Okeedokee then. London has officially wrapped. I write from the train to Paris! I had a bit of an ordeal at the station, seeing as I took the ‘Please check-in at least half an hour prior to departure’ to be a light suggestion, and it turned out that check-in actually closes then. I arrived 10 minutes after gate closure and dazedly walked to the Eurostar ticketing office, hoping at the very least that I could be put on the next train without paying a surcharge. Luckily, the wonderful gentleman I approached was the perfect combination of subtly helpful and dazzlingly bored, so he walked me across the station and swiped me through a bunch of gates through to Premium Business security. No line, no wait, straight on the train. It happened so quickly I didn’t really have time to express my gratitude beyond a wide-eyed ‘Thank you so much…’

However, going through business security put me near the business class train cars, and I was pretty lost. I couldn’t tell which direction coach was, so finally I just asked a lady if the current car I was in was coach. Her response was, “Yes, this is the first one.” Kind of confusing, but good enough for me at the moment. I settled WAY in, fairly certain the section was way too nice to be coach, and hoped I could stick around until someone came to check my ticket and could point me in the right direction. I mean, the seats were slick, roomy, and had little pull-down cosmetic mirrors on the backs, so I plugged in my phone, changed to comfier clothes, and did my eyebrows! Ha!

It wasn’t until another couple got on and spent a minute or two trying to find their seats that it dawned on me that I might have an assigned seat on my boarding ticket. Sure enough, I was sitting in Coach 1 – Business Premier, but I was meant to be in Coach 10 – Standard. That’s why the lady said I was in ‘coach.’ My ‘coach’ was her ‘standard’ and her ‘coach’ was my ‘car.’ Hope you followed that. In the end, I did the looooong walk of shame nine cars back and find myself with an obstructed window view. On the bright side, I have this row and the row across from me all to myself, I don’t need the mirror anymore, and I finally managed to find the charging ports on these Standard Class seats. They really are still about four times more comfortable than those airplane seats last night.

Okay. Backing up. I said my farewells to the adorable waiter at The National Dining Rooms and found time to explain the Seattle is not exactly ‘near’ LA just because they are both on the west coast. Then I managed to get the aforementioned book! Behold!

Excited to read this on the trip if I ever manage to find transit time where I’m not sleeping or blogging.

And speaking of sleeping on transit, I did kind of a weird thing. I decided to skip out on Shakespeare because by the time I was finished with tea and book shopping, I would have only caught the last hour of the show (out of three). I was/ am also so very exhausted since I’d been up for almost 24 hours by then. I’d purchased standing ‘seats,’ so I didn’t want a repeat of my last dizzyingly tired experience at the Globe when I could have a perfectly enchanting time at the Natural History Museum instead.

Things get weird when I decide to take the bus (about half an hour) instead of the underground (about 15 minutes) to the museum. I like the double decker busses because they’re comfy and quiet and I get a view while I’m riding instead of a bunch of time spent looking across the train at other tube riders and trying not to stare. However, the bus was SO smooth and quiet, not like my Seattle buses I use to get to work. Man, I’d get an extra two hours of sleep a day if my commuter buses rode like these double deckers! Needless to say, I was basically out cold, and when my stop came around, I made the semi-conscious decision to stay on and sleep some more. I’d get off eventually and just get on the same bus in the other direction once I felt the museum calling my name.

And that’s how I ended up taking an hour and half long bus nap. It was beautiful.

Also beautiful were these pastries (and the man who served them to me – hehehehe) at a little French patisserie between the bus stop and the museum. I got two because I couldn’t choose, and boy were they wonderfully mouthwatering. My soul thanked me and my pre-planned fake budget for the day shook its head in disappointment. Those things were not cheap.

You know what WAS cheap, though? That free museum admission aaaayyyyy.

I always forget just how much I love natural history museums until I find the whale skeletons. They are my favorite thing. I mean, look at all the angles I used to capture this magnificent specimen:

Second favorite are the elephants:

But the dinos were pretty mind boggling, as well.

It’s hard to tell because of the angle, but this dinosaur femur is bigger around than the widest part of me and about three inches short of matching my height:

GUYS. I COULD BE A DINOSAUR FEMUR IF THE OPPORTUNITY EVER ARISES. This is a huge discovery for me.

There were also fun mirrors. Please join me in contemplating whether you like any of these proportions better than my ‘go-to’ and I will see what I can do if I ever get full body surgery.

Some last quick little London things for the road, including this adorable milk:

Some tubing at Uth Kensington:

And a little bit of King’s Cross/ St. Pancras action:

Okay. This time it really is goodbye to London. I believe I am currently approaching the English Channel, where at some point I will be 75 meters below the floor of the Channel, in an under-ground-that-is-under-water tunnel. Engineers are crazy.

Cheers, and talk soon!
-Lizzy-wa