Last day in London, and the UK as a whole.

I started the morning visiting St. Paul's Cathedral, which was beautiful. I was a little uncertain if it would be a good value (admission was 22 pounds) considering that there didn't seem to be a ton of stuff there. But the view from the top was incredible and the journey to get up there was fascinating as well. The pathways are clearly not meant for modern proportions; there's lots of crouching and sidling between narrow gaps. I loved this sense of sneaking through the bones of the cathedral, climbing the huge networks of spiral staircases suspended between rafters of the dome's superstructure. It's exciting to finally reach the top and the view is a suitable reward. I hadn't really had a comparable view of the city yet since my attempt to visit the Skygarden was foiled (it's free but requires booking, and when I checked last week there was no booking available until October).

Afterward I hopped over the river to see Tate Modern in another unsuccessful attempt to appreciate modern art. There were a few pieces that I appreciated, but by and large I'm still struggling to find any evidence that modern art is anything more than pretentious art snobs smelling their own farts. The view from the top floor is excellent, however, and there's no admission fee, so I think it was worthwhile. From here I decided to check out the more classical Tate Britain, which is on the west side of the city. The fastest way between the two was actually an "Uber Boat" water taxi service that was a few pounds more than the bus would've been, but also much more attractive. It was worth the extra cost to see the city from such a different angle. I really enjoyed Tate Britain and their older collection. The art they had wasn't super varied and exhibitions of a couple artists occupied a larger share of the museum visit than I would have preferred, but that didn't stop it from still being a great experience.

Booking a train out of here proved to be more of a hassle than anticipated. While I'd previously checked the eurostar website and found that my desired route and time still had vacancy and is covered by my eurail pass, it turns out that there are a finite number of people who can reserve a spot on the train using the eurail pass. As such I had to book a much later train than I'd hoped - I now leave London just after 3 PM and get into Brussels around 6 PM local time (Britain's two hours ahead). I even had to pay 35 euros just to make this reservation, despite having a pass. I guess this is how the national rail networks still get you while being signed on to the program. I'll probably use tomorrow morning to check out Buckingham palace since I've yet to get over there, and maybe see the changing of the guard at noon. I'd somewhat been avoiding doing this since I'm suspicious that it will be ultra-touristy, completely packed, and relatively underwhelming, but I'm running out of ideas for what to do with my mornings.

I've found a hostel in Brussels for tomorrow that looks pretty nice. I'm thinking of extending my stay there another night and then using Brussels as a home base for a day trip to Bruges and Ghent, two cities that seem as though they'd be a lot of fun to poke around, but to which I'm not sure I want to dedicate too much time. They're also super close to one another and Belgium's rail infrastructure seems to be incredible so I don't anticipate any challenges getting between the three cities.

I've really enjoyed my time in the UK. While in many ways it was exactly what I expected, there have been plenty of surprises along the way, and I've met some fascinating characters. (I'm currently typing in the first floor pub of the hostel, listening to a heated argument between the bartender and a rather drunk patron who's trying to buy drinks despite having no means to pay for them.) London isn't what I'd expected at all, but now that I've got past the initial bewilderment, it's really grown on me. I think what had me so confused off the bat is that London is an ancient city which doesn't feel it. When you're in Istanbul's old city, it's inescapable that you're standing on thousands of years of history. When you're in Boston or New York, the buildings are from the era when the city boomed. In London, the vast majority of the city is modern and belies the fact that anything existed at this location prior to 1800. There are a certain contradictions to this (Tower of London, Westminster, the palaces), but they seem plopped down haphazardly throughout the city and contradict the matrix of much more recent architecture that they're found within. It reminds me of a video game city where much of the environment is made of the same generic, stock assets to save costs, but then the major locations you're meant to interact with are in a completely different style as a consequence of being vastly more detailed and bespoke. I definitely won't miss this hostel, though, nor will I miss the guy whose phone makes random foghorn sounds all night, nor the guy who periodically bolts upright and starts shouting in some Slavic language before falling back asleep. I will miss "moon-is-fake" lady, though, she was fun.