Since half of my travel posts are also about how I am sick, of course my cold was still present Monday morning. I fought it the only way I knew how: smoothies and drugs. We became frequent customers at the local smoothie stand near the office, Protein Haus, in an attempt to keep our energy up and the disease away.
Tuesday evening, we went to the Jack the Ripper walking tour near the Tower of London. It was lead by a morbidly chipper tiny lady carrying a purse with hamburgers printed on it. She was tasked with both telling us a story and guiding us around the cold streets of London at the same time.
Our guide led us down back alleys and through spots Jack the Ripper left his victims or may have been sighted. Amazingly, some of the buildings in pictures were still standing today. People who study his killings are known as Ripperologists, and our cheerful guide even had photographs to show us evidence that was gathered. Glad I had dinner first!
We went to Brixton for our non-touristy destination on Wednesday night – partially because we wanted to see the Bowie mural, and partially because we wanted to try this legendary pizza place our team told us about.
We met up with one of our team members and went to a local bar+pizza joint+ramen shop on his recommendation since the line for pizza was infinity long. Pop Brixton was colorful, funky, and many of the shops and restaurants were in shipping containers. Paper lanterns were strung up inside to serve as dim mood lighting and we had to hover until we found a table.
We did get our pizza in the end 🙂
Thursday evening, we went out for work dinner, which was near the Eye of Sauron. I stuffed my face with gnocchi and wondered where Mordor was, and I learned that pudding means dessert and also pudding. Sadly, there was no pudding for pudding on the menu.
Friday was raining properly hard. After work festivities concluded, we hopped on the Thames Clipper and rode it from Canary Wharf to downtown. It was a pleasant, traffic-free, and rain-free way to see the city, even if it did eat up the rest of the balance on my Oyster card.
We sought refuge from the rain inside the National Portrait Gallery. It was free! And open til nine!
My recollection of art history is poor at best. At the national gallery, I learned that the 1500s consisted of portraits of baby Jesus in various stages of anger.
As a general fan of all things colorful, I enjoyed the multitudes of impressionist paintings. The colors of the paintings in textbooks truly do no justice to what the paintings look like in real life. I’ll post a picture anyway!
