Late to bed, early to rise...

If there's one thing that's been different about this trip so far, it's been the food. All three of us have been counting calories and sugar/carbohydrate/etc contents of everything we've been eating, and trying to maximize our intake while minimizing cost, so we can attempt to fuel ourselves for our long days of walking without starving and wasting away to nothing by the end of the trip. It's more difficult than it seems, since food here is all quite expensive. For example, dinner last night cost roughly 8 GBP, which was about $13.50. When you're operating on roughly $40 a day, that's a big chunk of your budget. We've been looking in shops and things for food we can take with us, and have been able to find some bargains, but it's not easy. For example, yesterday we overslept and missed breakfast, so we stopped in a little grocer on our way to the Underground, where I got two good-sized cups of fruited rice pudding (one was cherry and one was blueberry) and lychee juice for slightly more than a pound. That's fairly acceptable.

The burger I had yesterday was also odd. The meat seemed more finely ground than American beef, and when they brought it out, they brought two bottles- one red, one yellow. Ketchup and mustard, right? Nope. Ketchup and mayonnaise. Got to get used to that. Got to get used to a lot.

Yesterday, we basically caught Michael up on some of the touristy stuff amid a lot of walking. We started out heading to Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace, which was cool to see again. Trafalgar Square was much busier than on Sunday, and the fountains were on as well, which made it considerably more impressive. We didn't linger at the palace long enough to see the changing of the guard, which by all accounts is not nearly as impressive as it's been made out to be.

Following that, we headed to the Wellington Arch and Hyde Park Corner (and thus to Hyde PArk), where we saw the very well-manicured Rose Garden there, and and enjoyed lunch under a tree in the midst of everyone else enjoying the nice weather. It was surprising when someone came around collecting 1.50 GBP for the chairs (for two hours), but we paid and watched people after lunch, which was very cool. Everybody must've been out yesterday enjoying the weather, because the park was packed. After that, we headed to the Victoria and Albert museum, where we only had time to see a photo exhibit before being asked to leave at closing time. From there we walked to Herrod's department store, which was crazy. Absolutely impossibly to describe. Six or so floors, selling EVERYTHING from carpeting, to clothing, to Bechstein pianos, to minerals and fossils, to bedding and other home furnishings, electronics, even a grocery store and multiple cafes/restaurants. It puts the New York Macy's to shame, which is a hard task. Everything was very formal as well, all the salesmen had suits on and carnations in their lapel buttonholes like in "Are You Being Served."

After Herrod's we headed to the trendy Soho theater district for dinner, then went to the hostel to clean up before we headed out for a night on the town. London closes very early, so we were back to the hostel for bed around midnight. A busy, busy tiring day!