Colossal Waste: Around The World 2011 Day 31: London, England

Well. Thirty-one days is often a month. In ice cream terms, it is enough flavors for fame and fortune. And on our trip around the world, 31 marks the point where we have three weeks to go. Today is also our first full day in London.

We have no major ambitions in London. Barbie has been here eight times, and I three, and we have been to all the museums and sites and sights, and we do not feel any pressing needs. Therefore, this morning we each chose to do one thing that we have never done before in London.

But first, breakfast.

A quick stroll is all that it took.

Her caffé latte and apple-cinnamon muffin; his espresso and apple fritter.

Time to head to the tube. Our destination? Top secret for now. It is my selection for the day. And it is, of course, Beatles-oriented.

I believe this marks the seventeenth time that I have taken a shot of the Green Park Underground station's endless escalator.

I love how easy it is to exit London's Underground. You just look for the Way Out. Those of you with a keen eye have been given the first clue as to our destination.

Emerging from the Tube, Barbie spotted London's LDS Church. She gave them a point, for old-time's sake.

I cannot tell you how old this sign is, but it is wonderful.

We arrived at our destination, but first we crossed the street. Why? We saw this.

The Albert Memorial is situated in Kensington Gardens.

This is one of the things that I love most about London. It is something London has in common with Rome. The city is dense with history, landmarks, and things of beauty, and if you go to see one thing that interest you then you are going to end up seeing several.

This is what struck us; we just saw a thousand structures in Thailand that looked almost exactly like the Albert Memorial, only all of the structures in Thailand had a Buddha image inside. This design is alleged to be of Gothic Revival style, but the influence from Siam is undeniable.

This budding photography made his parents pose over and over, trying to get the shot perfect. Okay, he was actually teasing them and mostly enjoying a chance to hold the camera, but you never know; perhaps today's moments aiming that camera will turn him into a lifelong photography enthusiast.

He is wicked cute, too.

I have not really gotten into exactly who Albert was and why he has a memorial. Albert was Queen Victoria's husband, known as Prince Consort Albert. (When the monarch is a King, his wife becomes Queen. When the monarch is a Queen, her husband becomes Prince Consort. Because, you know, the title King is not something you just throw around like, say, the title Queen which can be thrown from woman to woman depending on the King's wants and needs. I am glad we all understand that.)

Queen Victoria was monarch of the United Kingdom from 1837 until 1901, and there is no reason to doubt her importance as she has an era named after her. The Victorian era. Her reign of 63 years and 7 months, is the longest of all British monarchs and also the longest of any female monarch in history. Her story is not surprisingly very long and often unhappy, yet her lifetime saw great change for the UK and the world. She also saw the British Empire grow to its greatest size and scope, though at that time the UK was a constitutional monarchy in which she held little direct political power. But even without power, you cannot doubt a British monarch's power to influence.

Anyway...

Prince Consort Albert was Victoria's husband and they loved each other and their nine children very much. In fact, her love letters to Albert during their courtship are quite touching. (I just read one online.) They were first cousins, he born Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Saxe-Coburg being a Saxon duchy in what is today's central Germany. When Albert died, suddenly and young at the age of 42, Victoria wanted him to be remembered forever. And she succeeded.

More on Albert and Victoria later. Wait, that was sexist. Victoria and Albert. She should come first, as she was far more important.

Across from the Albert Memorial we spotted this sign. Take that, dog owners. You think your dogs are harmless? They are killing the trees. Tree-killers.

Time for our destination.

The Royal Albert Hall. Victoria wanted her husband to be remembered, and, as I said, she succeeded. The hall was originally supposed to have been called The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences, but as she was laying the foundation stone she decided that the name should be Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences. Amusingly, this meant that the foundation stone had to later be replaced, as it had the wrong name for the building on it.

Thanks to his loving widow, Albert's name is forever linked to one of the UK's most distinctive and important buildings. The Royal Albert Hall is an indoor amphitheater that has seen nearly every significant musical and performance artist since it opened in 1871. From operas to rock bands to tennis matches to ballet to sumo wrestling, the Royal Albert Hall has hosted them all.

However, I came here for one reason alone. Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. I have now seen the Albert Hall with my own eyes, and feel just a tiny bit more complete.

Barbie notes the great calibre of performer scheduled to come to the Royal Albert Hall.

One of our favorite musical groups, the innovative and brilliant Pink Martini, will be performing at the Royal Albert Hall on my birthday this year.

They will be showing the flawless, brilliant motion picture The Matrix here while a live orchestra performs the soundtrack. How they will accomplish that when much of it was electronic is beyond me, but I do wish I could hear it for myself. Even as one of the oldest concert venues on Earth (that is still functioning), they manage to keep the programming at the Royal Albert Hall fresh.

We took a tour of the Hall, but no photography was allowed. Therefore, you see nothing of the insides. It is quite beautiful and impressive inside, and the stories of its greatness provided by the guide were interesting and entertaining. That said, let us move one. There are too many stories about this building for me to bother with them. One hundred and forty years of performances add up.

I came here to pay tribute to a John Lennon lyric. I stood inside the Albert Hall and looked down from the uppermost level where one can only stand, looked down upon the oval stage, massive pipe organ and level upon level of seating, and I imagined how many holes it would take to fill this hall.

After the Royal Albert Hall we headed back to the Underground to head to Barbie's destination of choice for the day.

I thought I would play around with a train's arrival as stop-motion-gif.

If this were Thailand, there would also be a Monk on that sticker.

We emerged from the Underground and started walking towards The Temple Church, recommended to Barbie by a friend.

Along the way, I saw the second amusing sign of the day that related to dog poop. How can you go thirty days without seeing a sign about dog poop, and then see two in one day?

Let us assume that you are well informed about toys for adults, and therefore get that Dr. Johnson's Building is a seriously funny thing to see.

Surrounded by buildings on all sides, with a small courtyard to the south, sits the Temple Church.

During the 12th century, the Knights Templar built the Temple Church to be their English headquarters. It was heavily damaged during World War II, but has been mostly restored.

This church was included among the sites in The DaVinci Code, as that book fixated on the Knights Templar. Much is made of the Knights Templar, from their beginning as a Catholic military order in 1129 to their time of great power and importance during the Crusades to when they were disbanded in 1312 by Pope Clement V.

The history of the Knights Templar is not nearly as interesting as their mystique. They went from being a military order created to protect pilgrims to Jerusalem to being a key Catholic military and banking entity. After early military success, the Templars proved to be unimportant to the Crusades as other militaries proved to be more effective without them. By 1300, the Muslim world had successfully mobilized and improved their military capabilities in order take the area back from the Crusaders. With no Holy Land belonging to Christendom, the Knights Templar no longer had a military mission and began to decrease in number and importance. And that is when they became victims of their own success. Their business in banking had resulted in King Philip IV of France owing them a great fortune for having funded his war with England. It is never good for a King to owe you money. The French Templars were arrested and charged with numerous crimes, many of them confessing under torture. Pope Clement tried to act on behalf of this order of his own soldiers, but when King Philip threatened military action, Pope Clement relented and disbanded the Knights Templar.

The remaining Templars of Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation, absorbed into other military orders, or pensioned and allowed to live out their days peacefully. Importantly, they went from a position of prestige, power, and notoriety to sudden disappearance.

And that is how a legend is born.

Do not doubt for one minute that Elvis was a modern day member of the Knights Templar, and will come out of hiding someday to return to global dominance.

After the visit to the Temple Church, Barbie was ready to eat.

When you see a pub named Ye Old Cock Tavern, you go inside.

We did not end up ordering the special lunch.

Pint of Guinness, stage one.

Pint fo Guinness, stage two.

Oops. No picture of it empty. I shall have to complete stage three another time.

Barbie ordered the fish & chips, which we shared. You can almsot always rely upon a pub's fish and chips, and these were even better than expected.

It is never too early to introduce your child to pub culture. The fact that smoking is no longer permitted in pubs in London helps both the babies and myself from getting sick.

This massive Victorian Gothic building complex is the Royal Courts of Justice. Often just called the Law Courts, this building houses the Court of Appeal and the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. Completed in 1882, this building took 9 years to construct. I would guess that only one-third of it is visible in this shot. Amusingly, this Victorian behemoth would make a perfect evil genius's lair in a horror movie, yet it is where people go for justice.

We spotted the Eye and Big Ben from across the Thames. We have seen both dozens of times, but never from this perspective. (HDR shot.)

Time to descend back into the tube. We need to get back, rest, and be ready for dinner.

Josh has spent the week working in London, and tonight he met us at the Four Seasons so that we can go out to dinner. The plan? Indian food, of course. My college roommate Paul, who has become a London resident, had taken us to a great, great Indian restaurant two years ago. We were hoping to find it. Off to Covent Gardens!

I asked who wanted to pose with the phone booths, and Barbie leapt into action before Josh. You cannot hesitate if you want to be included in the Waste.

We could not find the restaurant, and the Indian place that the Concierge sent us to was crazy fancier than we were thinking, so we called an audible.

Across the street from the high-priced Indian restaurant that the hotel recommended was two normal looking Indian restaurants. One wonderful thing about London, you are never far from chicken tikka masala.

We chose the first one, Bhatti, because the guy out front was friendly while his neighbor was aggressive and pushy. We always reward the friendly over the pushy.

As delicious as our favorite Indian restaurant back home, we enjoyed our favorites. A great meal and a definite bargain for dinner in London on a Friday night.

We so enjoyed this restaurant, here is there card in case you are in London and hungry for quality food at a reasonable price.

If you recall, Barbie and I visited Austin last Christmas and I compared my wallet's thickness to Josh's. Mine is even thinner now, and a fresh comparison had to be made.

We decided, yes, to see a movie. All three of us wanted to see Horrible Bosses. We figured we could walk to Leicester Square and find a screening at a time that worked for us.

Pub crawl! Seriously. This is not just a pub crawl. The gentleman flexing for me in front is a professional. He had that entire group wearing matching t-shirts and chanting with him, "Pub crawl! Pub crawl." The he lead them on their quest for the alpha pub, and proudly displayed his pub crawling prowess for me when he saw I was taking a picture.

I get it. If you are a real pub crawler, this likely appears to be a bunch of lightweight tourists paying a guy to lead them on an experience that they are not working hard enough to earn. I mean, most of those middle class plonkers in white t-shirts are not even going to drink until they get sick, and then drink some more. Still, you have to applaud their leader for taking the art-form of the pub crawl and turning it into a career.

And I can tell you this. I have no doubt he is the real thing. He looked like he could drink that entire group onto the floor. Perhaps he will not value the repeat customer concept and really pile it on, making sure that every last one of those plonkers end up, as stated by a hungover person in the brilliant film Withnail and I, waking up tomorrow feeling like,"A pig shat in my head."

When we got to Leicester Square, we could not believe the crowd. Never seen it this crowded before. Ever. What on Earth is causing this traffic jam of humanity?

Ah... most of the square is closed off right now, forcing far too many bodies into too small a space.

The third cinema we checked not only had Horrible Bosses but it was starting nineteen minutes after our arrival. Kismet!

We going to the movies... We going to the movies...

For the record, Horrible Bosses is funny much of the time, but pretty weak on plot much of the time as well. If Charlie was not one of the most naturally funny men alive (watch It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia for proof) and if Jennifer Anniston did not have fun playing the opposite of her safe and boring Friends character, this movie would have been difficult to sit through. Definitely needed a rewrite and probably a better director.

I have fought the urge to add movie reviews to the Waste, and now you see why.

When we got out of the movie, Leicester Square was even less navigable. (I have failed to share with you that Leicester is pronounced Lester. Make sure you get that right while visiting London.)