I need new shoes

I will post pictures later. Honest.

James and I had an excellent adventure today. We went to Buckingham Palace (they did not even open the gates for us, how rude!), Harrods and two different museums. And then we got lost.

I'm learning here that people are very different. This is my first experience in a "foreign" country (America is foreign in that it's another country, but they're very similar to Canadians), so I knew some differences would come up.
In Canada, we smile at people. All the time. For no reason. If a car stops for us at a crosswalk, even though it's the law for them to stop, we wave our thanks. We hold doors for other people, thank them for doing the same for us and apologize when we bump into someone else on the street, even if it's not our fault.
Here, they don't smile at you on the street. They look at you like you're strange if you do. They don't wave at the cars, they don't hold doors unless they're getting paid to. It's not that the people are rude - they're just not open and boisterous with their friendliness like we are.

It's hard knowing where the crosswalks are. They're not very clearly marked and it's not like red lights actually stop cars. The cars really do drive on the wrong side of the road here, but I'm willing to contest I may have been walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk. There's no trucks or SUVs or giant American cars, either. Everything seems nice and compact. People drive Minis unironically.

James and I went on a double decker bus today, or as they call it here: "the bus". It was part of our getting lost experience. I took a wrong turn out of the science museum (like I couldn't go in, especially when it was free) when we left and it was dark out. We ended up in Chelsea or somewhere and were very poorly lead by Google Maps. Rather, we were very excellently lead by Google Maps into the exact opposite direction of where we wanted to go. It was getting late and I was starving (James was getting growly too, being a bear and all, and I didn't want to make the papers with him eating a person !) and I wasn't willing to settle for McDonalds. We got on a bus labeled Picadilly Circus in the hopes that it would get us there - I know there's a tube stop there that gets me back to my accommodations.
Along the way, there was a Hard Rock Cafe. Yup, that's some good dinner. I could have kissed the waitress who brought me that greasy ass burger.

I have come to the conclusion that it's impossible to get lost when you don't really have a destination. I intended to see the Victoria Memorial, Buckingham Palace and Harrod's today and I accomplished all of that. Anything more was icing on the cake. I know I can get on the tube at any point and eventually get back to where I'm staying or I can get in a cab. I do plan on an earlier start tomorrow because I want to see the Changing of the Guard.

Tomorrow shall have pictures. I'm simply too lazy to resize them.