Life’s an adventure. Dress Accordingly.

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Does anyone else have this much trouble sitting still?
I like to tell people that I don’t have an addictive personality- and for the most part, I think this is true. Sweet or salty foods, coffee, booze, whatever- I can go off of something for months at a time without missing it. And then there’s traveling. I find this to be the one activity that I absolutely cannot do without in my life. My close friends and family understand that I am not exaggerating when I say this because they know the lengths that I have gone to safeguard this crack-like compulsion.

It will suffice to say that it’s very important to me.

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Okay, so this weekend involved another date with my suitcase (really, it’s the only kind I’m getting during this tour of duty). I’m not too worried about traveling solo though, because this time I’m going for a trip under the sea. And I’m kinda wicked excited.

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Fast forward my two hour transit on the Eurostar (and one nice catnap) and here we are at St. Pancras Station, land of the anglophones. Lucky for me, the forecast calls for a beautiful and sunny weekend. Also, it would appear that this town is having some sort of high-level Olympic event in the near future…more to follow on that later.

One of the best parts about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro was that I got to meet some great individuals who really made the excursion memorable. One of our two British climbers extended an invitation to come and see her in England…and as it just so happened, I needed to get over there to make a special delivery to Team UK:

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I commissioned the fabulous Babacar to make these babies after I hand-carried empty Kilimanjaro beer cans back to Senegal from Tanzania. Two of the finished trays were bound for England, and my journey seemed to be the most cost-effective enjoyable way to get them to their rightful owners.

My new friend Jenny was waiting for me at the arrivals area of Eurostar, and she was happy to tackle some of London’s heavily-trafficked tourist sites during the weekend. While I’ve been to London several times, it has usually been on random trips that were targeted at certain events: a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, a trip to the Tate Modern…ummm….I think that’s it actually. Jenny happens to be in the event coordinating business, so she was able to score lots of two-for-one deals that gave me an economical tour of her great town.

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Another plus was to visiting in normal surroundings was that we could see what we looked like as normal people- not as synthetically-layered mountain people. “I didn’t realize you were so girly,” was Jenny’s observation “it’s kind of hard to tell out there.”

I’m not going to drag you through all of the stuff that we did in London, but I will show you a few short attention span snapshots. As always, I will refer you to the ever-accurate series of tubes if you wish to actually learn something about these places.

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The Tower of London. We zipped through here, if only because there is so much on display, and I happen to reach my saturation point for facts and figures very quickly.

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Lots of Armor, implements of destruction, and other war-like stuff here. You’d think that as a employee of the defense apparatus that I’d be all over these displays. Not really- but I did find King Henry VIII’s suit of anatomically-correct armor highly entertaining.

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“We found this spoon, Sir!” Actually, this is a coronation spoon dating from the 1650s, and it was used for anointing the monarchs. Well this is actually the replica spoon- I got to see the real one in another room that did not allow photography….the same room holds the crown jewels, which are viewed on a funny little conveyor belt that completely controls your viewing time over the pretty, sparkly objects. It was my favorite part of the tour, if only because I like shiny objects.

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Did you know that in addition to family jewels, spoons, and crown jewels that there were once polar bears at the Tower of London? Well, now you do…

After the tower, we skipped across the Tower Bridge in order to check out some naval history.

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Yes, this is not actually called London Bridge- I learned something today! London Bridge is one bridge down, and it’s a rather plain and unstately-looking construction.

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Try as I might, I can’t not visit the sites touting naval history. Jenny humored my interest and we went on board HMS Belfast for a quick exploration around the decks. A World War II Royal Navy cruiser, she was launched on St. Patrick’s Day in 1938 (hey, I think that makes her as old as my Dad!).

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I don’t know about the rest of you naval officers out there, but I certainly wore my fancy dress uniform to go and stand every bridge watch….

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…and I can tell you for sure that I had a nice tall wooden chair to stand watch in as well. All it’s missing is a cup holder for my rev watch Diet Coke.

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Belfast has a long proud history of service (click here to learn), she was brought to the Thames and opened to the public in 1971. The irony that I actually paid money to go on a warship was not lost on me, but it was nice to learn that the way the Navy did business back in World War II has not changed much in our new century.

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After the tour of the ship, we set out toward The Globe Theater in search of some food. Although we didn’t go in here, we did pass a sign for another museum. This place has my vote for best museum name ever!

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Lunch time at The Swan. Behold, the very meal that got me through college. I love, love, love fish and chips. Lots of salt and vinegar.

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We’re kind of zipping around the city now, but I’m still managing to keep up the maritime theme (it’s not on purpose!). Here in Trafalgar Square, Jenny told me that there used to be nothing on the top of this platform. Before putting the ship in a bottle on top, people could pay to stand up on top of this thing for an entire day.

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As I mentioned before, the Olympics are coming in 2012. As such, anyone traveling to London in 2011 might appreciate knowing that the entire city is being dug up and redone in preparation for this event. London is one big construction site, but still it makes for a worthy journey.

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Car rapides, you have met your match…and it is sitting in Trafalgar Square.

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Jenny asked me what I wanted to do while in London, and of course I consulted Trip Advisor for some ideas. Little did I know that one of the top-rated things to go and do was to see the theatrical version of The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I have always loved this crazy movie- and I don’t really know why. I think that it’s because I once rented it, not knowing what to expect, and thought “WTF…..” and then laughed as I watched the randomness again and again. I also own the motion picture soundtrack, so I was looking forward to seeing the musical.

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I am actually not a fan of musicals at all (I still don’t know what Rent was about), but this show was really great. Lots of fun and an audience that was definitely behaving like this was a big party.

I’ll stop the tour bus here. This really was one long-ass day, but the variety of stuff that we were able to accomplish was quite impressive and highly enjoyable. The journey back to Jenny’s house was an entertaining ride on the drunk train, with one smart-looking man in a business suit falling on top of me as he tried to alight. He must have had a hard week that earned him a hard night in the pub. Good for him.
It is because of days like this that I find it impossible to stop moving about. The people you meet throughout your life journey, coupled with the endless list of new places to go makes for years of opportunity that are hard to pass up. While I have the means, I am going to continue to milk this train for as long as I can.

Humans have so little time and so much to see…we’ll never see it all.

But I can certainly die trying.