London pt. 2 and my Danish birthday

Sunday morning we woke up and I discovered that our kitchen was not supplied with a spatula, so I got to make scrambled eggs with nothing but a whisk. It worked surprisingly well. After that we headed out in search of coffee. Jay had found a good looking café in Soho, so that's the direction we headed. I am not cool enough for Soho. That being said, it was super fun to walk around in and people watch. One description of Soho that I saw was "Where Kink Meets Drink." So yeah. While walking around we saw this beautiful tribute to the victims in Orlando. It was too perfect not to take a picture. 

After coffee, we wandered around the Covent Garden shops and found  expensive (and fantastic smelling) perfume at Penhalion that I've got on my list of "things to get when I come to London with money" list, and we found an adorable toy store that was almost all shadow boxes and paper theatres and some tiny music boxes that I loved (I desperately tried to think of a way to transport them safely and failed). The other amusing thing at Covent Gardens is that it was still pretty early and the buskers were trying desperately to draw crowds. "Step right up for the award winning Covent Garden Magic Show. Why don't you stop for a minute and watch, I need an audience, no? Okay I'm going to just keep going and maybe an audience will happen. All right then!" or "It's a really good show, I promise, I've seen it!"

On the way to Soho, we passed a cavalry guard, this sign, and shortly after a police horse

 At that point we'd spent enough time that it was time for lunch, so we headed to La Polenteria, which is an entirely gluten free Italian food restaurant back in Soho. It was awesome. The waiter asked if one of us has celiac disease, I raised my hand, and he said, in a heavy italian accent, "welcome to paradise." He wasn't lying. The menu is well labeled for all allergens, so I had no trouble avoiding dairy. We got polenta sticks with bacon and ginger to share, then Jay got a lime pasta with prawns, and I got polenta gnocchi with an avocado cream sauce (non dairy, there were other delicious things on there, but I don't remember much, I was too busy enjoying it). Afterwards we headed down the street to the gelato shop. Unlike some of the other gelato shops I've seen, this one had ~8 flavors of sorbet, rather than the usual one or two. I got chocolate and pistachio, Jay got strawberry and lime-basil. All was delicious, but the pistachio sorbet really blew me away. I think the fat in the pistachios makes up for the lack of milk. I don't think anyone would have guessed that it was dairy free.

After that we headed toward the British Museum. At one point I looked down one of the streets we were crossing, saw the words "Harry Potter" and dragged Jay in that direction. What we found was a shop set up by THE graphic designers who designed all the paper goods for the Harry Potter films (posters for Weasley Wizard Wheezes and The Quidditch World Cup, Book covers, bottle labels). They had it all on display over three floors (along with some of their other graphic design work) and it made me feel happy and warm, and a little sad that the films are over. It was wonderful. All of the prints are available for purchase, but they're a little on the pricey side (very high quality prints), large, and there was no way we could transport them. I couldn't have brought myself to roll one of those up into a poster tube. But they ship. My birthday is Tuesday! Jay pointed out that he heard that I got a lovely long trip to Europe for my birthday. He's right. But there's always Christmas! I just gotta narrow my choices down to one…

The closest I'm likely to get to that play any time soon

After that we headed to the British Museum, home of the purloined riches of ancient civilization. The Rosetta Stone is there (It's a LOT bigger than I thought, over a meter tall and almost a meter wide) as well as parts of the Parthenon, and lots of Egyptian statues, and some cool Greek pottery. The Egyptian statues are just mind blowing, It's amazing to think these things were carved 3000 years ago by such skilled artisans and they survived in such good condition to this day. 

Statues "rescued" from the Parthenon

Hercules battles the Nemean Lion on a Grecian urn

I also realized that I don't know nearly enough about the Assyrians. They had a bunch of amazing relief panels taken from Assyrian ruins. I think in grade school we learned about mesopotamia and the fertile crescent and then skipped straight over to Egypt. They never really discussed the Assyrians themselves.

One of many Assyrian relief panels. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Close up of one of the Lamassu (human-headed winged lion, protective deity) that flanked the entrance to the palace at Nimrud

The museum was amazing. We didn't even come close to seeing the whole thing (good thing its free). We were feeling museumed out, so we found our way to an Underground station and tubed over to Tower Hill. We saw the Tower of London and crossed over Tower Bridge, then walked along the water front on the southbank. We were both pretty exhausted and hungry then, so tubed back to Waterloo, stopped at the pharmacy to get Jay a better knee brace, found the means for sandwiches, and crashed for the remainder of the evening in our room.

Crossing Tower bridge

Tower bridge from the south bank 

The Tower of London

Monday morning Jay woke up and started working early. I woke up a few hours later with enough time to eat breakfast and pack my bag before we needed to get out of the room. Fortunately, there was a table Jay could work at downstairs. After a quick run to the grocery store so that Jay would have a lunch to eat, I headed out on my own to explore some more. I went inside Tate Modern and explored a little bit then crossed over the Millenium Bridge to see St. Paul. I wandered around the City for a bit. It was lunch time and the weather was gorgeous, so a lot of people had come outside for their lunches, so people watching was prime. 

St. Paul's up close

The dome of St. Paul's

In the garden at Cross and Bones (an old pauper's graveyard that I stumbled upon). It's believed to have been the burial site for some 15,000 people. It is NOT that big. 

A view of the shard at Cross and Bones

Around two I headed back to the apartment to meet up with Jay (he started working early so that he'd be done at two), we strapped on the backpacks, and walked to Liverpool station (via the Guild hall, cool old building). 

We caught the train to Stansted and had an uneventful flight to Denmark. Jakob picked us up, and we've spent the last couple of days relaxing, doing laundry, and the like. 

Tuesday was my birthday. Around 4, Jay and I went with Jakob to pick up the kids from daycare. When we came back I was surprised by ALL the Danes singing me the Danish birthday song. They'd apparently been lurking around the corner waiting for me to leave and they'd assembled a spread and put up balloons and everything in the short time we were gone. Maria's parents, Hanne and Ole were there, as well as her brother Jesper and his wife Vivi, and their two daughters Sonja, and one month old Sofia. Poul and Erna, Jakob's parents were there, and Stig (Jakob's brother) and his partner Mai (very cute at 7.5 months pregnant) and their son Brix. Add to that Jakob and Maria's children, Mia Bell and Noah Emil, and it was a busy place. I was totally overwhelmed and surprised and I'm so happy that I got so see everybody! We'd been under the impression that we might not get to, since we're not going out to Holstebro this time. Jakob is sneaky. I got to participate in some Danish birthday traditions like the Kageman (cake man). It's the birthday child's job to slit the throat of the Kageman while everyone hollers. 

Yup.

Dark stuff.

There were also Danish flags everywhere and lots of wine and pretty flowers (Erna is a Blomster, she operates the flower shop at Poul's store) and a great time was had by all. Particularly entertaining was when Stig went to decant one of the bottles of wine and we found out the hard way that it had apparently fermented in the bottle when it started to spray everywhere.

It's okay, we had more bottles. 

Also, Poul and Erna are trouble makers. They kept refilling my and Jay's wine glasses when our backs were turned. Not to mention that I got a head start on everyone since I "had" to drink wine while they were all still drinking beer (a yummy Alsatian riesling).

It was a wonderful night. It's the morning after and I'm on my third cup of coffee.