Day 9: Borough Market and V&A Museum

We needed some thank-you gifts and such for people, so our solution to this was to go to Borough Market. Borough Market is a covered food market on the south bank of the Thames, near Tower Bridge. It's a bunch of stalls selling a wide variety of produce, meat, seafood, and most importantly, cheese. We got some cheese, tea, and balsamic vinegar to give as presents, and also availed ourselves of the market's food stall area (like food trucks, but semi-permanent and under tents). It's a good place to get a reasonably cost-effective lunch. We also went back to Greenwich Market and bought a painting of a cat stylized to look like Picasso had done it.

We had time for one more museum after this, and it wound up being the Victoria and Albert museum. It's the largest decorative arts and design museum in the world, so it has examples of decorative sculpture, pottery, architecture, objects, and the like from every corner of the planet. There's carpets from Iran, porcelain from China, bits of churches, curiosities from India (like the most metal wizard's hat ever, adorned with lethal circular throwing blades, and a statue of a tiger mauling a soldier in red and blue that makes noises like a dying man when a crank is turned). It's too big to see everything, we got there about 3 hours before it closed, and Adam was starting to run out of steam, having spent most of the past couple days powering through a cold, so we missed a fair amount of this museum. Next time, perhaps. We had dinner in Soho at a ramen restaurant (and found a place selling jamon iberico, and had a snack on that), and then went back to our hostel to sleep before the next day's journey through aviation hell.

Day 8: The British Museum

After a lovely breakfast (with more free champagne), we left Hotel 41, checked into a hostel (which is quite a step down), and headed for the British Museum. The museum is perhaps the finest repository of Assyrian artifacts anywhere (thanks, ISIS), the best collection of Ancient Greek artifacts outside Greece, and one of the leading collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts outside of Cairo and New York.

There's so much stuff in there that we spent about 6 hours inside and missed maybe a third of it. You'd have to visit 3 countries to get a similar sweep of world history through artifacts, and even then they'd tell you to visit the British Museum to see an important item.

After that, we needed a drink/to pay a visit to the Princess Louise tavern, which is a former "gin palace" of cut glass, dark wood, and hammered tin ceiling. The cheap pints are nice too. We were tired after all that, and so we went to sleep.

Day 7: This Isn't Actually What You Care About

By the time you're reading this, news of Alecia and my engagement has probably reached you. As such, I'm going to gloss over our day of activities, because frankly, my mind was a bit elsewhere today. So here it goes.

Blah blah blah Tower of London blah blah yeoman warders yadda yadda crown jewels and armor and ravens everything was lovely. Same with the National Gallery. The Black Friar is a really cool looking pub.

After all that, it was time for the main event. I had a 5 star hotel booked, and the ring would be delivered in a glass of champagne. Alecia figured out something was up, and suspected I would be proposing this trip, but she didn't suspect all this. There was champagne, yes, but also canapés, chocolate strawberries, and rose petals and candles in the room. For dinner, they got us a table at a Michelin starred Indian restaurant near Buckingham palace. Even the exchange rate can't make this cheap, but hey, you only do it once. Currently, I'm drinking champagne in a bath robe with my fiancée. Life is good right now.

Alecia here...
So yes I had Adam figured out a while ago, but I pretended not to.  Adam was of course a nervous wreck today, especially before he proposed.  He wouldn't even tell me which tube station we were getting off at...as if Victoria station would mean something to me?  The hotel is beautiful, and we are being treated as we imagine the very wealthy always are.  Luggage brought to our rooms, robes, slippers, and a giant bathtub.  Oh and champagne.  Those of you who know Adam well know that he hates champagne.  This time he seemed to like it, but I blame it on relief and happiness.
And if you didn't understand from above, we went to the Tower of London today and visited one of London's art galleries.  By the way I was very happy to learn that many of London's museums are free admission.  We will be off to the British Museum tomorrow.