London cont'd...

The day after the concert, and another one lined up... The Beck concert in Southampton that night. That morning we tried to get our bearings a bit by walking from Islington into the city on another stunning day. We met Andrew for lunch in the Church Yard of St Paul's, and were introduced to Paul's pastries. Afterwards we walked the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern, dwarfed by the giant graffiti art on the walls - a recent installation piece. As we had such limited time in London, we were getting used to the 'in-and-out' tours of these places, and had to limit our time in the Tate before heading to Waterloo station. I will definitely be going back to see more of what it has to offer, but did manage to squeeze in seeing the Pollocks, Klines, Rothkos... We walked the Thames to Waterloo station, and were thankful that the staff were very helpful with the information we needed, as we're still adjusting to reading giant sign boards with incomprehensible information.

We caught the train to Southampton and went straight from the station to the concert venue where we met Dan, a friend who works on the crew with Beck, and generously helped us out with tickets for the event. We strolled on into soundcheck with the band, and sat in the back rocking away to the wordless beats of the songs. After the gig, we waited around for pack up and ended up sitting in the tour bus (the crew's one, Beck quickly scampered away to his and departed) having some drinks with Dan, and one or two of the band until they left us to drive to Manchester for the next gig...

We caught the morning train back into the heart of the city, and spent the day walking the streets to see some more sites. Soho in search of the famous 'flat white', but found the fabulous Monmouth Coffee House instead, Neal's Dairy for some amazing blue cheese (not pricey at all if you were earning the pounds, like most things really! Pity about the NZ dollar...), Covent Gardens, Trafalgar Square and a glimpse at Buckingham Palace, and ended up at the British Museum - incredible architecture. With our newly acquired blue cheese, we picked up some red wine to have with Andrew, and went to the lock at the canal by his place where the houseboats lie.

From there it was into the city for dinner with Josh's brother Daniel, his wife Katherine and Josh's sister Sophie at the East Room, where we enjoyed fantastic cocktails and food, including one specially made cocktail for Josh by the 'NZ' bartender, who actually turned out to be Australian...