Firstly, I would like to apologize for how long it has taken me to start posting installments again. I have spent the past week since all of my visitors returned to the states doing a lot of research and seriously fun things like laundry and grocery shopping. But, at long last, I have had a chance to sit down and begin writing about the past few weeks.

As I have mentioned before, I was very excited about Nicki & Co. coming to visit. This "Co" consisted of Karen, a native of Northeastern England, and at various times Rachel (Karen's niece who will be a freshman at Florida State University in the fall), Alison (Rachel's mom and Karen's sister who flew in the next day), and Dominic (Karen's son whom we would meet up with in Sunderland). The plan was this: after one day in London, Rachel and Alison would go to Sunderland by train, and we would go up by car a few days later and spend a few days in Northern England; everyone would then go back to London for a few more days before flying back to the States. Not a bad plan, but definitely a lot more excitement not to mention people than I had seen in the past month.

The night Nicki, Karen and Rachel flew in, I kept wanting to call the hotel to see if they were in, but did not because Nicki had said they would be in late. So, the next morning I was very excited to call and make plans. However, I had one tiny problem: the number Nicki had given me for the hotel was the international booking number and wouldn't work from within the UK. Doh! So, I go down to the office downstairs to look it up in the phonebook, but of course it's not in there. I then called one of the hotels of the same company to get the number only to discover that the hotel was no longer part of the company. Double doh! Luckily, no one was on our one computer with Internet access in the Centre, and I was able to find it online. So, I finally go a hold of Nicki and planned to meet her at the hotel's restaurant where they were eating breakfast.

the Le Meridian Hotel

The hotel they were staying at, the Le Meridian Piccadilly, was less than a block from Piccadilly Circus (about a block northwest of Trafalgar Square). The place is very posh, and I felt more than a little weird strolling in with backpack on like the student I so clearly am. Nicki and Karen got a great deal on the place through Priceline, which turned out to be a very good thing indeed. I arrived at the tail end of breakfast, but saw enough to realize that it left a lot to be desired. It's not that it was particularly bad, just that when one is paying quite a bit of pound at a five star hotel one expects a little service (like being brought coffee for instance).

While they finished this very disappointing breakfast, I got to hear their tale of woe from the night before. The flight had been fine, but it was after they picked up the rental car that things began to go awry. First of all, the M4 was diverted through what seemed like every suburb in London, and they got subsequently very lost in central London very late at night. Nicki, ever willing to ask anyone for directions, leaned out the window and asked a guy on the street where they were. He told her, but then he very generously exposed himself to her and everyone else in the car. Can't you just see the shock on Nicki's face? How's that for English hospitality? Luckily they were very near the hotel, and made it there with no further "incidents."

After breakfast, we "walked" to Trafalgar Square. Let me explain the quotes around walked: as I noted earlier in this travelogue, people in London walk very fast, always. My sister had, in true Hager-family style broken her pinky toe, the day before she came to London, and Karen was still recovering from a knee injury. So, as we started walking towards the square, I realized that was suddenly way ahead of everyone else as I was walking almost at regular London speed and Nicki and Karen were limping along behind me. I quickly slowed my pace to let them catch up with me, feeling bad that I had left them behind. I tried to just walk slower, but it felt _so_ slow to me after being in London for nearly a month now. The funny thing is that usually Nicki is the fast walker, and I'm straggling along behind. Nicki's frustration at not being able walk fast may of course explain why she kept trying to cross the street in front of busses and black cabs - the two most dangerous vehicles in all of London. I nicknamed Nicki and Karen "my gimps," which was especially fitting to me after I saw the both of them go down stairs sideways because of their various injuries. Seriously though, we offered to do less walking so that Nicki could have a chance to rest, but she stubbornly refused (of course). Unfortunately, we couldn't go down into the square itself because they were setting up to perform an opera that night (which was rained out, in true London style) and were covering the square with grass (how English!) for the audience to lounge on. We went to the National Gallery, where everyone agreed that Van Gogh's Sunflowers really are much more impressive in person. After the National Gallery, we popped into St. Martins-in-the-Fields only to discover that there was a service going on, so we only got to see the crypt.

Karen and Nicki at the base of the Florence Nightingale Monument on the Haymarket side of Trafalgar Square

Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp, who nursed the wounded in the Crimean War

Karen, Nicki, and Rachel on the steps of the National Gallery (notice the grass being laid in square)

Having had enough culture for a bit, we took the tube to Harrods to enjoy their Summer Sale. Now, in all the times I've taken the tube, I've never had any problems. My sister, on the other hand, had several tube misadventures. The first one being that the first time she ever rode the tube, she almost got stuck in the doors because she almost couldn't make it onto the train because of her toe. Nicki's face turned about twenty shades of red in embarrassment when the doors tried to shut on her. My poor gimpy sister. Luckily, we pulled her in and sped off to Knightsbridge.

I'm not much for shopping, but Harrods is definitely a site to see. The store is huge and has about twenty cafés and restaurants. It's a labyrinth of luxury and style. There's room upon room of everything from gourmet chocolates to the latest couture. Like Las Vegas casinos, you will be hard-pressed to find either a clock or a window in Harrods - they want you stay and buy. Of course, if you do buy (even on sale), you would probably have sell your first born to pay for it. We did have tea at a very nice tea room near the luggage department. It was a proper tea with scones, a selection of sandwiches (with the crusts cut off, of course), and clotted cream (a very rich sort of butter). Very pricey, but super yummy all the same. It was at this point that I realized how different my poor student ideas of what was affordable were from people who have real jobs and are only here for a week. (Thanks Nicki for buying my meals all the time!) sigh. Maybe they should pay computer programmers less and give it to graduate students studying abroad (that includes you to, Ana)?

I must, however, confess that I did buy something at Harrods. You see, the whole time I've been here I've been falling in love with hats. The English women wear hats and wear them well. It's the rainy weather - hats are a definite necessity. Even better, almost all women wear fabulously fun hats to weddings and such. The hat that I bought at Harrods is not that sort of hat, but rather an everyday hat. It regularly cost £100, but I got it for £18! Such a deal! However, since it was in sale bin that was all sorts of messed up, I asked the salesperson working in the hat area if it really was £18 before I really got attached to it. She said that it was, and I immediately decided to get it. So, while Nicki went off to find a toilet with Rachel, Karen and I went to pay for my hat. We had wandered over to the other side of the accessories room and went to pay over there. The salesperson rang up my hat, and it came up as £80. At this point, I panicked not a little and somehow managed to sputter out that the woman on the other side of the room had told us that it was £18. The salesperson went over to find her and took what seemed like an eternity to find the woman who had told us how much it costs. By the time she got back, I had convinced myself that the price was wrong, and I wouldn't be able to get the only hat that had looked good on me. Luckily, she finally returned and said that the price was £18 - so I bought it before Harrods could change its mind again. We also got some Harrods stuff in that signature forest green the basement Harrods shop, but ended up going back on our return to London so everyone could pick up a few more souvenirs.

The most bizarre thing about Harrods is the Diana and Dodi memorial fountain at the bottom of the Egyptian escalator. If you recall, Dodi's father owns Harrods and put up the memorial after their deaths. It's the only place in Harrods where you can take pictures and there are people there all the time taking them and trying to look contemplative in the middle of a department store. So bizarre.

Nicki, Karen, and Rachel at the Egyptian escalator

When we eventually left the store, five hours after going in, it was raining quite heavily. Between the weather and the lateness of the hour, we didn't have very many options as to things to do. So, after consulting my trusty Lonely Planet London, I suggest a visit to the V&A because it was the only museum to have late hours on Wednesdays. Nicki, Karen, and Rachel seemed less than enthusiastic at the idea but agreed to go because of the lack of other options. Once we were there, however, everyone was soon very happy we came. They even liked the Victorian galleries - see, it's not just nerds like me who like this stuff! We also all really liked the Raphael Cartoons. Rachel really enjoyed the Tudor and Elizabethan galleries, and we were all suitably struck by the Castes Galleries, which I hadn't had a chance to see yet. You may be wondering what the Castes Galleries are - well, when the Victorians couldn't take everything they wanted from Greece and Italy they made plaster castes of the things, and I'm talking full-sized here. So, these rooms are jam-packed full of Cathedral facades, columns, and statues. Basically, it's what they couldn't steal for the British Museum. Also in the castes room is Rachel Whiteside's caste of the room in the BBC on which George Orwell based Room 101 in 1984. She did the caste before it was destroyed as part of the BBC's rebuilding program. Very freaky.

if you can't take the column, just make a life-size replica

Even better than the real thing?

Room 101 . . . ooooo . . .