Travelogue, Part the Third: Oh, yeah, it's prime, all right.

Welcome back to our little Funtime in London Adventure. We took a short hiatus while we grieved the bombings (remember Poon's? The bus bomb was basically right outside), celebrated Birthday Day, Part II (The Boy, Dad, Zander), and endured Internet outages due to violent random thunderstorms. But I will finish this thing, goddammit.

(It's nasty, this lazy versus stubborn cage match. Stubborn is winning, though it may be because I promised myself ice cream after I write, and not before.)

Okay, so we left off at Monday. After another lovely English breakfast, we take the Tube down to the Embankment and buy tickets for a boat ride down the Thames.

Pop quiz! Fill in the blank: The weather in London is probably _______; I should bring my _________.

A. Rainy; umbrella
B. Overcast; umbrella
C. Foggy; umbrella
D. Blistering hot and sunny; sunscreen (and maybe umbrella)

If you picked D, you did better than we. While it was gorgeous and sunny that day, it never occurred to us that we'd need sunscreen for the trip. I mean, we're up in the 50's in latitude. That's north of Maine. That's, that's practically Canada, people, where it's snowing all the time, and elk and reindeer cause traffic problems, and people say things like "I don't know aboot that" except they may say it in French. The last thing you think about is "Hey, maybe I should put sunblock on my head so it doesn't look like I have a horrible skin disease once I burn and start peeling." At least I remembered my Dramamine.

So we board the boat and begin traversing the Thames. On the boat is a native tour guide with a karaoke microphone, telling us amusing and informative anecdotes about the sights we pass, like "Once I snogged wif dis bird be'ind dat pub, on de apples an' pears. Blimey, I fink it was Madonna." We did get good views, though, like this one, of the London Eye. It's like a hugemongous ferris wheel that moves v...e...r...y s...l...o...w...l...y. Slowly enough that it never stops moving, and it still allows enough time for people to get off and on. We didn't try it, because one circuit takes about an hour, and Dog knows I get fidgety after about 5 minutes unless I have my hamster wheel to run on. They didn't have a hugemongous one of those.

We tie up at Greenwich and disembark, making our way to the 19th-century ship the Cutty Sark. This is a shot of her rigging, and gives you a sense of how much these people must have known what they were doing. They weren't weekenders on Sea-Doos, who think that "No Wake" signs are funereal instructions. No, sir, they were real-life salty dogs with scurvy and lisping syphilitic pirates played by Johnny Depp.

We opted to go to the National Maritime Museum next. It provides an almost-interesting history of water-and-boat related things. The comparative propeller display was particularly compelling, although it rivaled the comparative anchor display. Our attention to all things maritime waning, we turned our attention to something less deadly, like taking a smoke break outside.

This is what *I* came here for: The Greenwich Observatory, from afar. From the docks, it's about a mile and a half. Uphill, both ways. Our legs were still very sore and walked-out from Tower Day, and we nearly bagged the idea, until we saw the little green tram. Thanks be to God for the Little Green Tram, friend of lethargic and bone-weary Americans! Best 2 pounds we spent that day.

The tram takes us to the top of the hill, and the Observatory. We have less than an hour before we have to catch the tram that we think will get us back to the boat at a reasonable hour. We stand in line to take a picture of me straddling the Prime Meridian, one foot in each hemisphere. I did not opt for the Official Certificate that one can purchase 2 feet to the right of the line. We raced through the building complex, which contained a sort of history of earth-bound space observation, especially in connection with -- yes, you guessed it -- maritime travel. One amusing story about how sailors figured out time when they were on boats: you stab a dog with a knife before you leave London. The same knife is dipped, prior to the stabbing, in a pile of salt. Once the wound heals, the dog sails with you. Every day, the same knife is plunged into the same pile of salt in London, and every dog stabbed with that knife, no matter where they are, will simultaneously yelp, letting you know it's noon in London. It's a sort of Marquis de Sade meets Pavlov thing.

This is the view from the Observatory, facing London. The skyscrapers in the distance are the financial district, including, as our tour guide told us, the "Haitch Ess Bee See Building" (HSBC being a large bank over there). The building in the middle is one of the many Queen's Houses in London. If you'll notice, the building in front of it (the old Royal Naval College) is split in half, so as not to obscure HRH's view of the river.

After grabbing a "bacon" sandwich from a vendor ("bacon" over there is not what we think bacon is here. It's sort of a cross between Canadian bacon and ham, cooked just enough to be warm but not enough to be crispy), we caught the tram, and did, in fact, manage to make it back to the boat in time. The return ride was quiet, except for the very obnoxiously noisy family next to us.

We returned to our hotel, did the afternoon nap thing, and then hit Chez Gerard for dinner. The steak was just okay, but they had real salad (not three lettuce leaves and a slice of tomato, typically referred to as a "salad garnish"), and the frites were outstanding, not to mention the desserts.

Yes, I talk about food a lot. Food is important, dammit. And now? I'm going to go eat some ice cream. The rest of this will go faster, I promise. I think I took fewer pictures as the week went on unless horses were involved.

Next: War. What is it good for, besides tourism?