England Trip Day 7 and random thoughts

So today was another low-key day. We went to the Tate Modern in the morning, ran around Oxford getting 407 forms from places we had spent lots of money (for a VAT refund) and then went out to Hampton Court Palace.

The Tate Modern was a good Modern art museum. The have Rodin's THe Kiss there, some Picasso, and some Francis Drake works. Lots of other stuff too. Some of the stuff we had actually already seen at the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis. On the way to the Tate from the Underground we walked by Shakespeare's Globe and some other interesting sites.

We then went to Hampton Court Palace. Took us a bit to get out there, it was nice and quiet. We went through the maze and walked through the Palace; which was more like a fortress. It was nice to get out of the city and hear birds and see trees. Today was the first day that we had rain...

Here are some random odd things that happened/thoughts:
- Paris moved slower than London and the city was more spread out.
- Londoners are always in a hurry.
- Paris waiters are good.
- London waiters need to be asked to bring the check; we have yet to actually have a British waiter take the initiative on this. I am beginning to think it is normal for England.
- Coca-cola is very expensive in Paris, yet cheap in London.
- Someone tried to pick-pocket Cate. They stuck their hand in her coat pocket on the Underground. Funny thing is they came away with a handful of dirty Kleenex...we all know better than to keep important stuff in our coat pockets!
- We must look American, in Paris waiters kept offering us menus in English as we walked down the street.
- According to our experience it is mostly sunny in England with the occasional spotty shower.
- You can get trapped in the London Underground. Somehow going from Wimbledon station to Waterloo station we ended up with a negative dollar amount on our Oyster card (underground pass). They would not let us out of the station and told us to "Top up our cards" but there was no where to top up our cards in the station. Finally after explaining that we would love to add more money onto our cards if they would let us...they let us out of the station so we could go to the kiosk and add more money. Of course first we had to get a lecture about how it is our responsibility to know when we will run out of money on our card. Well..ya...it is and every station we had been through had a place to add money...except for the one where we ran out of money. As to how we ended up with -1.81 lbs on our card I will never know. At least we are still not stuck down there.
- Highschoolers take the train between Hampton Court Palace and Waterloo station to get home from school. They are very loud and very obnoxious...

Tomorrow we are planning on hitting another museum and checking out the Shoreditch area. We have had fun but are getting ready to go home. I like the city but I also like some space and I am getting sick of the constant drone of people.