We decided to fly from Amsterdam to London to maximize our time there (rather than taking the train) and we ended up arriving at 7:something in the morning, giving us two and a half days of London fun.

The first thing we did was check into our hotel, which was a horrifying hostel-type thing in the Hyde Park area. We had to walk six flights up to get to our room, there was a bathtub that smelled of urine, there was no shower to compensate for this, and dead flies were found in the bedding. The bed was basically a slab of springs poking you all over. There were signs posted that said, "Do not leave ANYTHING of value in this room. NOT EVEN FOR ONE MINUTE."

Aah, our hotel. The one and only low point.

We immediately hopped onto one of those sightseeing busses. When you only have three days, two nights in London, I think the sightseeing bus is a must. We'd never have been able to see and do as much as we saw and did otherwise.

The tour guide began pointing out things left and right. "Here is the spot where the city of London used to hang people." "Here is the headquarters of MI-6." "Here is where Ho Chi Minh worked as a pastry chef." "Here is where Jimi Hendrix died." "Here is where T.S. Eliot used to go drinking."

So many interesting landmarks and stories, within 45 minutes I was completely overwhelmed by the grandeur and the history of London. And we hadn't even gotten to the big stuff.

The one thing that was beaten into my head is this: Brits are a little bit nutso about the royalty.

I mean, when you step back and think about it, the whole monarchy is such a musty old relic, but they cling to it like mad. Every single thing in London seems to be touched with some kind of royal connection. Shops get royal crests over the doors if they sell, for instance, underwear to the queen. There exists a set of commemorative china plates issued for Prince William's 21st birthday. I mean, commemorative china plates?

They make the absolute most of the splendor of the monarchy there, and they don't ever let you forget that they have QUEENS and they have KINGS and isn't that MAGNIFICENT OF THEM?

Of course, I was not immune. By the end of the trip, I too had been captivated by the royal family. I can't wait for the next coronation or whatever, so I can watch it on CNN and say "I was there! I was there!" and give over to the pomp of the thing. They know how to put on a pageant, those Brits.

My top three things that I personally wanted to see were Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and the British Museum. On the first day, we saw the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. The Tower was extremely cool-- imposing and massive. I got chills standing on the scaffold site (see above) which is where Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard were beheaded.

I also got chills looking at Traitor's Gate (see below), the gate through which Queen Elizabeth I passed before her imprisonment there. And there were so many other people who passed through that gate, never to pass out again. I love crap like that.

We also got to see the crown jewels. All I can say about them is: holy shit. SO SPARKLY.

Westminster Abbey (see below "artsy" photo) was impressive too, but I was not as overwhelmed as one would expect. The graves in Poet's Corner weren't graves at all for the most part-- they were just monuments! I like bodies, not slabs of marble. Shakespeare's monument did nothing for me, but Chaucer's grave, since it contains his actual corpse, was very impressive. So was the dual grave of Queen "Bloody" Mary and Queen Elizabeth. Remember, it was reading The Wives of Henry VIII that gave me my first thirst to go to London, and his children are fascinating to me too.

In retrospect, St. Paul's was better. The crypt beneath the cathedral has actual graves, including the graves of William Blake (made me cry), Ivor Novello, the Duke of Wellington, Florence Nightingale, and that Nelson guy. Sadly, the whole cathedral is being renovated, and we couldn't even really see the dome. Next time.

After we saw those things, it was time for our "ghost walk" of London. Our tour guide was very jolly about the whole thing, and couldn't tell a ghost story to save his life. "Oh yes, Anne Boleyn was interrogated here, and file cabinets move and stuff. It's an office. Yeah, so, her ghost is here. Okay, let's go to a pub!"

Not exaggerating.

It's a shame, because the tour had a lot of potential. We went to Ben Franklin's London house, where the corpses of ten people were recently unearthed, dating back to the time he lived there. (They think his son-in-law did it.) And we went to Somerset House, see below, which is supposedly haunted by the ghost of that Nelson guy. But like I said, the tour guide could not tell a story, and we ditched the tour halfway through.

After that, we were tired! We had been up since five, and had been walking all day, and boy, we sure did want to go back to our fleabag hotel. We climbed up the six steep flights, took pee showers, and settled down on our torture beds for a good night's sleep.

The next day, we went and took a tour of Buckingham Palace. My guide book said it was "overpriced and disappointing" and I wasn't very gung-ho about the whole thing, but I'm so glad we did it. It was one of my favorite things to see and-- there was an audio tour. I am a slave to the audio tour. I only wish they let us take pictures.

Buckingham Palace is-- am I really going to use the word "overwhelming" again? It's so sumptuous, you can hardly believe people live there or ever lived there. Everything covered in gold, amazing art and furnishings and sculptures, a giant cupcake frosted in gold and topped with diamonds. The outside doesn't even come close to what the inside looks like. See it if you get a chance.

And it's also interesting imagining people living in Buckingham Palace while at the same time other people were living in squalor in the East End, paying two pence to sleep leaning up against a rope. There is a tinge of sadness beneath all the grandeur.

After our tour, we jetted over to the British Museum for an hour before it closed. I am so glad that I saw the "Eternal Egypt" exhibit when it was on loan in San Francisco. I was so tired from all the endless walking around, and so hot, and my legs hurt so much, that I didn't have the energy to race around the museum trying to see everything. Instead, I spent about 45 minutes communing with the Elgin Marbles.

And then I went and spent some time admiring the Rosetta Stone, and then that was it. I didn't even have the energy to be wistful; I was tired. And anyway, after seeing the Elgin Marbles, anything else would be a disappointment. They were magnificent, and there weren't even that many people there. I got right up to them and just stared and stared. Transcendent.

Oh, I also popped my head into the Reading Room, which is my new vision of heaven. Books, books, books. Yeats used to work in that room. Eliot used to work there. Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in that room. And so many books! That was a tremendous thing to see.

After that, we went on our Jack the Ripper tour. The only bad thing was that it was a two-and-a-half hour walking tour. Not more walking!

In addition to that completely random sign, we saw the places where the bodies were found, and the church (St. Bartolph's) where the East End prostitutes used to ply their trade. We saw the places where the victims were last seen alive (like the Frying Pan pub, where Polly Nichols had her last drink) and we heard what he did to them, and as it got darker, the whole thing got creepier.

I wish someone would start a motor-scooter version of the tour, though. We were wiped out at the end.

After that, we took the Underground (I am pleased to report we took the tube all over the city, and only got on the wrong train once.) to the Hard Rock Café. I asked our server if they had any particularly cool memorabilia, and she gave us tickets to the Vault, which is next door in the basement of the gift shop. It was 11:00 and the Vault was supposedly closed, but the guy let us in.

The Vault is just a little room hidden behind bank vault doors, containing some really neat rock memorabilia. I think the guy who was showing us around was stoned or something, because he told us we could touch anything we wanted, pick up whatever we wanted, and pose with anything. There is no way that can really be the rule.

But we took advantage of it! I touched John Lennon's jacket, Miles Davis' trumpet, the guitars of Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan... I don't even remember. I know of all those people, Kurt Cobain is hardly the most impressive to most people, but he is the icon of my generation, and that's the picture I wanted. Holding Kurt's guitar.

The next day, we went shopping. We wandered the streets of Soho and then went to Carnaby Street, where my little sister went into a shopping frenzy. We all did, really. I bought two tremendously cute bags, some jewelry, a hat, some green-colored liquor that certainly has no illegal connotations, and socks with the Union Jack on them.

Overall, I would have to rank London as one of my new favorite cities. I really loved it, and I would love to go and see it again, and really explore the other parts of England while I'm at it. I am sure I didn't even reach the tip of the iceberg in terms of decaying corpses, audio tours, and informational signs.

And my fake British accent really needs some more work.