Harrods

Yesterday, I made my first visit to Harrods. Ok, so it wasn't exactly my first visit. I saw it several years ago when we stopped for three days in London, but all I remember from that particular visit was that we saw some overpriced blankets. Harrods is basically where you go if you've got lots and lots of money and wish to be rid of it.

In exploring the store, I discovered my dream bed. Yup, folks, this is the bed that I want when I grow up (and for those who say I am up, well, you're wrong). Except I want crimson sheets instead of the darker ones they've got on it, although I want the same gold pattern. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's beautiful in person, really. In fact, I think I might just go back to the store to visit it. And yes, I know that it costs £4,000. But alas, a girl can dream, just not in the bed she wants.

I was highly amused by this. They don't just have toilets, they have "Luxury Washrooms." I was quite thoroughly prepared to be cynical about this. After all, how 'luxury' could a public washroom really be? But again, I was forced to eat my words. There's actually a bathroom attendant, and a selection of fine perfumes/lotions available for your use after the deed. And actually, since there was a bottle of Chanel No. 5, and I had never actually smelled Chanel No. 5 before, I sprayed a little on. And then, feeling bad for not tipping the attendant (because standing in a bathroom all day can't be very much fun, no matter how nice the bathroom is), I left her a pound .... and she covered my entire coat in Chanel No. 5, which was really sweet of her, I think.

So now I smell really, really expensive wherever I go (seriously, my coat still smells like it). The moral of the story here?

Tip your bathroom attendants, boys and girls, because after all, they have to listen to you pee.

I took this photo because I loved that there was a room entirely devoted to writing. You can't see inside, but this room is loaded with extraordinarily expensive pens, as well as inkpots and other such silver/golden utensils that normal people don't really use anymore. Really, I saw a £2,000 pen. I'm sure it was a fabulous pen, but I think that even if I had the money to spare, I wouldn't buy one. I'd never use it, just because it was a £2,000 pen. I'd just pull it out to show people and keep saying things like "Would you believe this pen cost £2,000?" and I'm sure that would get annoying quickly.

There aren't actually any books in the writing room, although there is a separate stationery room (where, I was pleased to see, they sell Moleskine, among other things, including some journals I've also seen at Borders). If you feel the need to purchase a book with writing already in there for you, there's also a Waterstones inside of Harrods (which for you guys who don't know is a chain bookstore, like Borders or Barnes and Noble). Need something new to listen to while you're spending massive amounts of money? They've also got an HMV (which is a CD/DVD store) inside of Harrods.

By the way, I have to say that Harrods, out of all the stores I've been to, plays the weirdest mish-mosh of music I've heard in a while. I heard Bob Marley (Stir it up, I think), Britney Spears (a medley of her early work, for those who are curious), as well as that weird stupid techno that most stores insist on playing. Also, if you pay attention, the music is different in almost every room.

This is a sculpture in the seafood/meat area of the food halls. You can buy practically anything you can think of to eat. There's a Charcuterie, Fromagerie and Traiteur (still not exactly sure what those words mean, though), Fruit and Veggies, a Pantry, a Bakery, a Candy Shop, a Tea & Coffee shop, Confectionery & Patisserie, and Meat, Fish and Poultry. These are all in their own individual rooms, which are all beautifully (if somewhat gaudily) decorated, and in addition to the food halls, there are about two dozen restaurants/cafes in Harrods, with at least a few on each level (there are 7 levels).

This is the seafood bar immediately next to the sculpture in the photo before it.

This is the statue in the Egyptian room, which is entire decked out in Egyptian/middle easten designs. This pattern runs along the entire escalator well, also, through all seven levels.

I took this photo primarily to prove that they have a Champagne Bar inside the women's department. I wish we had a bar in the women's department back home. It'd definitely be a comfort when things don't fit (which is, I suspect, why it is so strategically located, so that the larger ladies can drown their sorrows in some Cristal).

This photo is from the pseudo-museum that they've got going on the third floor. There's a lot of lovely crystal/rock/fossil formations, complete with informative placards and obscene price tags. I took a photo of this one primariyly because of the price tag, which for those of you who can't see it, is £ 2,300.

I took this one for no other reason than I thought that the stone was beautiful. The color of the stone, which is Labradorite, comes from lamellar intergrowths within the crystal. The light enters the crystal and then refracts off of the internal layers, which is what makes it so pretty (and expensive).

Again, took this picture because I thought it was cool. This is an actual fossilized flower.

I took this one because of the obscene price tag that comes along with this lovely amethyst rock crystal, which you will see in the photo immediately below.

Ah, priceless memories. This is an actual fossilized lizard, selling for the bargain price of £2,350.

This guy was very nice. I primarily took a photo of him because he was, as you can tell, dressed in all green (you can't see, but his slacks are green too), and he rather reminded me of the guardian at the gates of the emerald city. I thought the image was also particularly appropriate for a doorman at Harrods, which is, I suppose, to many, a sort of Emerald city in itself.

Trees are pretty and I like them

Abbey Road

Ok, it's not officially on Abbey Road, but it's close. It's just outside of the tube stop you get off at to get to Abbey Road (St. John's Wood, by the way).

Actually, it turns out that Abbey Road is a pretty busy intersection, so if you wish to take a photo, you have to wait several minutes for a long enough gap to pass in between cars. By the way, I totally don't even know two of the girls we were crossing the street with, they just volunteered to do that. And I think that guy just happened to cross the street at the time.

It is still an operating music studio. And no, they won't let you in. Not even to pee.

Brighton Beach

We went to Brighton Beach on Saturday, which is about 50 miles away from London and it takes about an hour-and-a-half to get there.

Brighton Beach is London's version of Wisconsin Dells or Coney Island. It's somewhere you can spend the day (or a few days), take the kids, hang out on the beach and eat things you would not normally allow yourself (cotton candy, which is called candy floss here, ice cream cones, doughnuts, fish and chips, etc.).

The 'beach' is the English Channel, which, while it's not technically the ocean, is close enough to suffice, although I'm not sure I'd want to swim in it. A few minutes walk away from the beach are the lanes, which is the only portion of old Brighton Beach that really remains. Initially, Brighton was just a small fishing village, and while the lanes is now a rather cramped and twisty quarter full of small and rather cute shops (expensive shops, mind you. Loads of jewelry stores. If you want to blow some serious cash, it's definitely possible in the lanes), it is really the only portion of Brighton that remains close to what it originally was before Brighton became fashionable.

Brighton became fashionable precisely because it was unfashionable. If this paradox doesn't quite make sense to you, allow me to explain. Brighton Beach was the hide-out of a party boy prince, Prince George, who took up residence there when he was only 21. He chose Brighton because, unlike Bath, where the high and mighty went to take the waters for their health, Brighton was as yet unknown, and as a result, no one knew him there, and he could party to his heart's content.

So Prince George, who would eventually become King George IV, shacked up in a little farmhouse (a pleasing show of frugality from a prince who'd already racked up some hefty debt in London) with his mistress. His mistress was a Catholic widow, which made her doubly inappropriate. Marrying a Catholic was as yet illegal (it actually remained illegal until relatively recently and the royals still can't marry Catholics without having to renounce their claim to the throne) and being a Catholic widow made it ever so much worse. He never could've gotten away with parading the lovely lady around in London, but Brighton Beach was just far enough to prevent the problems of indiscretion.

Brighton became popular as a result of George's residence there, and when it became so, the ramshackle old house were replaced by lovely Victorian-looking big white houses, where the rich and powerful lived. The square where the fishermen used to mend their nets and skin their fish became a lovely little park, and still is to this day.

When Georgie became Regent, not king, but rather ruling in his father's stead, as his father (George III) had been declared insane, he finally had enough power (as well as an unlimited purse) to build his dream palace in Brighton. And so he changed his farmhouse into his Royal Pavillion. The architecture is Indian on the outside (basically what a poor man's version of the Taj Mahal would look like), while the inside is 'Chinese.' I put this in quotes, because it's very much what a British dude who's never been to China would think is Chinese. It's quite pretty but it's also ... quite overdone. There's guilding and bright reds and dragons everywhere, and while it's really interesting in some ways, most of his interiors, the fancier ones anyway, hit you like a hammer. I guess it just goes to show that even royals have bad taste sometimes. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the royal pavillion, so you're just going to have to take my word for it.

The young Queen Victoria, George's cousin, stayed in the Pavillion for a while, and was quite astounded at the "Strange, Chinese" decor. Apparently, she hadn't seen anything like it. She was less than impressed with the view from her window, because she couldn't see the sea, which is, I suppose the point of a seaside palace. It's quite near the water, about a five minute walk, but you really can't see the water from it. After Victoria inherited the throne, she deemed it somewhat less than acceptable as a royal residence, although I don't think she really had that big of a problem with the decor. The primary issue was that she, Prince Albert and their nine children would have scarcely been able to fit into such a small building, much less live there comfortably. So they sold it to the Town of Brighton, and all of the furnishings within the pavillion currently are on loan from the Royal Family.

This is the archway that leads into the garden area surrounding the Palace. You can see bits of palace in the background.

Dmitry, this is for you.

This photo was actually taken on the pier, which has a few fast food restaurants (fish and chips, doughnuts, ice cream, etc.) and a few novelty shops, but primarily it's an arcade. This is basically where you take your kids to play if it's rainy or if they've had enough of the beach. There's an adult arcade behind the kids one, too, complete with slot machines and gambling tables. Overall, it's very cheesy, but I can definitely see how it could be fun.

This is a photo of the old pier. The town had intended to have it restored and built into something interesting, but people kept setting fire to the damn thing. Finally, after a fire last year, the town decided that it was un-restorable, and is planning on building something else interesting to have a replacement attraction (because come burn things usually doesn't attract very many people).

This sign just says "I have great desire. My desire is great." And I thought it was a really odd thing to have written on a wall, so I took a photo of it.

This was the best cupcake ever!!!!!

The beach at Brighton isn't exactly a beach; it's pebbles, almost all the way down to the water, where it's smaller pebbles. It's not really someplace you'd walk barefoot.

This is a picture of my foot after I wasn't fast enough to outrun the wave.