I am starting to not like London. And since I am American enough to want to blame someone I will go ahead and Blame Roy He told me several times how much he hated London, as in lots and lots. London whores everything out to the highest bidder. It is capitalism gone wrong and out of control. It’s dirty.

I am tending to agree. So much of what I have seen is geared towards tourists. Every 4th shop on any street is one of 2 or 3 chains that deal exclusively in cheap and horrible trinkets covered with the union jack, or princess diana, or mind the gap t-shirts.

Those things which I had hoped to be a bit more authentic are a bit sad and very very dirty. I spent the morning wandering the Portobello Market. The first half is clearly geared to the tourists. Very expensive antique shops, and smaller tent versions of the trinket shops. Finally, you get to fruits and vegetables which obviously target locals, but are yucky compared to the street marche’s in France. Finally you get to the clothing vendorswhere there is a huge matrix of used clothing stalls in a square. Even in the open air, it smelled and felt like a Goodwill store, and the clothing was in bad shape. At the end, it devolves into several blocks of the saddest flea markets I have ever seen, comprised almost entirely of what San Franciscan’s call “groundscores” - trash from the street. Arranged, or sometimes just emptied from boxes onto tarps on the ground. Horrible and depressing, and not anything close to what I imagined the Portobello market to be.

I headed back to my hotel and changed clothes - I have been running around in shorts and minimal tops the entire time. But I thought it was time to sidle up to Harrod’s and head to Harvey Nicks for lunch, sweety darling. I have no timidity in saying that it was fabulous. I didn’t actually bother doing the entirety of either store.

I headed for the food halls of both places because I find the idea of buying food at an upscale department store so utterly bizarre and humorous. Harrod’s is actually sizable, so I just wandered through the chocolate room and got the fat version of a contact high from the smells. Yum.

Then on to Harvey Nicks, where I had a gross beer (5 GBP) and a yummy breaded deep fried bit of veal with a salad (12 GBP). The price of the meal was ok, but the beer was just silly. Especially since it was gross. I haven’t had a good glass of beer since I left Germany, and even then, it was settling. Hefeweisen is ok, but honestly it’s nothing comp-ared to the yummy spicy complex microbrewed ales you can get at any corner store in San Francisco. But the beer here is just gross. It’s funny and sad to see Budweiser being sold as an import. And it’s sadder that most of the beers sold in restaurants seem to be the UK equivalent of Budweiser. Blech.

The only disappointment with Harvey Nicks and Harrod’s was not seeing Edwina or Patsy *anywhere*. Dear Jennifer Saunders: I want to drink your bathwater. Love, Erik. Xoxo.

It was my intention to come back to the hotel to change back to shorts, since I feel like I am suffocating in long pants, but on the way back I just ran smack into the Victoria and Albert museum, which is apparently the largest collection in the world. Not hard to believe. I only did the feature exhibit and it took 3 hours. It was called “Modernism: Designing for the future.” Utterly fantastic and engrossing look at various aspects of design from 1900-1940.

I wandered around South Kensington area for a bit - I had specifically hoped to at least take some snaps of the Royal Albert Hall, since I was too lazy to find a show to see there (actually, they were doing Eric Clapton, which was not entirely my cup of tea)…. but I kept getting lost by 1 or 2 blocks no matter which way I tried to hit it, so I snapped other interesting things and headed back to the hotel.

I intended to go out and get a bit of nightlife, but realized I was utterly exhausted, and a bit tired of travelling. I didn’t even want to go out to eat.

I headed over to Tesco, but got pulled in to a kebab shop that had been utterly packed every time I passed but was miraculously empty at that moment. I had a yummy yummy shawerma and some desserty thing with pistachios… I went back to the hotel, packed, and then vegged in front of the tv. Big Brother (and the associated commentary programs, like “Big Brother’s Big Mouth” are trashy and wonderful.