magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

I'll leave the working part of my day to your imagination. It's not all that interesting or galmourous, and involves me feeling terribly out of character in a suit and tie. After a tour of 5 Canada Square, I was left with some free time in the late afternoon and evening to explore London on my own.

I had a late lunch at a vegetarian Chinese buffet that I had found listed on the internet. I got a little lost while wandering the back streets of Soho looking for it, and came across a vegetarian falafel place which I had also read about, and made note of it to possibly come back to. While I was eating, although it was bright and sunny outside, it started snowing lightly, and people on the street were looking up at the sky to see just what was going on.

After lunch, I headed down to the Tate Britain. I had wanted to go to the Modern while I was here, but while looking up directions found out that the Tate Triennial was opening today. It's only in it's third go-round, but aiming to be England's answer to the Whitney Biennial, which is also opening this week, back in New York.

For a major opening, it was pretty sparsely attended. Which offered a better experience of the art, but like with most large group exhibitions (very much including 2004's Whitney Biennial) I only found about one in ten works interesting or compelling. It was also quite a bit smaller than the Whitney, and after an hour and half or so I was on my way.

Although the sun was beginning to go down, and it was getting even a bit colder, I could see the London Eye, the worlds tallest ferris wheel, from the Thames Riverwalk across the street from the Tate, and it didn't seem too far off to get to on foot. And I figured that sunset would probably be a great time to get a panoramic view of London, so I set off in that direction.

The ticket line (once I found it, the signage is not terribly clear) was not very long, given the weather and time of day. And before too long I found myself in a car on the wheel with a group of very loud older Italians and a woman about my age, Spanish maybe, also on her own. It probably would have been quite something to be in a car alone, but I suspect that on busier days the cars are packed closer to a dozen.

The view, as I'm sure you can imagine, is amazing. And I've got the photos to prove it, some of which will be up on Camera Lucida, my web photo gallery.

Heading back to the hotel I realised that tonight was the night they host a cocktail party for all the hotel guests from 5:30 to 7:00. Which I thought was an awfully friendly thing for a hotel to do, and I was planning on stopping in to, although I wouldn't be getting back until around 6:30. As it happened, that was fine. Cocktail parties are not exactly the most punctual of occasions, especially when working around the schedules of various people all on their own vacations and business trips.

I had a number of glasses of champagne. Didn't really meet any of the other guests, but had conversations with members of the hotel staff and friends of the enterprise. 'How are you finding London?' of course, but also architecture, banking, other European cities, the American countryside, Bridge.

As tends to happen, I found myself being one of the last to leave the party, and headed back out into the city, a little tipsy, in search of the falafel place from earlier in the day. And after about two hours of wandering around the wrong part of London ('Where do I know Drury Lane from? Is there a song about it? Oh, that's right, it's where the Muffin Man lives.') I headed back to the hotel empty-stomached, but found a room service breakfast menu to leave outside my door and make sure that I had something to eat before work tomorrow.