fh_trips | The Thames, Just Outside London, Monday, 1815

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island summer jaunt 2011

The Thames, Just Outside London, Monday, 1815

The island had had enough of the rain, and the portents, and the rising levels of the water. Perhaps this was going to be the flood that drowned Atlantis, or perhaps it wasn't, but she wasn't planning to stick around to find out. And so, somewhere in the dark of the night, she pulsed briefly with light and then vanished.

Only to pop up again in the middle of a river, a few miles away from the center of a large - for its time - city. The island pulsed with light one more time, then laid still. The water crashed against her shores with violent confusion, but the land mass didn't budge.

When the sun came up, so would the people of Regency London, the rich putting on their pretty frocks and striding from beautiful landmark to beautiful landmark. The poor, on the other hand, would go on drinking, working, and passing around books of a dubious but highly entertaining nature, among other things.

Neither would as much as cross the other's reality.

It was a crisp 65F in London today. The sun was shining behind the clouds, and not a drop of rain would fall today.

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As is by now tradition, it's the docks that turn up first on your way to the city center. Cocoa, wine, spices and coffee, among other luxury goods, get shipped in here.

The newly-finished docks are a hive of activity.

This marvelous shopping street offers everything you might want in your Regency shopping experience - provided you have the money. Further into the city are more opportunities for shopping, and some stores might still even accept haggling.

Cheaper wares and especially fruit can be found here, but Covent Garden is rather more well known for trade of a different kind: its Red Light District is in great renown. The people populating the area are generally of a more rowdy sort, and you might want to watch your wallet.

Of course, if you'd rather not deal with either, there's always the Royal Opera House.

He was most of a century off and in the wrong universe, but this was still closer to the place and time where Jack had grown up than he had been in quite a while. Even the cutpurses were about right.

It was almost ridiculous how happy that made him.

He bought a bag of cherries from the vendor who seemed the most honest and parked himself on a bench, watching people come and go.

Much kinder to the eye is St. James Park, a beautiful park in Central London that houses its own pelican colony. The bridge in the middle of the park offers a good view of Buckingham Palace.

After class, Hermione had made it a point to go and check out the new location. She had to. She even started in St. James Park, where she'd been a few times with her parents. It was strange to see how things used to be and figure out what had changed over the last two centuries, and she wished she'd thought to bring her camera just to be able to have some kind of record to show to the people back home.

This street is home to a great deal of gentleman's clubs, as well as the Royal Academy, the National Gallery and Christie's. All worth visiting, provided you actually have the money. The denizens of this street certainly look fancy enough for it.

Kenzi, meanwhile, looks like a street urchin.

That's okay, it makes swiping pocket watches and wallets that much easier!

"Very authentic," Toby said with a snicker as he sidled up to her. His own regular clothes weren't in that much better shape than your average street urchin's- mostly because he'd been just that until recently, albeit in 1990s Toronto.

Kenzi had just added a long black Gothy skirt to her usual outfit, so she wouldn't get arrested for public indecency. She even had her hair up and the black lace-up gloves on. "Thank you! I figure if you go Goth, you're sorta wearing the recycled Victorian shit." She poked at him. "You're looking pretty period too."

Edited 2011-07-08 04:48 (UTC)

"I think you could fit what I know about fashion on the head of a pin," Toby admitted. "But I do know a little something about how to avoid attracting attention." His clothes may not have passed a close inspection, so the trick was in acting like he belonged enough so that people had no real reason to give him a closer look.

Kenzi looped her arm through his and stuck her nose in the air as a couple went by. "Yes, we don't wish to attract rude passersby," she said in a very bad British accent, twirling her little clutch purse around her wrist.

"That would just be dreadful," Toby replied, in an equally terrible accent. "Dreadful!"

Kenzi restrained a chortle, and bumped into a passing dude, then exclaiming, "Watch where you're going, my good man!"

Whistling. Yup. Whistling. And the glee of a fine leather case in her pocket now.

And now it was Toby's turn to try and smother a chuckle. "Nice technique," he commented once they'd blended into the crowd enough that Kenzi's unfortunate mark wouldn't be able to spot them if he realised his possessions had been lifted.

"Thank you," Kenzi said, humming something from that Pygmalion movie. She looked sideways. "You don't have a problem with it, right? I won't get caught."

Toby shrugged. "I'd mostly just have a problem if you did get caught," he admitted. "That's not a talent I can claim for myself, but I have run a con or two in my time, it'd be pretty hypocritical for me to judge you."

"Good guy," Kenzi said approvingly, patting his arm and swishing her long skirt. A passing gent and lady gave them a stern look, and she stuck out her tongue. "So what've you done before, hmm? Think you can do it here?"

Toby looked thoughtful for a moment, then let go of Kenzi, straightened up, and announced in an authoratative voice: "You there, sir," he pointed to a rather well-dressed young man. "You willing to wager I can guess your weight?" The man considered for a moment before nodding.

Toby made a show of tilting his head in thought, inspecting his mark thouroughly. "Twelve stone four," he announced, finally.

No, he'd had no idea until just now that a stone was a unit of measurement. But that's what the guy had thought when he made his challenge, so...

"Right on the mark," the guy said, shaking his head. "Well, a wager's a wager," he added, handing over a couple of coins.

It didn't take long for someone else to challenge Toby, and by the time the crowd lost interest in his trick, he had a pocket full of jingling change.

"Not bad, huh?" he grinned at Kenzi.

"How did you do that?" Kenzi marveled, gleeful. "Do me! Do me!"

Um. Not like that. Kenzi was thinking 108 pounds. Well. Maybe 105. She needed to eat a bit more, okay?

Toby blushed a little at what he figured was totally unintentional innuendo, but recovered quickly. "It's just, um. Observation. I've always been really good at reading, you know, body language and stuff," he said, not quite willing to divulge the entire truth just yet. So far, the only people who knew had their own brand of freaky going on, and he'd yet to catch anything like that from Kenzi's thoughts. So, keeping it to himself till he could figure out how she'd react to the truth. "I'd say you're... 105?" It was the number he picked out of her thoughts, at any rate, even though he wondered if that was maybe still a little off.

"Dude!" Kenzi shoved him, delighted, and not too hard, then bounced, tugging on his hand to pull him down the street. Apparently, she needed even more food now, right? They needed a hot dog stand or whatever goofy English stuff was around. "You're like that Rain Main guy! That is so awesome!"

"It's just a trick, not that special," Toby protested, letting himself be dragged. "And like you saw, it's not exactly something that holds people's interest all that long." Although it had been enough to ensure he'd have spending money for the next few days, so he had no complaints there.

"There's gotta be a way to make even more money out of that, though," she said, busily trying to think of ways. "So it's all body language? And calculations? Think you could work it with guessing other shit?"

A street vendor selling sugared almonds was on the corner, loudly proclaiming his wares. "Oooo, those look good. I'm buying!" Well. Her last victim was.

If she could come up with any other ideas, Toby would be glad to hear them. "Probably?" he admitted. "I've always just gone with weight because it's easy to guess, and while people think it's novel enough to pay up, it's not freaky enough that they'd get suspicious or something."

"Poker would be an awesome way to use it, if you can pick up on tells about winning or losing just as easy," Kenzi said, mind busily going over that.

Hunh, did that include sexy stuff as well?... don't think about that.

They were at the door to the National Gallery, and they had money. But the guard was looking down the stairs (and his nose) at them. Kenzi made a face. "We should sneak in," she whispered, leaning closer so the guard couldn't overhear.

Yes, don't think about the sexy stuff around the fifteen year old telepath who kinda had a crush on you. Because... awkward. Hoping she didn't notice the blush he could feel creeping up on his cheeks, he nodded enthusiastically. "I'm always up for a challenge."

Kenzi grinned, then said, "Let's circle the block. See what the rest of the outside is like." And maybe a side door!

"And if there's a side door?"

...He really needed to work on being able to shut people's thoughts out. One of these days he was going to respond to a thought and not just echo it.

"You read my mind," Kenzi said, very cheerful, strolling along. Great minds thought alike! "I guess we'll have to check out their security, won't we?"

Toby had been all ready with a denial when he realised oops, she meant it as a figure of speech. "Pretty weak," he decided. They probably didn't get a lot of break-ins during normal business hours. And the door wouldn't have an alarm, obviously.

This would be a cakewalk, Toby felt.

Soooooo easy. Kenzi tried the side-door they found, and then took a minute to mess with it using a pin off her goofy hat. "Ta-da! Our exploration of culture awaits!"

"...I'm taking you everywhere," Toby decided, eyes wide in appreciation of those lock-picking skills.

Kenzi winked at him and grinned. "Just buy me food, dude, and we got a deal." She wandered away from the door, down a hall, then found themselves in the main gallery. She grabbed his arm again, and tried to look nonchalant. "So, what do you know about art?"

"Not a lot, but I know what I like?" Toby quipped, grinning back at her.

"I like art that costs a lot," Kenzi said, trying to look demure. "Just think," she whispered. "None of this stuff has electronic alarms on it! Or motion sensors and shit!"

...why yes, she might be planning already.

Toby resisted the urge to facepalm. "Bad idea!" he hissed. "What if we, like, screw up history or something by taking something out of here? I don't wanna be responsible for breaking time!"

"Pfffttt," Kenzi pfft'd. "How could re-locating some art break time? What's it gonna do, not marry its soulmate and not have kids? Not kill the guy it's supposed to kill? It's art. It just hangs there."

Well, when she put it like that...

"I don't know," Toby said weakly. "What if there's some important historical discovery thanks to that art?" he was kind of reaching, and he knew it.

[ooc: uuuugh sorry did not mean to leave this thread hanging so long. but i'm good to keep going in SP-land if you are!]

"We can always research it," Kenzi leaned closer, eyes wide. "Just, you know. Case the place, this time. We'll be here a few more days, right?"

This was clearly a brilliant plan!

[and yaaay, SP!]

Edited 2011-07-10 05:00 (UTC)

"The island seems to stay in one place for at least a week," Toby confirmed. He still sounded kind of dubious about the whole idea- running a con to help survive on the streets was one thing, this was another entirely. "What would you do with it if you managed to get something out of here?" he asked.

"Hmmmm, get some help to age it--" From Mr. Caffrey, he knew how to do that. "And papers. Then sell it. We'd be set!" Ooooorrr.. "Or, or, or! We could put it in a bank here, then come back to London in our time when the island stops moving, and 'inherit it'!"

Okay, so, there might be a few bugs in the plan.

Nothing near as grandiose as it will one day be, Old Bailey Prison is currently mostly a site for public hangings. If that's your kind of thing.

For anyone wanting to escape both Caritas and the Devil's Nest, London is full of small pubs of increasingly dubious legitimacy. The clientele might be a bit fragrant, but they'll serve you a decent pint for a decent price.

Edited 2011-07-04 06:06 (UTC)

Of course, there's much more to do and see here. It's an old city, after all, and in this day and age, it's full of exciting new projects.

If you're rich, anyway.

[[ please put your location in the subject line. ]]

Long day's editing ahead, but ping here if you have any questions!

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The Thames, Just Outside London, Monday, 1815

London Docks

Old Bond Street & Further Shopping

Covent Garden

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St. James Park

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Pall Mall

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The Old Bailey

A Little Pub Off The Road

The Roads of London

OOC