London is wierd

I don't know y'all. It's either me or it's London, but wierd things always happen to me when I am here.

Like last night? I went out to see my aunt and uncle and coming back to the hotel afterwards, the route I took was to get off at Mansion House station and then cross the Southwark Bridge on foot. As I was crossing the bridge (it's a big wide bridge, not a little namby pamby one) (and why am I using the term 'namby pamby?') I kept hearing this strange noise. Sort of rhythmic, snorty, strange. Like there was atroll or something following me. I looked around (it was night after all, a girl has to be careful) but saw no one. I looked over the bridge, and way down, at the foot of the bridge, in a doorway along the Thames Path, was a homeless guy asleep and SNORING loud enough to wake the dead. Or, in my case, loud enough that I could hear him over the traffic! WOw! I could kinda see why he might need to sleep outside, then, as a snore like that cannot be contained by any mere four walls.

Then, today? I got serenaded by a Tube employee. I asked him a question, something about my ticket, and he asked me if I was from San Francisco. I said, no, as one does when one is not from San Fransisco. I told him i wazs from Texas. He then said, "Oh well then you will know this gentleman" and proceeded to sing me an Elvis song. I told him that Elvis was not from Texas, but from Mississippi, to which he replied "Oh". Then he went off and sang Roy Orbison. After Roy he did some Johnny Cash. All the while he was singing to me there was this queue of people witing to ask him a quustion, and I tried to indicate that there were people waiting, but he was too busy singin' the blues. He was pretty good, though.

And i had a moment of complete bliss today too. Do you ever have those? Where you are just so fucking happy you get teary eyed? Itusually happens to me when I travel. You know, a MOMENT. (I've had many moments, everything from one when I was in Oxford when I was 20, to going to Moroco and being so excited I got verklempt, to seeing the Piazza San Marco in Venice for the first time. Good moments indeed.)
Today's moment was when I was walking across the Millenium Bridge. It was brilliantly sunny and briskly cold, with a very strong biting wind. Around me were all the monumental buildings of central London, and directly in front of me was St Paul's Cathedral and directly below me was the legendary Thames. As I walked the wind was so strong that I actually edged away from the sides of the bridge for fear of being blown off. But I have this THING for wind, it makes me want to holler and scream and jump and spread my arms wide and yell "I'm King of the World!" (I actually did do that on the Hill of Slane in Ireland, when the wind was so strong that you could lean into it and not fall over, it held you up. THAT was cool. A definite WAHHOOOO! moment.) I refrained from that, but my smile was so big that people walking past me smiled too. (Maybe they just htought i was nuts.) An added bonus was that wind did GREAT things for my hair, and I had a total wild flowy mane thing happening. (Typical, as I am getting it chopped off tomorrow, that i would have a really good hair day the day before.)

Then i went to Spitalfields Market and bought some cute and cheap street clothes, and had my favorite ever street food at this Indonesian stand in the market. I have it every time I go there. Then over to Covent Garden, for a bit of St Patty's day celebration, but it was so crowded I lost patience and hung out at a pub instead. THEN I wandered over to the National Portrait Gallery to see this exhibit called Face of Fashion. They should have called it 'We Love Kate Moss' because I figure about 30% o the photos were of her, and I personally can't stand the little crack ho so I was a bit dissapointed. Plus it cost 8 pounds to see it and it took all of 10 minutes to breeze through. The only bit I liked, besides the odd picture of Madonna and others, was this great portrait of Tilda Swinton, on whom I have a massive girl crush. She fascinates me.

After that I did a London Walks tour of 'haunted London' which was hilarious as it was mostly attended by a group of 15 year old girls from Kansas who were determined to get scared, though it was not scary at all, and I am now nostalgic for my silly 15 year old self who would take pictures of the tour guide and scream at nothing. Cuz I would SO have done that too.

Back to the hotel, in Southwark. If it is your first time in London I would not recomend it as you might think the area was a bit scary and the Tube is not directly nearby. Once you've been here about 30 times (as i think I have) it's great because you get to learn a new area of London, it's not scary at all AND the hotel has this awesome top floor bar where you can drink beer and blog. Which is what I am doing. And it's making me damned happy.

Tomorrow: Haircut. Spamalot. High Street Ken shopping and a side trip to Sloane Street.

My life rocks right about now.