Ugh, how is it Wednesday morning already?! As usual with these trips, the time has really flown by, but I’ve still got a nice day to get through day, plus a couple other fun days to write up here. So this trip, like my others, will live on forever!

As the title of this post suggest, Monday was a pretty chill day, so there’s not a ton to say about it. Oh, and I went to a museum, but you probably figured that out, too. 🙂 But it was also fun because my friend Steve came into London to hang with me for the day! He lives in Brighton, so it’s pretty easy for him to get into London and only takes about an hour. Plus, he had booked the week off from work, so didn’t have to rearrange his schedule to be here. Unfortunately, the couple things I had in mind for us to do didn’t end up working out. The first was the Cinema Museum, which I’ve actually visited once before, back in 2019, but because they were offering one of their pretty infrequent in-person guided tours on Monday, I thought it would be fun to experience it properly (I didn’t get a tour last time – just wandered it by myself). You have to email or call them to book into it, so I had sent a message late last week, but never heard back from them. Actually, I DID hear back, but it was on the train last night, so the day AFTER we would have gone. Oh well! My other idea was to visit The Who Shop, since it’s sort of a mecca for Doctor Who fans like us. And in allll my trips to London, I’ve only been there once, in 2015, but at that time, I didn’t go to the little museum they have, so I thought that would be fun. I sent them a message to confirm when they would be open (since it was the day after Easter and a bank holiday here, I figured they may have different hours) and, while they did respond, they also confirmed the museum is only available to tour Thu-Sat, so that was also out. I really was striking out! Thankfully, Steve had ideas of his own and he suggested going to the Science Museum, which I had never visited and he hadn’t been to in many years. Although Mondays are a universal day for many museums to be closed, that’s not always the case on bank holiday Mondays, so he looked on their website to pre-book tickets (which are free!) and saw times available, so he grabbed one for the early afternoon. Finally something worked out for us!

As this museum is in South Kensington, it’s not too far from where I stayed when I was here with friends last September. In fact, I’d walked by the museum on my morning walks on that trip and I went to a nearby museum, the V&A, with my friend Felicity. Steve’s train was coming into a station I could easily reach from Aldgate East (Victoria), so he suggested I come to him and then head towards the museum. And of course I, being the big geek I am, suggested we go to Earl’s Court to visit their police box. That station isn’t at all far from the museum, so we both agreed we’d see the police box and then walk towards the museum, hopefully finding a brunch place along the way (it was mid-morning by this point, so perfect timing for brunch). And after I struck out with not one, but TWO suggestions at first, I’m happy to report that this plan went off without a hitch. I even have photos to prove it!

A couple photos of us with the TARDIS…I mean, “police box.” 🙂

We had a great time eating and chatting and managed to time things out for our museum entry pretty perfectly. As the restaurant is just down the road from the museum, it wasn’t a long walk to hit the 1:15 PM entry window that Steve had booked. When we were walking to brunch, we had seen a VERY long line to get into the Natural History Museum (which is in front of the Science Museum), so we were hoping we wouldn’t have to wait in a similar line for our entry and thankfully, we didn’t! There was a bit of a line and then a quick bag check, but that process only took a few minutes, so we were soon inside…with THRONGS of people, many of them kiddos. I mean, it’s a very kid-friendly place, so I was prepared for that, but…ugh. I don’t have anything against kids, but I don’t LOVE crowds and kids make crowds more complicated, so there was definitely a lot happening, making it hard to enjoy the actual museum content. But I can’t complain too much, since it’s a positive thing for kids to be out exploring a museum, right? We did spend a good couple of hours there, going through the various floors, which showcase items from space exploration to medicine to computers/technology and more. You’ll see that in the mix of photos below!

More space stuff!

Two final photos of more medical stuff. The arm and hand on the left were from real people and were filled/covered with wax post-mortem. The partial skull on the right is also a wax model, but I’m not sure if some components of it also came from actual people.

And that ended our time at the Science Museum! We wandered through the museum shop, but didn’t buy anything, and then decided to have a drink at Retro Bar. Steve said he hasn’t been there since the last time he was there when I was visiting, which would have been a number of years ago as it’s been quite a long time before this current trip since I’ve seen him in London (I’ve seen him elsewhere, like Swansea, but not here). We got there not too long after they opened, when only a couple people were there, so it was nice to not have to wait for a table. It was also fun to watch the place fill up as time passed and more people arrived. It was just a good catch-up convo on everything going on in our lives and I’m happy we got to do it! I did make sure I didn’t stay out too late though, since I had an early wake-up call for my Tuesday day trip (more on that soon). So after that nice catch-up, we both just had to walk down to Embankment to catch trains (in opposite directions though).

Steve took a few photos of me from across the tracks. Kinda neat!

I didn’t get back to my hotel too late, giving me time to do some blogging, watch some TV, and get to bed early. I woke up before my 6:30 AM alarm the next morning, so I made it to the station in plenty of time for my day trip. As usual with day trips, it was a long and fun day, so come back soon to read all about it.