London: The Highlights

Thanks for all the welcome back wishes! Just to clarify, I did not sprain my ankle, my classmate did. She and I were partners in infirmity on our Friday day off, venturing out for lunch between naps. We ended up at a swanky organic food cafe in nearby Sloane Square. It was a little overpriced, and seemed to be a popular destination for affluent "yummy mummies" and their tots.

I won't bore you with every last place we saw, but here are a few museums I would recommend to anyone visiting London.

• Of course, the V&A. Not only is Vicky and Al's a mecca of decorative arts, it's free and bursting with all sorts of things. You can see jewels, gowns from the 18th century, the Great Bed of Ware, King James II's wedding suit, Persian rugs, Chinese sculpture, and the new enormous Medieval and Renaissance galleries.
  
• Sir John Soane's Museum is also free, but smaller and with a different approach. It's a Victorian townhouse full of one man's art and artifact collections. There are Roman busts, the sarcophagus of Pharoah Seti I, trap door paintings galleries, and a parlor where an imaginary monk lived.
  
• Brighton - I knew about it as the site of Lydia and Wickham's infamous elopement in Pride and Prejudice. Now I know that it's also famous for punk fashion, beach weekends, and of course the crazy-awesome Indian style pavilion Prince Regent George IV built there. It looks like a huge white alien ship in the middle of town, and the interior is even crazier. Dragons, gilding, palm tree columns, and stained glass are just the beginning.
• The Geffrye Museum has period rooms, but with more selective furnishings than Winterthur's. Also, their rooms span from the 1600s to the 1990s. That's right, you can now see VCRs and a CD player alongside Ikea in a museum display. The museum is a little off the beaten path, but this means there are deliciously inexpensive Vietnamese restaurants all along the street.
  

Of course I did touristy stuff too on my days off - Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, and shopping in Oxford Circus. The TopShop flagship store there was pretty overwhelming, but I made it out alive with a cute necklace. I had to laugh, though, at the section where candy was sold near hair extensions. Yup, that's all a teenage Londoner needs in life.