Got up early to have our first, real "English" breakfast in the guesthouse common area. We met two older women in the breakfast room. They heard us speaking to each other and said, "You sound like Americans." It turns out they were as well and from California, no less! One from the central coast and the other from the Ft. Bragg area. How ironic that the first people we sit down to have a chat with are Americans! We had a nice conversation about coastal California and exchanged stories about our time in England. They were lucky enough to be able to stay in Bath for several days and were about to do a "Mad Max" tour of Stonehenge. Lucky bastards! They were envious, however, when we told them about 
the play we had seen the night before...The guesthouse co-owner, Steve, came over to take our breakfast order. Charles had eggs "over medium" and delicious (and very thick!) bacon and tasty sausage. Laura had scrambled eggs, bacon and a weird-looking, cooked tomato. Coffee strong enough to wake the dead for both. Steve was incredibly nice and helpful and showed us on a map a river walking tour we could do prior to our 11:13 AM train. Since we didn't have to check out yet we quickly left the guest house and wandered over to the Kennet & Avon Canal to begin our final look at Bath. The Locks were very interesting to see in operation. We had only seen large locks in action before (in Bangkok and Seattle) and seeing such a narrow canal was kind of strange - the boatmen had to jump off their narrow boats onto land and operate the locks
themselves. (See our photo and this link for illustration on how this works). We walked through the canal, past a beautiful park (Sydney Gardens), down Great Pulteney Street (the widest street in Bath lined with beautiful Georgian homes), through Laura Place (!), then over the Pulteney Bridge (the one we drove over yesterday), taking many great photos in the process. We popped into one of the stores on Pulteney
Bridge to pick up a few souvenirs and looked down on the River Avon. Laura commented on how nice a view the proprietress had from her window and she commented on how it was one of the best views in town. Lucky her!
We then walked back to the Bath Abbey so we could have a quick walk inside of it before we had to head to the train station. The Abbey was originally built in the 7th century (but rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries). It is considered one of the largest examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in England. The "fan vaulting" on the ceiling was gorgeous (see strange picture of Charles with ceiling).The interior contains fine fan vaulting by Robert and William Vertue, who designed similar vaulting for the Henry VII chapel, at Westminster Abbey. The building has 52 windows, occupying about 80% of the wall space, giving the interior an impression of lightness, and reflecting the different attitudes towards churchmanship shown by the clergy of the time and those of the 12th century. [wikipedia]With great sadness we left the lovely town of Bath, hoping to one day return. There was so much to see in London yet and we had a feeling that we would not be able to finish it all even if we were to stay for a month.
The trains certainly run on time in this country. At exactly 11:15 AM we were off on our way back to London. This was a much more mellow ride since it wasn't rush hour. In fact hardly anyone was even on the train. We could have avoided paying for a ticket since no one came by to collect them! We were able to stretch out on the ride back and even caught a few winks. After getting into Paddington Station we dropped off our bags at the long-term counter, then walked over to the Soho area and Soho Square where we saw a hilarious statue of Charles II --with a bit of an addition from some cheeky local, no doubt (see photo).
We had heard nothing but good things about Indian food in England so we did some investigating courtesy Laura's "Savoir Fare" guidebook and found "Imli" -- an Indian tapas restaurant. We sampled both the chef's tasting menus - vegetarian and non. Excellent food for about £20 total! It was also fun to listen to the locals talking. Since this was Soho the whole vibe was different than other parts of the city. There seemed to be more people in the graphics and film industries -- they were not only better looking and better dressed but they seemed to have more interesting conversations!
The British Museum was open late today so we headed toward it by way of Charing Cross Road and its many bookstores, including the enormous Foyle's. Then we headed over
to Bloomsbury and decided to explore the neighborhood first, checking out a few of the squares including beautiful Russell Square. On one side of the square is the incredibly huge, 19th century-era Hotel Russell. We stopped for a much needed beverage and then walked toward the magnificent St. Pancras Railway Station (see photo). Laura wanted to check out the champagne bar at the station but we were getting tired (getting?!) and knew we needed to conserve what energy we had for the British Museum.
At last the British Museum! Words can't describe the treasures inside of the museum we'd only seen in books and slides - artifacts from the Parthenon, Assyria, Rome, Greece, ancient Britain, Egypt, etc. Charles went up to the huge exhibition on "Roman Britain" (could have spent a day there alone) while Laura went to see the excellent Egyptian exhibit. 
We also saw the world-famous Rosetta Stone (see photo) which was most impressive as well. We only scratched the surface in the two or so hours we were there. After almost collapsing from exhaustion in the southeast Asian room, we decided to make our way back to Issy & Roger's flat. We still had to get our bags from Paddington before returning to their place AND eat!For
our late dinner (now almost 10 PM) we decided to try the "proper hamburgers" at Byron down the street from where we were staying. Our friends had been and said it was pretty good, although they scoffed at the locals eating their "proper hamburgers" with forks and knives - how improper! We were both craving a good burger at this point on our trip and our interest was piqued! We opted to "take away" our burgers so we could hang out with our friends and share some (much needed) alcohol while recounting our adventures.
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