Adventure 2013: London

The whole reason I planned this supposed European Adventure was to staff two events in London, an Angelic Mediumship and an ACP class. So I had a specific date that I had to arrive for the classes. That day just happened to be June 4th and class started at 10am. Well my bus got into Victoria coach station at 9am. Google maps told me it’d be about a 38 minute walk and I was like cool I’m a fast walker and I need the fresh air. So off I walked. I got there just before class and all worked out perfectly. I was tired as hell and dozed off in class but Bea rescued me and we got coffee. And we all know coffee works wonders. So I made it through the first day of class and headed to find my hostel. 

Little did I know it would legit be the worst hostel I’ve stayed in. I booked it because it was on the other side of Hyde Park since I wanted to walk through the park on the way to class in the morning. And duh it was cheap. Well I was put in a 24 person dorm. Ick. The beds were 3 high and lucky me I was at the top! So I had to climb up with my backpack on and what fun that was. Check it out…

Sketch right? Well I had gone to bed early because I was like I’m tired so I’ll get extra sleep. It was a good thing I went to sleep ay 7 because the dorm was loud as hell from midnight till like 5am!! WTF! So I was tired when I woke up the next morning but I checked my bag into the luggage room and left to get breakfast before class. 

After a second night in the shitty hostel I checked out and moved to a hostel that was conveniently right next door to the College of Psychic Studies which was where class was! Perfect right? 

Now between checking out of the shitty hostel and into a nice hostel it was my day off between classes and so that meant it was time to sightsee!

Before coming to London I had started looking up cool things to do and random things to see. One of the things that I thought would be really cool would be to find the 7 Noses of Soho. Urban legend has it that if you see all 7 you’ll have good luck. Now I know why… I found one.

Or maybe two…

But this one is rumoured to be the spare nose to Nelson’s in Trafalgar Square. Not really though because all the noses were part of an artist’s project to prove a point about surveillance cameras in public areas. I like Nelson’s Spare Nose story better.

I went to the Drop Dead store for my brothers.

Had Lunch in my favourite spot…

Trafalgar Square! It’s my favourite spot in the whole of London

I bummed around the British Museum….

I happened past the Horse Guard during the changing of the guards….

Saw the Tames Lions….

And Cleopatra’s Needle. Which has a rather cool story to go with it. You see it was gifted to England in 1819 to commemorate Lord Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and Sir Ralph Abercromby at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801. Britain was like cool thanks so much Egypt but we don’t want to pay for it to get transported here so keep it safe. In 1877 Sir William James Erasmus Wilson, a rich dude, forked out the 10,000 pounds to transport it over. So it was dug up from where it had been buried for almost 2,000 years, put into an iron cylinder (it was 28m (92ft) long and 5m (16ft) in diameter. This cylinder was put on a raft contraption that was to be towed to England by the boat Olga. In the Bay of Biscay a storm made the cylinder get out of hand so they cut it loose and reported it  "abandoned and sinking.” Not the truth since it was picked up four days later by a Spanish boat. It was taken to Ferrol Spain for repairs and after a salvage claim and negations and a new towing vessel it was finally brought to London! Horray! Originally it was supposed to go in front of Parliament but that was put down so it ended up on the Victoria Embankment on 12 September 1878

"On erection of the obelisk in 1878 a time capsule was concealed in the front part of the pedestal, it contained : A set of 12 photographs of the best looking English women of the day, a box of hairpins, a box of cigars, several tobacco pipes, a set of imperial weights, a baby's bottle, some children's toys, a shilling razor, a hydraulic jack and some samples of the cable used in erection, a 3' bronze model of the monument, a complete set of British coins, a rupee, a portrait of Queen Victoria, a written history of the strange tale of the transport of the monument, plans on vellum, a translation of the inscriptions, copies of the bible in several languages, a copy of John 3:16 in 215 languages, a copy of Whitaker's Almanack, a Bradshaw Railway Guide, a map of London and copies of 10 daily newspapers." Wikipedia gave me that wonderful list of items. 

I enjoyed wandering the streets and taking pictures of everything…

Then it was time to settle in for the night. Only 8 beds (2 of which were being used) and an bathroom all to ourselves! 

So I pulled out my travel journal and was going to be perfectly happy with catching it up. Then the guy I was sharing the room with comes in and we start chatting and it turns out that he was going to ACP! Crazy “coincidence” right? Well there is no such thing as coincidence. It was nice to be able to just chat about things it was sort of like a pre class prep time.

So my next 3 days were consumed with helping out at the ACP class. Which is always way too much fun. And the whole time I remember doing my best not to plan my time after London in case I spook a grand adventure. Well I shouldn't have worried about a grand adventure because the universe already had it planned apparently.

After saying farewell to Bea and Charles I snuck in one more day of sightseeing that started early. So early that i god some amazing picture of Buckingham Palace with 0 people around.

So 24 hours after deciding I was going Australia I was in London Heathrow for the night and excited as hell about starting an adventure. In the morning I was off to New Jersey for 6 days before my grand adventure started!

Perhaps some of this adventuring fun had to do with this...

It's possible...

 Cheers,