Getting Acquainted

i spent most of today on purposeful walks.  to the grocery store, to see the dorms, to see the serpentine in hyde park, to see big ben, and to find an atm (which may or may not be called a cash machine?).  all missions accomplished.  and i only snuck one look into my guide book for a map and that was just to check i was on the right way which i was,  although there was liberal use of the posted maps in hyde park.  it's 625 acres and a bizarrely confusing place.  for comparison, boston common is 50 acres, the principality of monaco is 485 acres, and central park is 843 acres (thanks, wikipedia).  but if you ask me, hyde park gets confusion bonus points for being extremely oddly shaped, in the same way that boston common isn't actually a square but you want to think it's a square but that's only going to put you out in the wrong place completely. only 12 times bigger.   but eventually, after some accidental detours, i found my way.

another strange thing about london is that not only do none of the streets actually go straight but they are also all named rather than numbered.  you would think i would be used to this concept from living in the gables, but it's pretty disorienting (disorientating--i am in london now; thanks for the prep, david attenborough.) being in a new city.  for example, without turning once, today i walked for about a mile and a half down a single road and it changed names three times.  alternatively, connie's street is divided into two parts which are actually neighboring streets with the first half the numbers on one part and the other half the next block down.  both of which are dead ends.  who comes up with this?  it would be horrible to have to canvass here.  or to invade, which was probably more the point. 

anyway, i managed to figure out where i was, where i was going, and where i wanted to be.  and found myself some food at the grocery store so now i'm stocked up on cereal, frozen burritos, and soup. 

watched sideways after falling asleep apparently during scene 6 last night.  connie came home from work and we ate here and then i read and tried to go to sleep, thinking myself exhausted.  but i guess it was just a nap because now i'm up again; i blame jet lag.  i'll give reading-until-i-fall-asleep another shot.   

tomorrow: street markets and maybe a gallery or museum!

oh i also got a phone yesterday so if you potentially have need of my british phone number, email me.  although i'm actually not sure what part of the 20 digit number they gave me is necessary to dial yet.  but i'll get there.