Day Four: Thursday September 6

This day certainly had it's twists & turns. I had, what can only be described as, a California wake up call. At 5:30am there was a large rumbling sound that became louder and louder while my whole room began to shake. The Underground was officially back on schedule & the damn thing was right beneath my hotel room! This rumbling sound started happening every fifteen minutes, then moved up to every five minutes. There was no way I could sleep through this and my trip wouldn't be fun for much longer if I couldn't get any sleep. I went to the front desk and politely asked for a room change up to a higher floor, away from my current side of the building. The hotel staff here is probably one of the best I have ever encountered at any hotel I have ever spent the night at. They told me with a smile, that it was no problem & if I leave my luggage with them before 10am, they will get me a new room that would be available after 2pm. I had breakfast, went back to my room & packed everything up. I dropped the luggage off at the front desk & went out to do some more sightseeing, not knowing what kind of room I would get when I returned.


I decided to go check out the Tate Modern Museum. I had heard that this is the 1 museum I would have to see. I took the newly reopened Underground to a stop that my map said was closest to the Tate. This is the section I would like to call: "Scott goes the wrong way......CONSTANTLY." Once off the Underground, I proceeded to go in exactly the wrong direction. I had to backtrack my steps on more than one occasion. If I was supposed to go left, I would go right, then backtrack my steps and then go straight instead of left. The trip to the Tate was from hotel to museum supposed to be 45 minutes, but it took me 2 hours!! I finally arrived at the Tate and spent several hours there. I ended up having a great time there and saw a lot of artwork from the likes of Picasso, Monet, Pollock, Warhol & many many more. I had never seen so many Picasso's in one building! At times there were 2 right next to each other! I could have spent more time there really looking at every single thing there. There is one exhibit I just have to tell you about. There is 1 case there in which a single can the size of tuna fish sits. The name of the exhibit was "Artist's Shit." The artist canned his crap into 40 containers, labeled them, signed them & made each one exclusive by individually numbering them. The artist, whose name escapes me, was making a sarcastic comment about the art world and how anything can become "art." He was right too, the British museum bought the single can in the case for $22,000 pounds!!! I should have thought of that idea years ago!!


After the Tate, I walked to the Millennium Bridge, sort of a modern tourist attraction. I have no friggin idea why though....it's just a narrow industrial looking pedestrian bridge! All it needed was a display case of canned crap & it would have been perfect.

After the bridge, I went to check out the Shakespeare Globe theater. I had heard that it might be one of the best places to ever see a Shakespeare performance. It was built on the site of the original Globe theater. Unfortunately, had I gone there first, I could have gotten tickets, but by the time I arrived the show was sold out. I went across the street and decided to go to Starbucks. The main reason I even mention this is because I will forever remember this particular Starbucks for giving me the very worst coffee based drink I have ever had! I had to buy a bottled water just to get the taste out!

Around now it was way past 2, so I decided to go back to the hotel and check out my new room. Once back, they gave me my luggage back & the key to my new room, one floor up. I got to my new room & smiled. Even though it was basically the same size as the previous one, this one was worlds better & I made a point of profusely thanking every single member of the staff who helped me out. As I had only 3 hours of sleep previously & I had hoped to stay up and watch the football game on TV (which I didn't know if it would be on, after all it started at 1am), I decided to take a small siesta.

I woke up after a few hours & made my way downstairs & had dinner. After dinner I ended up hanging out again with Trishia & Jon (from the previous nights conversation). We ended up talking until 4am!!! I even forgot about watching the football game! I am very happy I met these 2, for they have really made my trip here even more fun. Jon is married and visiting London on business from a town north of London. Trishia is from California as well and is in London briefly before traveling this weekend to (I think) the southern part of Paris for school until December. I couldn't ask for 2 better conversationalists to enjoy my evenings with. Well, tomorrow I am going to go see the Tower of London & London Bridge.