The Accidental Tour of London

June 7 ‐ Oxford

Gin Rummy Score:  92 vs. 192

Well. We’ve seen all of London now. We’re done.

We spent the morning in Oxford. James and Antonia walked us around the city in the morning – we saw an old prison converted into a very posh hotel. We actually walked past a good number of pretty old buildings. This one was another converted hotel:

British Flags

Waving the British flags. Note the periodic table car.

And Zelda photographed some of ye oldey-timey streets

We met up with Jack and he walked us around Oxford

In proper British style, he of course needed a hat

A little after 10 we went to Jack’s house and walked to get pasties, which is british for empanadas, which were also awesome. The pasty shop was in the covered market, which we have never seen bustling, although we hear it is quite a bustle at whatever time we’re not there.
I got an extra large and ate the whole thing. It had spiced ground meat with carrots and onions. Now that is my kind of food.

Then we headed off to the Pitt Rivers museum!

The Pitt Rivers is Oxford University’s museum, and seems to be an anthropology / plunder museum, and it housed all sorts of stolen artifacts from a great many cultures (very neat).

We saw a carved native american Beartopus hat! I've decided if I buy a hat in England, it should be a beartopus hat.

We also saw a room encircled by statues:

Finger Mustache Man is very concerned

As well as the skeletons to a whole menagerie of animals.

This was a tragically invisible-organed puppy-sized elephant. I tried to take it home, but it was awfully heavy....

After the museum, we went to Blackwells book shop. it was huge- we browsed in the languages and linguistics section- Zelda read a french picture book with posh characters smoking cigars and I read die Abenteurere von Peter Hase.
We also saw the Alice in Wonderland store, which was slightly disappointing, though they did have jam marked ‘Eat me’.

After the Museum, we headed on our travels to London!

London

We decided to walk to our hotel. It was quite a hike, but along the way we saw Buckingham Palace,

and Westminster Abbey....

and Big Ben...

and Parliament Hall...

and the National Gallery, which by the way, is literally right next to our hotel

We had originally planned to go out to an indian restaurant for dinner our first night in London, but after the long trek to our hotel (and seeing the pretty scenery just outside our dwelling-space) we decided to have a picnic on the grounds in front of the National Gallery

Zel at the National Gallery Fountain

They also had a giant ship in a bottle.

We raised our statue count to one trillion. This one is a mermaid double-fisting fish-pistols.

Warm wishes from the both of us from overseas!

 

-Ida

Duck Herding

June 5&6 ‐ Oxford

Cups of tea:  3

Oxford is a beautiful town, filled with old buildings and young college students. We are staying with a really fun couple, Antonia and James, who, despite the fact that Ida had seen Antonia once in the past six years or so, welcomed us with open arms.

As we walked around town, me with my dorky tourist camera (strap and all), one thought kept popping into my head: I could get used to this.

Here are some of the highlights:

beautiful flowers at the Botanical Gardens,

duck watching at the park (and, in Ida’s case, herding. They weren’t too happy about that one),

hanging out with our awesome hosts,

and trying to imitate the locals! The resemblance is uncanny, don’t you think?

-Zelda

Au Revoir Y’all

June 4 ‐ Austin

Gin Rummy Score:  0 vs. 0

I took my SATs and then we got all tourist suited-up, backpacks and all.

Then we packed up the car to head to the airport…

…and then we were almost ready to go! Of course, before we could leave, we had to take a few “before” pictures!

We are so excited…

…but it’s still a little bit scary!

-Zelda