So I woke up at 10 today. That was the best night of sleep and the latest I've slept in in months. The best thing is that I'm fully adjusted to London time now! No jet lag. I guess the secret is to immediately follow the eating schedule of the place you're at, and don't take naps. Just push through until local bedtime.
Interesting thing happened on the metro this morning. We were informed that the Jubilee Line (a line of the metro) was closed due to a passenger incident. "Interesting," I thought. "Maybe someone yakked on the train." We've already run into some dumb drunk Londoners - Last night a group of them saw Sam, David, and me (three Chinese guys) on the metro and started yelling "Konichiwa," trying to get a reaction. I was getting pretty pissed, but we reached our stop and got off the train. Anyway, back to the "Passenger Incident."
Later on the train for another metro line, the intercom came on and said, "The Jubilee line is closed due to a passenger under the train." Uh...Seriously? I guess they don't sugarcoat these things in the UK.
We got off the metro and walked to our first experience of real London food: Fish and Chips! This is one of the only things Londoners know how to cook. Everything else is pretty terrible, aside from meat pies. The fish and chips were bomb. Huge portions, good fries, malt vinegar, and lemon. I probably won't enjoy the ones at Pier 39 anymore.
After the deliciousness we went to the British Museum. This is kind of sad, but I've always wanted to go here after seeing The Mummy. I still can't believe this place is free - I might come back and live at the museum. They have the Rosetta Stone (SO COOL! That's a picture of it up top), parts of the Parthenon, the whole Neriad Temple, Assyrian Lion Hunt Friezes, Mummies, and a whole lot more. I took a bunch of pictures here*. The funny thing is that we saw a bunch of sculptures and friezes from Greece that were missing their heads. Under the pieces, the caption said "The heads of these statues are in Greece." So Greece just has a bunch of statue heads in some room? We spent about 3 hours here and didn't see everything.
Next, we had our second "British Experience": Tea! I got a real cup of Earl Grey, which was pretty darn good. David got a small machiato, and it was pretty small. The smaller the coffee serving here, the stronger it is, though.
We people-watched with our tea and coffee for a while, and then met up with Stefan who got off of work at 5. We kept strolling around London, and walked through Regent's Park, where Queen Mary's Garden is located. There was a huge rose garden here, and a lot of them had really interesting names. I can't remember them now (should have jotted them down but I didn't have my handy dandy notebook).
At 7, we started to head to Ace's House for the prayer meeting. Ace is the director of IBM's Europe division, but you wouldn't know it unless someone told you. Totally down-to-earth, unassuming guy. Anyway, it was really good to be with the brothers and sisters again, and to get a sense of what's going on in Europe. I realized I forgot my bible at the Geh's house (where we had small group the night before), so after the meeting we went to go get it. They realized that we hadn't eaten dinner, and Lucy made us some awesome curry and chow fun. See what I mean? It's pretty cool to have family everywhere.
That's one thing that's really impressed me, only two days since we've been out of the States. I came across this verse while reading my bible on the plane to London: 1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. I never really doubted my salvation, but it's nice to have this little faith-building experience. Like I said before, I didn't "know" these people two days ago, but when we met, there was an immediate connection and it was so easy to talk to them. Like we've known each other forever. Anyway, that's my two cents.
I'm beat. This walking 10 miles a day thing is pretty cool, but I sure am ready for bed by the end of the day. I'm getting some pretty gnarly blisters, too. I should have brought better shoes.
Night!
*Pictures from London are on my facebook page.
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