London II.

49. At the British Museum.

Greek Mythology 101 

English 101
"Oh look, a bathtub!"
"No, Gazpacho, it's a sarcophagus." 
"Is that, like, a fancy word for bathtubs?"

How To Make Chess Sound Less Nerdy 101

Good Life 101

50. At the Blackfriars Millennium Pier. The dangerously-named Virgin London Marathon was on. Spectators were gathering alongside the run, shouting out names of, I had imagined, their friends and loved ones. None of mine was participating, but that did not stop me from feeling and acting supportive. "Come on, PEOPLE!". Gaston pointed out that I needed to call out actual names, which, now that he mentioned it, could easily be read on the chests of the runners. Being lazy, I took the easy road and repeated whatever the little girl next to me said. 
"Come on, Pauline!" the girl yelled. 
"Come on, Pauline!" I yelled. 
"Come on, Mike!"
"Come on, Mike!" 
"Come on, lady bug!"
"Come on, lad- what?"
There was, indeed, a human-sized lady bug, running and smiling. Just as there were a Chicken Little, a cake, a pumpkin, and other colorful outfits, worn by those who must have thought running the marathon itself wasn't challenging enough, so they went ahead and added a few extra kgs of a Halloween costume. Accurate as my head cheerleader might have been, there probably is an age limit for shouting out "Come on, Chicken Little!" in public. I left the cheer squad and joined Gaston on the grass to discuss age-appropriate things like five-year plans ("So, you are 32..." "No, I'm 27." "Imagine you were 32..." "Then I would like to be King...") and intellectual masturbation. These two topics might or might not have been related.

51. Maya Angelou once said, that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights. I would like to add, that you can also tell a lot about a person by the way he handles a missed train, especially when he missed it because of someone else. While the real reason for the missed train is still not funny to write about (yet), I am glad that I got to see a new side of Gaston's, the side that, after being escorted out of Eurostar check-in area by security, calmly walked along Euston Road and said, "Look, full moon! How many times do we get to see a full moon in London..."