I'm Doing Europe (Part Two): London, England (or the United Kingdom, or Great Brittain, or Whatever Else They Decide to Call Themselves)

My first stop's been London, which has been pretty brilliant (that's British for cool), if not a bit expensive, what with the pound (that's British for dolla dolla bill, y'all) kicking my ass all around town.

Some observations about England right off the bat:

Accents: I've got to say that the accents here are worth the price of admission alone. I could walk around all day and do nothing besides listening to people talk. Combined with the fact that the area around our first hostel in Piccadilly Circus looked like a back lot dressed to look like the UK, the accents had me convinced I was walking around in a Richard Curtis movie. Fantastic.

Moreover, I'm convinced everyone in this country is smarter than me. I don't know what it is about people speaking the Queen's English, but for some reason, everyone seems either a) more sardonic than me, b) more cultured than me, c) more aware than me or d) all of the above. I was at Tesco's the other day (that's British for Wal-Mart) and I heard this exchange between a small British girl and her little brother:

Cute Little Asian British Girl: Don't wander off too far, you'll get lost!

Cute Little Asian British Boy: (a beat) I hate you.

Coming from a pair of American kids, this would have sounded juvenile and bratty. Coming from these two, it sounded like a fucking Mamet movie. Awesome.

People in General: People in general are really nice here, by the way. Although I could just be giving them points because of the accents.

The £: As I mentioned earlier, the pound is kind of kicking my ass. It's pretty much double the dollar here, and Western Europe is pretty expensive in general. I'd have an easier time conserving my funds, but the actual bills themselves remind me of Monopoly money, so I'm kind of spending them as such. This is no good.

The Original Bus Tour of London: On our second day we took the Original Bus Tour of London - one of those red double decker buses that goes around town stopping off at places like the Tower of London and Big Ben and the like. We went with the headphones only tour, as I'm not really a fan of seeing some poor former acting major suffer through their fifth tour of the day while trying to get me interested in Oliver Cromwell.

On the whole, I'd recommend it if you're ever in town. It's kind of expensive (something like £22), but really covers everything you need to see and lets you hop on and off. Now, when people (namely my parents) ask about whether I saw to (insert English landmark of little consequence or interest to me), then I can say for certain that I did (albeit fleetingly from the top of a bus sitting on my lazy ass). Everyone's a winner.

Statues: Another thing I found out on the tour is that in London, everyone and their mom gets a statue. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Near the old stock exchange, they've got a statue commemorating stock traders (the statue is literally a dude in a suit and tie on a cell phone). By Regent Park, they've got a bust of JFK. JFK, people. Last I checked (which was a second ago on Wikipedia), he's not even British.

That doesn't mean they didn't miss a few people. What follows is a top five list of people that deserve to be captured forever in stone (or marble, or granite, or whatever statues are made out of these days) in Jolly Ol' London Town:

1. Hugh Grant: Let's forgive Hugh his one transgression with a poorly named prostitute and recognize the man for popularizing Oxford shirts with rolled up sleeves and foppishness all over the world. Hell, the man should be knighted and canonized in the Anglican Church (that's British for Christianity in England, post Henry VIII induced schism with the pope, yo).
2. John McClane: I was gonna say that Alan Rickman should get a statue for being the archetypal Hollywood British Villain over the course of a decades long career - but then I remembered how much John McClane kicked his English arse (that's British for ass) in Die Hard. That's why Brucey Boy gets the nod. Also, if memory serves, John McClane once got into a fight with a fucking jet fighter. Guess who won that one. I'll give you a hint (it wasn't the fucking helicopter).
3. J.R.R. Tolkien: Because New Zealand shouldn't be getting all that LOTR nerd tourist money, people.
4. The Britsh Bulldog: Dude rocked the Union Jack on his jock and the freshest set of white dude dreadlocks on his head. Throw in multiple reigns as tag team and European title along with the Hart family ties and the least you could do is give the man a statue near Buckingham Palace, right?
5. The Beatles: Nuff' said.

It's getting late. I'll be back tomorrow with some rousing anecdotes about Liverpool (birthplace of this band you may have heard of called the motherfucking Beatles).