London — Day three

It was a bit gloomy on our last day in Europe (go fig), but we made the most of it, hitting a few big sites before heading to the airport.

Tim had never seen the campus where I’d studied, so I took him first to Imperial College so that he could see Beit Hall and the bar where I spent most of my post-play practice evenings. Luckily, IC is just down the street from Harrod’s, so we continued our walk toward the most famous of department stores.

I love Harrod’s, not because it’s exclusive or 9 stories or because it has an Egyptian pyramid inside the store (OK, that’s kind of different). I love the absurdity of some of the things you can get there. Within an hour of quick browsing, we saw:

• A 108″ LCD TV (Barney, eat your heart out)
• A motorized boogie board (think jet ski, but a half-surfboard instead)
• A Hummer golf cart, street legal, of course.
• A diamond-encrusted model of a Lamborgini car. Not a few glittery pieces here and there. The ENTIRE car. Crazy.

After we stopped laughing, we decided to visit Westminster Abbey. I’d never been and had always wanted to see Poet’s Corner. I thought it might take 45 minutes. Maybe an hour…

We left 3 hours later. The building’s extraordinary. The history of the people memorialized there, the architecture of how various kings added on and honored dead wives, mothers, children… Very cool. A great way to end our time in Europe.