yesterday morning. Yes, snowed. Well, all right, flurried for an hour or so and didn't stick, to be accurate, but still. What happened to that whole Gulf Stream thing? It was pretty, though. The train took a different route than we've been on before, and this one was much prettier. We went over a trestle bridge like the one over the Kokosing in Gambier, and went through a whole bunch of farmland. It still looks like the middle of fall here, with only a few trees completely bare. I saw some crows flying low over a harvested cornfield that would have been a neat shot in a movie (much as I seriously dislike the Screenwriting class, it's gotten me into thinking cinematically at times) or just as a photograph.

The hostel we stayed at was pretty nice; it was right next to King's Cross, which is nice as it's the station with the most Underground lines running through it, as far as I can tell. We were in an eight-person room with four other people; we all got the top bunks, which was...entertaining. There's a movie of me attempting to get down and failing rather miserably. (Thanks, rowdycamels.) I was not made for top bunk sleeping. The only bad part was that it was frigid in there at night; apparently hostels don't believe in heat, and these single-paned windows that are so common are absolutely useless at keeping out cold. (Seriously, here in my dorm room? I feel breezes through the closed window. So sad.) And all they had for bedding was a thin sheet and a fleece blanket that wans't much thicker, so even with pezprez's sweatshirt and my coat spread over me, I still woke up a few times shivering.

Anyway. We went and looked at the Egyptian stuff in the British Museum, which was fun. Saw lots of mummies, the Rosetta stone, a couple mummified cats... Went to the gift shop, of course, and may have gotten a gift or two for certain people. Hee. All in all, I think I liked the V&A better, but then again, we only saw a few rooms of this one. If anyone has recommendations for certain parts, I'd love to hear them for next weekend.

Last night was the London Symphony Orchestra, and they were awesome, even if we were late because of various punctuality issues. *raises eyebrow* They played a Tchaikovsky violin concerto with Joshua Bell as the soloist (he's amazing) and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. As an A/P fan, I of course thoroughly enjoyed that one, and totally recognized large parts of it. Now I need the whole thing on CD, instead of just their free dance music from '98. Also, I liked the Barbican venue itself; it reminds me of TPAC, only nicer. It had the same long, long climb down several flights of stairs to get to the bathroom. ;) (We had very nice first balcony seats that were only £15. Wonderful.)

We spent this morning at Camden Town Market, buying more Christmas presents. I ended up with some stuff, too...a pair of UK flag socks, specifically. And the night before, at this Scottish shop (I thought of you, spockette!), I ended up with this adorable little mini teddy bear that has a tartan cap and is playing bagpipes. He's musical, too; press his bagpipes and he plays "Scotland the Brave." Hee. And yes, I am collecting quite the bear collection. I have three stuffed ones and one ceramic one. I need to stop now.

Our train back got delayed for some reason, and after detours through Bath and Bristol, we ended up back at Exeter half an hour after we were supposed to. Waaaaay too long on a train. Bleh.

None of my pictures turned out well. I didn't take very many this time anyway, so it's no great loss, I suppose. If I can salvage any, I'll post them, but...eh. I think I need to go take a nice long nap.

In the words of Ellen's sticker, I [heart] London.

This trip was a lot better than last time (which was wonderful as well, don't get me wrong) because a.) it was longer (four days instead of three), and b.) we didn't try to pack things in, and took more of a relaxed approach to seeing things, 'cause last time, whoa, we were exhausted. (Of course, we are going back two weekends in a row two weeks from now...)

( Thursday, in which I ramble a lot about Phantom of the Opera )

( Friday, in which I have a museumgasm )

( Saturday, in which we are tourists and I am bloodthirsty )

( Sunday, in which we spend far too much money )

Pictures from this trip, as well as the St. Ives trip last week, will be up soon. After I write this script for Wednesday's class, I am officially taking the week off to recouperate from the last two weeks and prepare for the utter craziness that will be next week and the week after. Ugh.