London: Day 3

Oct 15 - arose at 5:00 am and washed my hair and face.  Listened to BBC radio until breakfast was delivered.

After breakfast, I walked to the tube station and went to the Tate Modern Museum. Such a cool building - an old power station of sorts. There's a HUGE room they do amazing installations in, but there's construction there now, so no installation. Bummer.

Spent 5-1/2 hours looking at amazing modern art, including exhibits by Mira Schendel and Saloua Raouda Choucair. Wow.  Just wow.  Might have to go back there next week and take it all in again. Whole hours spent on surrealists, minimalists, impressionists...

Had a light lunch at the museum and shopped for a sketchbook and a great book on modern art entitled "Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That."

After the Tate, I walked to the Globe just in time for the museum closing.  I'll go back there tomorrow.

I sat by the Thames and watched boats and watched the street performers by the Millennium Bridge. There was a gypsy-ish band playing La Vie En Rose and The Saints Go Marching In.  Seems those were the only songs they knew. There was a Mickey Mouse guy doing evidently nothing but waving.  There was a hippie in dreads making huge bubbles.

I walked far down the south bank and looked at the shops by the National Theatre. By then I was exhausted and my hips hurt, so I went to the huge tube station at Waterloo and took the tube back to Earl's Court.

There's a huge controversy regarding the World Cup Playoffs in that they upped the number of seats sold to the Polish national team (the away team), so they could sell more tickets.  The tube was full of Polish fans in red and white and chanting things in Polish and just being loud and boisterous.  The police looked nervous and rushed to shush any fan getting too rowdy, but all in all, it was amusing.  Made the ride home entertaining.

I stopped by the Blackbird Pie and Ale Pub just down the street from my hotel and had a pint of red ale as well as a Blackbird House Pie.  Yum.  Soft flaky crust with chunks of steak, mushrooms and onions and stilton in a white wine gravy.  Served with cabbage and mash.

In bed early again.  Exhausted.