London Open House

This past weekend proved, of course, to be full of exciting new wanderings around London. Friday night the roomies and I loaded up on chips and salsa and watched England get their arses handed to them in rugby. They played South Africa, but they are luckily only in the round-robin section of the World Cup, so they still have a few chances to redeem themselves and move on to the next round.

Saturday Rick and I went on a tour led by Norman Reuter, a retired professor and architect. He is also one of my favorite old men ever. This weekend was Open House, where the government and businesses open up buildings that are not usually open to the public. We went to the Wellcome Trust (a medical research group), the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (equivalent to our State Department), the Portcullis House (where the Members of Parliament have their offices), Lloyd's of London (basically the grandfather of all insurance and a very cool building - check out my pics), and an interesting church designed by Christopher Wren.

Sunday afternoon (after watching an hour's worth of EastEnders, a British soap opera to which I fear I may be hooked), we headed riverside for the Thames Festival. It was full of street performers, art & crafts, and lots and lots of food. At sunset there was a carnival parade with performers from many different nationalities and musical styles. The evening was capped off by fireworks.

Our internet saga continues. We found out that our first call to the phone company had been lost completely, which is why no one had called us back. To make matters worse, our phone line has been disconnected so long that they will have to send an engineer to our flat to reconnect us - at the lovely cost of at least $250. We're looking for other options, but it's not looking promising...