9/4/09

My column ran today, as I expected it was the Orton one, more Chicagoy and really a better column. The interesting thing was the way it was laid out, taking up most of the page instead of just well, a column. I'm pumped (more people probably read it) and there's also a huge goofy picture of Kyle Orton next to me.

I don't think hardly anything was edited again, so that was good, I always get excited when that happens. I titled this one as well for the first time.

I woke up and got some things together, finalized my return from Paris, booked some buses, planned a one day Oslo trip for £20 total, read about Italy and whatnot. I decided I wanted to read my Rome book a little so I went down the street to Starbucks and read for a while outside.

The weather wasn't great - very gloomy and looking like rain although warm - so I decided to make a museum day out of it. After walking by the Museum of London yesterday, I decided to go back today.

The museum was under construction, so it was just London from before the Romans until 1666 when the fire happened. The place was kid oriented for sure, and had too many arrowheads and things that I've seen everywhere, but there were some things that were really cool. There was a tour of the Roman part which was a lot about things I didn't know about that period. London was a pretty typical Roman city, amphitheater, baths, defensive wall, the whole works. Some of the most impressive things were they had a little jar with face cream - still moist with finger marks from the last person to use it a thousand of years ago - which is the only one in existence. They had some old pointy shoes, which were funny, a great mosaic floor unearthed, lots of solid artifacts. It's amazing to think that below my feet are ruins not only from the fire of 1666, but from the Roman times. People have lived here for a super long time.



I went to the British Museum with Heidi next, but I wasn't into it that much the second time around (I spent forever there the first time, I need to take a tour of it now for it to be relevant). She hadn't seen the Rosetta Stone or Elgin Marbles, so we walked though those and left.


We were both hungry and I knew there was a cool area that I wanted to go eat in, so we wandered down there. It opened up into a large courtyard of restaurants, very cool place. We picked an Italian place that looked good and sat outside. Unfortunately we were next to a couple families vacationing and while they drank wine, they let their kids run around with balloons, which was incredibly annoying. I don't get some parents.

I had some really good gnocchi, the best I've had here. It made me really excited for Italy, Italian food is by far my favorite in the world, so it should be great.

After I came back and saw the Nick Adenhart died, which is awful. I was going to sign him, I nearly drafted him, he was very highly thought of and threw a great game the night before. On to of that, he was only a few months older than me. Weird.

I watched some of the Sox game and went to the IT lab to print off all the boarding passes. I also stopped and grabbed some chocolate from Tesco after passing on desert for dinner. I got a Tesco Chocolate bar, a great deal for the size and price (less than a pound). I couldn't tell it wasn't some fancy chocolate.

The rest the night I spent getting ready for ma and leaving. I'm excited. Tomorrow I think I'll go back to Starbucks and do some reading, some stuff together/cleaned out, and go down to the Natural History, Victoria and Albert, and Royal Albert Hall. I also need to remember to top up an Oyster card and sign in ma as a guest. Should be alright. Maybe I'll go back to the National Gallery too for another tour since I liked it so much last week.