A bit of an aimless day today. I'm glad I'm getting out of the city tomorrow and perhaps will do Hampton Court on Wednesday to get out again. My right knee is giving me a tremendous amount of trouble all of a sudden, so I've stopped to have a pint of cider to give that a rest (and will grab some take-away on the way).

British Museum first, but mostly I just wasn't feeling it. Museums are kind of the same anywhere you go. I mainly just saw the things you can't see anywhere else--the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo helmet, the Parthenon marbles (strangely unexciting), a really amazing collection of Japanese woodblock prints (which some of you may know I have a bit of a fetish for), including Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa, and a fascinating exhibition on natural philosophy in the Enlightenment.

The only problem with that last one was that there is just so bloody much stuff, it's just overwhelming. A lot of the collections are like that, in fact. You want Abyssinian bas relief? Here, have like 8 galleries full of it! After a while it's just numbing.

True to my promise to myself to get the hell away from the West End today, I headed to Spitalfields and Whitechapel. My main goal was a house museum that does candle light tours on Monday nights, but you have to reserve in advance and when I found a phone box to ring them, they were already booked. It took me ages to find it in the first place (the blurb about it in my guide about their hours and arrangements was incredibly confusing, so I decided to just show up in person and look at their own signage). I did see Hawksmoor's Christ Church in Spitalfields, though. It doesn't look nearly as creepy in person as it does in the pictures I've seen. Though now that I've looked at my own picture of it--it does look really really spooky when photographed!

My maps all kind of end right before Whitechapel for some reason, so I had to kind of wing it. Did a whirlwind walk up and down the Whitechapel High Street/Mile End Road. Really not that thrilling but interesting for the South Asian cultural domination of the area. Tower Hamlets is mainly newish housing estates and not a whole lot leftover from earlier eras (though not like I really knew where to look).

But I do sort of feel that I've now done the East End. Had a proper cream tea at a little coffee shop off Spitalfields Market, which was exactly what I wanted in a tea--none of this schmancy trillion little sandwiches (which I mostly hate anyway) and cakes and this and that and the other. Just a pot of Earl Grey, two scones and some cream and jam. I looked at the cafe at the British Museum before I left there and their tea service was like £18 or something ridiculous like that.

I'm now at a pub called The Water Poet in Folgate Street. An 18th century affair if their signage is to be believed. No Strongbow on tap (all that was left in the keg was foam, alas), but I've got a bottle of Magners and had a chat with the bloke behind the bar about this new weird British thing about putting ice in your cider. He and I both disapprove strenuously and I believe he called the practice "s--t" and said the only reason people do it is because the adverts tell them to. Apparently it's an Irish thing. *shrug*

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Pilgrim's Progress