Today, I took advantage of the fact that the trip that Megan and Gina are on is a church-centric trip and went to mass at Westminster Abbey and a eucharist service in the evening at a "new monastic" church called Moot. Details may follow.
My slight inclination towards a cold, in the form of a stuffy nose and cloggy throat when laying on my back, turned into a serious cold that turned my nose into a snot-pumping machine ("I'b sick. I need SOUP," although it was CHIPS in my case); I wasn't exactly on top of my game. This was not helped by the fact that I woke up at 0430 by some late-night partiers returning and being... noisy. I was planning on going to St Paul's for the early morning service, since I was up anyway, cough cough shut up cough, but I had to buy kleenexes. I ended up getting a whole box, which I carried around the whole day. I used about half of it, and it's coming on the plane tomorrow. I missed the service because my sickness and exhaustion and lack of having anything nutritious in my stomach (just night-draining snot and some "pineapple" juice drink, oh boy!), and decided to hunt for some chips. For some reason, they were fixed in my mind as the thing that would make me feel better. Unfortunately, while I was too late for the service, I was too early for anything to be open, much less serving a lunch menu.
I had a lot of fruit smoothies today. Sorry, bank account.
I met up with Megan and Gina and the tour group at 10:30. The service was interesting, and explained the line in Good Omens about Crowley looking a bit guilty, like someone who hasn't been to church in a long time and has forgotten which bits you stand up for (this is at the beginning of the second little prologuey thing, when Hastur and Ligur begin to recount the "Deeds of the Day" before giving him the infant anti-Christ). My enjoyment of it was lessened by my being sick, since my head is so clogged up that I get dizzy when I stand too fast and my ears keep being plugged.
I was hoping to hit the Twinings store when it was open, but I also wanted to go on the harry potter tour, which ended up being less awesome than I had hoped. I did see some cool stuff that I had wanted to see and learned some non-harry potter stuff (didn't actually learn a whole lot about that...) about London. I saw the great fire monument, for instance, and got some nice pictures of the Tower Bridge. I also ended up with some chips. They weren't too great, but they were quite filling. By the time the tour ended, we were on the other side of London from Twinings and it was 10 minutes to closing. Sad day. I got pictures anyway.
We went to Moot, and it was... interesting. They were basically anglican with some different formatting thrown in. The study trip group described it as a mix between the monastary they stayed in in France and the anglican churches, with some modernity thrown in. It was nice.
After that, I trailed the group to The Blackfriar Tavern, which was out of their only vegetarian entree. I went with the fried mushrooms and the tomato soup instead, and the fact that I'm sick probably helped my hunger to be sated. Plus, the soup was acidic enough to burn my poor, badly-chapped lips. My nose and lips are horribly chapped; remember that half a box of kleenexes?
Now, I've been switched to a new room, my luggage is all present and accounted for, and I have booked a taxi to the tube station to avoid putting myself in a terrible mood before I even have to deal with people by dragging my uncooperative luggage around. I've given myself lots of time to navigate the tube station, and I should arrive at Heathrow well within the recommended two hours prior to my flight.
It's weird, that I'll be leaving England for the foreseeable future. I've done so much and made so many friends here that it's really weird to think that we're all separate now.
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