London’s been fun. We spent 4 days here taking in the basic sites. London is cool and all, but the most impressive part was probably that we had 4 days of absolute sunshine. It’s been beautiful here. The local papers even talked about the heat wave that’s been disrupting everyone’s life.

Aside from the remarkable weather and the usual stuff, we noticed a few cool things here:

#1 The first is actually not very cool. Everything costs twice here what it does in the states. a can of coke is $2-3. We saw Pirates of the Caribbean at the (rather nice) cheapie movie theaters with a student discount for $40. that’s just the tickets. The bus is $3 and the subway is $7 a trip. Day pass on the subway for 2 people: $25. People look a bit thinner here – because they can only afford walking and a cup o’ noodles. Speaking of movies, you get assigned seats (which we moved from because we’re Americans) and there is literally 25 minutes of ads before the movie starts. Oh – remember that some of Pirates was filmed in Dominica? The bog scene with the witch is definitely the river we were on. cool.

#2 Spending an afternoon sleeping in Hyde Park is more fun than walking around museums. Although, we saw the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum. Mary thinks that’s super cool. They also have a Moai from Easter Island. It’s a little kiddy one. Kinda cute, but not so impressive as the mondo ones on the island.

#3 We are being followed by the film industry. Minding our own business taking pictures of the London Bridge, two helicopters spun into the viewfinder. Right in front of the bridge, one came down and picked a car off a barge on the river and then swung it around in front of us for 15 minutes. The second copter was the film crew doing an ad for the new Opel Corsa. Then we’re looking to go see Pirates and there’s a huge crowd in front of the theater. It’s some kind of premier for Stormbreaker(?) and there’s paparazzi cameras everywhere. We just missed the big stars and only got to see some girls that we don’t know the names of. BUT – I saw a picture of Ewan McGregor taken not 5 minutes before we showed up on the camera of one excited girl. And another had his autograph. Sue excitin.

#4 Italians know amore. The BBC holds a summer concert series at the Royal Albert Hall called the Promenade or commonly “Prom”. We saw Mozart’s opera “Cosi Fan Tutte”. The title translates to “All women behave like this!” I expect the literal Italian is more like “they’re all the same”, but the printed program has the first translation. Mozart was very wise and is my newest hero.
Oh, the concert was broadcast live on BBC3 radio, so our clapping was ‘heard round the world.