Europe 2023, August 13th

Another run for nearly an hour around Hyde Park, I doubt I will be doing much longer than that.

Finally got a response about my inactive sim card two days later. They suggested manually choosing a network provider but didn't say which one, and there's about three UK providers that show up. Nothing worked so sent them some more feedback.

Had breakfast done by 10am but my booking for British Museum wasn't until 11am. The train to the museum was quick so had arrived by 10:30am. Reached the main entrance only to find the line was all the way down the street and around the corner already. Instead I walked around to the secondary entrance at the back and there was only about 50 people in the line. The booking didn't even matter as you could just walk in anyway.

I forgot to pick up a map at the entrance so was just wandering around without a plan. Started at the big gift shop that runs all the way around the inner building and got a new London magnet !

Next went over to the ancient Greek and Roman sculptures. Lots of similar stuff in each room, most was broken like missing arms and legs. I realised I had walked past the Rosetta Stone the first time through, since there was so many people crowding around.

Next went upstairs to the other Egypt stuff, all the mummies and burial things. I enjoyed the money room with old cash registers, money, credit cards, payment technology, etc. The Japan section was a bit disappointing, then I ended downstairs again with some Mexican stuff.

Got back on the train over to the London Designer Outlets at Wembley for a bit more shopping, since it was only four stops on the train, but the last two took quite a while. Had all the usual shops - Adidas, Asics, New Balance, and Nike. Only got some Adidas shorts for daily wear.

Had lunch then back on the train to Westminster to see the usual Big Ben, houses of parliament and London Eye across the river. All looked about the same as last time, with the same amount of people hanging around on the footpath. Once again it was full of people who either can't walk at normal speed, stop for no reason, or bring a whole family with prams.

Walked up to Trafalgar Square via Downing Street this time, then continued to Leicester Square and Piccadilly down some different streets, and back to Paddington on the train. Got some dinner and started packing up for the morning trip to Birmingham already.

I just realised in the evening the Manchester United vs. Wolves game was actually scheduled for Monday night at 8pm in Manchester, which is only about 1.5 hours away from Birmingham. The unfortunate coincidence was Wolverhampton is very close to Birmingham, so all the away fans had booked out the transport already.

Like previously, game shows have been the best options to watch on UK television channels - BBC, ITV, or Challenge. Most of the time it seems like Pointless or The Chase is on at least one channel, another game show Tenable seemed ok but I only came across it once.