The 2012 Summer Olympic mascots were unveiled today… and I immediately wanted to revise our list of The 10 Worst Olympic Mascots ever.  These cycloptic creatures are instant top five turds.

I’m not sure how crab hands (right) or alien overlord (left) represent London or athletic competition.  These monsters, named Wenlock and Mandeville, have too much junk in the trunk to be capable of competing in any kind of sport to begin with.

Perhaps their freakish appearance and desire to conquer our planet will motivate athletes to run faster and jump higher in order to escape the alien mascot’s laser vision.

I get that not all mascots can be as adorable as the Vancouver Winter Olympic mascots.  But come on, that’s the best they could come up with?  One-eyed, flat-footed freaks in spacesuits?

What’s your take?  Cute or sucky or a sign of an impending alien invasion?

If there’s one thing we wish we knew before going to London, it’s this: don’t expect a foreign experience.

The United Kingdom is basically the America of Europe.  It’s like Europe’s safe zone for English-speakers.  The most foreign aspect of London is an accent that makes everyone sound more refined than you and a different set of slang terms — “if you don’t toss that fag in the rubbish there’s gonna be a row, gov’nor.”

London is all about celebrities, social status, sports, wealth and shopping, just like America.  The only difference is that London is older, more expensive, and they actually appreciate Hugh Grant.  Dentistry… not so much.

That’s why London isn’t a good place to adjust to the customs, culture and lifestyle of Europe.  Many European cities are laid back, easy going, simple and patient.  London is like any major city in America: bustling, guarded and unapologetic.

We never felt out of our element in London, which is one of the things that is so fun about traveling internationally.  That constant sense of familiarity bred too much comfort.  And if you’ve ever been a relationship that got too comfortable, you know what happens: you fall into a monotonous, unappreciative rhythm that lacks excitement, mystery and curiosity.

So our advice to North Americans is this: don’t go to London expecting a hallmark of European virtue.  Don’t expect to be transported into a completely different world.  Don’t expect it to feel foreign.  Like a new cocktail, expect recognizable ingredients with a slight twist.

If there’s anything else we wish we knew before visiting London, it would be to come in the mood for pork.  While pork isn’t the preferred meat in most restaurants, it’s hard to think of anything else when so many places have “ham” in their name.  NottingHAM.  WestHAM.  BuckingHAM.  There’s even a place just called HAM.  Mmm… Ham.

Harrods is London encapsulated in a department store: it’s gaudy, it’s braggadocios, and everything is wayyyyy too expensive.  But it’s the one store you have to visit in London just to say you actually found your way out (perhaps with a T-shirt that reads: “I Survived Harrods And All I Got Was This $200 T-Shirt”).

The first thing we did when we visited was grab a map.  There are 330 departments spread over 7 floors, and finding something in particular is like being a rat searching for a piece of cheese in a maze (most likely a very expensive piece of Blue Stilton cheese from the Harrods Food Hall).  Not to mention there are thousands of other rats congesting the maze.  It gets very cramped, but, as the locals say, “it’s part of the experience.”

This place isn’t like your neighborhood Sears.  It’s more like a museum that just so happens to have a ton of things you can buy. Harrods is just as famous for its haute couture as it is its monuments and memorials.

There’s a 30,000,000-year old piece of wood on the Egyptian-inspired ground floor, flanked by small reproductions of the Sphinx.  On the lower level is a memorial to Princess Di and Dodi Al Fayed, the son of Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed.  The memorial also contains the engagement ring that Dodi allegedly bought for Diana the day before they both died in a car crash.  Al Fayed recently said there has been talk of building a memorial statue of Michael Jackson.

After checking out the Princess Di memorial, we quickly became lost in the cramped labyrinth that is Harrods.  And the longer we spent in there, the more tempted we were to buy something.

So we did the touristy thing and purchased some tea for our families.  It was about the only item we could afford.  I also bought a traditional Christmas pudding that was heavily reduced in price.  But it was eventually confiscated at Heathrow airport because it was partially liquid and obviously bomb-like.  (I think security stole my pudding for their own personal enjoyment.  Thieves!)

We’ll tell you the one thing that Harrods isn’t: it isn’t a place to take a break.  There’s not a seat or a bench to be found.  It’s like a casino: get lost, spend money.  The only way to get a seat is to buy something in one of the store’s restaurants or cafes, or to pretend you’re trying on shoes in the shoe department.

Harrods is definitely a place you’ll want to hit early in the day so your feet aren’t tired from walking around the city.  Devise your plan of attack before you visit by checking out their website here.

For some reason, people love looking at big houses.  Maybe it’s because we’re curious as to how the wealthy live.  Maybe it’s because we aspire to live like royalty one day.  Maybe it’s because we’re on a mission to find out who gives out the best Halloween candy.  No matter what your motivation, Buckingham Palace is one of the most legendary places to fulfill our curious desire to witness the luxurious lifestyle.

Buckingham Palace is lot like the White House: it’s large, you can’t get too close to it, and it’s home to the most important figurehead in the country — in this case, Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family.  For most of the year, there’s nothing to do but snap a few photos and maybe wait around for the changing of the guard.  (Check the schedule here.)

For about 60 days a year, usually from early August until the end of September when the Royal Family is away, the palace is open to the public.  You can buy tickets to see everything from the State Rooms (the rooms where the Royal Family entertain their important guests), to the Royal Mews (the Royal Family stable and garage which includes the gaudy Gold State Coach) and the Queen’s Gallery (art and artifacts from the Royal Collection) for an astronomical £29.50.

In other words, you can pay a small fortune to see someone else’s large fortune.  In our opinion, Buckingham Palace looks just fine from the outside.

But if you want to visit, you can buy tickets in advance here.  For more information about the history of Buckingham Palace and things to see on your visit, check out the official site of the British Monarchy and The Royal Collection website.

The Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian-only suspension bridge that crosses the River Thames, linking St. Paul’s Cathedral to the north and Tate Modern to the south.

The bridge, which opened in 2000, is like a mannequin: it’s more about purpose than substance.  It’s a bland construction that serves as an easy way to get to the Tate Modern from the opposite side of the Thames.

As we crossed the bridge, we couldn’t help but wonder why the Tate Modern looked so… dull.  This tall, brick building with a large smoke stack resembles an old cookie factory more than a contemporary art museum.  (Turns out it was actually an old oil-fired power station.)

But once we stepped into the 3,400-square-foot Turbine Hall, the feeling that we were walking into an over-sized food factory evaporated.  The hall itself looked like a futuristic and minimalist blimp hanger, but the real attraction was the massive, apocalyptic spider-like beasts peering over the second floor balconies.

Designed by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, “TH.2058″ depicts two mega-sculptures: one a freakishly detailed, monstrous creature, the other an angular, bright red, robotic type of being. (This temporary exhibition closed in April of 2009, but the Turbine Hall will feature a new work later in the year.)

Some of the Turbine Halls’ past exhibitions have included altering its “weather”, forming a giant crack that spanned the length of the Hall (it even injured a few people who tripped over it), and, my personal favorite, installing usable slides that connected the various levels of the museum to the ground floor.  You can check out what’s being featured in the Turbine Hall during your visit here.

As a precursor to a multi-hour tour of the Tate Modern, the Turbine Hall certainly whet our appetite for the provocative and the unusual.  And the permanent exhibits fully satiated us.  It was a lot to digest, and some of it was hard to keep down (like the sexually explicit photographs and videos that looked like something out of the movie “Hostel”), but the overall experience was fulfilling.

Level 3 features an abstract and expressionist gallery with work by Monet and Rothko called “Material Gestures” as well as a section called “Poetry and Dream” featuring the aforementioned graphic exhibit with a title that’s understood in any language: “le cock et le balls.”

Level 5 contains the “Energy And Process” exhibit which focuses on Arte Povera, a radical and unconventional style of art that encapsulates the social upheaval in 1960′s Italy.  There’s also the “States Of Flux” exhibit, focusing on cubism, futurism and pop art with artwork by Picasso and Warhol.

Unfortunately, we have no pictures to share of some of these amazing works because you can’t take pictures inside the galleries.  So you’ll just have to see it for yourself.  The best part is, Levels 1 (The Turbine Hall), 3 and 5 are completely free!  (Levels 2 and 4 display temporary exhibitions you have to pay for.)

Get more information on the official site of the Tate Modern here.

The National Gallery is another one of London’s free museums boasting an embarrassment of riches.  The museum is home to 2,300 paintings, which is relatively small in comparison to the collections of most major museums, but this place packs a heavyweight punch.  World famous works from artists such as Rembrandt, da Vinci, Cézanne, Von Gogh, Monet and Michelangelo are on display.

Located right in Trafalgar Square, the building’s exterior comes across as more of a government building than an art museum, but the interior showcases the regality you’d expect from the British.  Each beautifully-colored room is spacious and navigation through the entire museum is relatively simple.

The 46 rooms (as well as the monumental Central Hall) in the main building is where the real action is at.  But you can also visit the Sainsbury Wing, a separate building to the left that harbors the Renaissance collection.  There’s also the National Portrait Gallery, just behind the main building.

Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" Is On Display

We had plans to check out the Portrait Gallery, but I accidentally spilled a cup of hot chocolate all over Jackie in the National Gallery café and we had to leave.  However, I think it was for the best:

1.) That hot chocolate was way too thick and obviously unhealthy.  It looked like brown butter and covered Jackie with a greasy film that required two heavy duty washings to get it out of her jeans.

2.)  The weather was cold.  Which means it was way easier to warm up by dumping her with hot chocolate as opposed to the slow, lazy man’s way of actually drinking it.

I think that makes me a national hero worthy of a portrait in the Portrait Gallery.

Here’s the great thing about museums in London: most of them are free. That’s a big relief in a city where everything is expensive. So I can’t legitimately say “you get your money’s worth” in The British Museum, but you know what I mean.

This place is absolutely epic in scale. 7 million objects. 588,000 square feet. 94 galleries. Artifacts from almost every culture in the world – ancient and modern.

Even the building’s architecture is monumental. Although, standing in the Great Court, which is Europe’s largest covered square, did make us feel like we were fish about to get caught in a giant net.

We first checked out an actual stone statue from Easter Island, named Hoa Hakananai’a. This one looks just like the others that are still on the Easter Island, so that saves us a trip, right?

Is it cold in here or is it just him?

Then it was on to the Rosetta Stone in room 4. We were surprised to see that it wasn’t the language learning software we frequently see on late-night TV. It was an ACTUAL stone. But when it comes down to it, the actual Rosetta Stone is a lot like the software, just on a 2,000-year-old rock. This is the rock that helped linguists figure out what all those Egyptian hieroglyphics meant. Before the stone’s discovery, hieroglyphics were just as confusing as the wingdings font.

Next, we looked at the Sculptures of the Parthenon (also called the Elgin Marbles) and the sculptures from the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.  Room after room is filled with slabs and sculptures of Greek people missing heads and other vital limbs.  The ones that do have heads look a lot like the guys from the movie “300″.

Our favorite attraction was the Egyptian mummies, and it seemed to be everyone else’s favorite spot too because this section was packed. The 140 coffins and mummies is the largest display outside of Egypt. The elaborately decorated coffins were more interesting than some of the paintings we’ve seen in museums (particularly modern art museums).

Some other major sights in The British Museum include the Reading Room in the middle of the Great Court; the Mesopotamian antiques (part of the largest collection outside of Iraq); drawings from da Vinci, Michelangelo and Rembrandt; a collection of 9,000 coins, medals and banknotes; the Mildenhall Treasure (a hoard of 34 Roman silver objects); and the Lindow Man (a freeze dried body of a mid-20s man who had his throat slit sometime in the first century). We didn’t find out until after our visit that the museum also houses a crystal skull — of questionable origin.  Somebody alert Indiana Jones.

Check out The British Museum website here.

What’s the best way to see London?  From the London Eye.  At its 443-foot peak, the largest Ferris wheel in Europe provides an unsurpassed view of the heart of London.

Of course, getting there will put a dent in your schedule and your wallet.  The cheapest tickets are £17, but for another £10 you can buy a fast pass that rushes you to the front of the line.  You get a 10% discount if you book online which we highly recommend because the wait to buy tickets took over half an hour.

Once we booked our “flight,” we had to wait around for about an hour before we could even access the official wait line, which you need to enter 30 minutes before your designated boarding time.  All in all, it took 2 hours from the time we got to Jubilee Gardens to the time we finally entered our “eye pod” (I’m not making that up).

The 32 pods are surprisingly roomy with 25 people packed inside, and the location right on the South Bank of the River Thames gives you a bird’s eye view of Big Ben and The Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and London’s West End.

Remarkably, the capsules always remain on the outside of the wheel so the view is never obstructed.  And when you reach the peak, you’ll have a full 360-degree view of the city.  The pods are air conditioned and there’s a large bench to sit on in the center.

For the entire 30-minute ride, we felt like we were hovering above the city.  The wheel crept along so slowly that we barely felt like we were moving.  In fact, the wheel doesn’t stop moving, not even when you’re entering and exiting the cabin.

If you have a fear of heights or small spaces, the London Eye might not be the place to attempt to conquer your fear.  This thing is high — it’s one-and-a-half times taller than the Statue of Liberty and is much higher than you’d expect from looking at it on the ground.  And you’re going to be stuck in the enclosed pod with 20 of your new best friends for half an hour.

Despite the wait, the price, and the constant threat that your pod could snap off and go plummeting into the river below (kidding), the London Eye is certainly a sight worth checking out.

The Sofitel St. James is a five-star luxury hotel in a prime location in central London.  At the time of this writing, it was ranked #8 out of 1,151 hotels in London on Tripadvisor with 95% recommending it.  To say this place is one of the best hotels to stay in London is a terrible understatement.

Of course, with all those accolades comes a steep price.  But everything in London costs at least an arm.  It was New Year’s, we wanted to treat ourselves to some comfort and be in a great location.  So we decided to splurge and throw in the leg too.

The Sofitel St. James is only a five-minute walk from Trafalgar Square, where the National Gallery is located.  Actually, I’ll let this oddly funny quote off the Sofitel’s website tell you where they’re located:  “The hotel lies in the heart of St. James’s, a prestigious and lively district of London within walking distance of St. James’s Park, Buckingham Palace and the renowned gentlemen’s clubs.”  What?  Renowned gentlemen’s clubs?

A.) I’ve never heard of these alleged renowned gentlemen’s clubs.  I guess the guidebooks and all the websites that list the 100 best things to do in London forgot to mention those.  (But Wikipedia didn’t.)

B.) I like how the site alludes to Buckingham Palace as being just as big of a tourist attraction as a gentlemen’s club.  “Here we have one of the most famous palaces in the world.  And over there?  Boobs.”

Anyway, everyone else had their chance to sign the Sofitel’s praises and now it’s our turn to join the vocals.  The hotel is classy, refined and proper; everyone speaks softly and politely and the staff was helpful and informative.

The room was surprisingly spacious for London.  Normally hotels in the city are nothing more than elaborate walk-in closets.  Our room had enough space for us to toss around our dirty laundry and still maintain a presentable appearance.

This was my first time having turn-down service, and I’ve gotta say, coming back to the hotel room and seeing that little piece of chocolate sitting on my pillow elicited the kind of excitement I only get when I open up my e-mail and read “3 new messages.”

Our window view of the railing was a let down, but the TV made up for it.  For some reason, we got hooked on watching darts.  The World Dart Championships was taking place in London at the time, and even though we had no clue about the rules, it was thrilling to watch.  We got a kick out of it when the announcer shouted “180!!!” and the drunk crowd would erupt and wave signs.  I never imagined one of my goals in life would be to get wasted and shout “180!!!” with a bunch of drunks in London, but I must attend this event in the future.

The best part of the room, hand down (remember, we had to lose an arm just to pay for the place) was the bed.  If a cloud could somehow be turned into a mattress, this is what it would feel like.  There would be no wars if everyone slept in these beds.  There would also be no productivity.  The bed was so comfortable, we spent way more time sleeping than our schedule allowed.  The bed was so large and so soft, it would literally swallow us.

Now onto the worst part of the room.  And I can’t really knock the Sofitel for this because it seems to be an issue everywhere.  But what the heck is up with the showers in London?  Apparently the Brits don’t like taking comfortable showers.

Problem #1:  Weak shower head.  I’d get more power out of a garden hose.

Problem #2:  The shower “door.”  There’s a thin pane of glass that only shields about one-third of the shower.  That’s barely enough room to tuck yourself behind the glass.  Water sprays everywhere all that cold air comes rushing in so you can’t lock in the warmth.

Problem #3:  The towel rack is practically inside the shower.  I don’t know about you, but I prefer my towels dry.  To their credit, however, the towel rack at the Sofitel is heated which is really nice.

Minus the baffling shower system, the Sofitel St. James is worth every one of the thousands of pennies you’re likely to shell out to stay there.  Great location, great service and heavenly beds make this one of the best hotels in London.

Sofitel St. James London
http://www.sofitelstjames.com
6 Waterloo Place
London, SW1Y 4AN, United Kingdom
+44 20 7747 2200

The Tower of London is almost 1,000 years old, and with that comes 1,000 years worth of stories and history lessons.  But for £15, a Beefeater (one of the Tower’s 100 residents) will break down the history to just a couple of hours and guide you through the Tower complex.

The Tower of London has something for both sexes.  Ladies will be transfixed by the Crown Jewels exhibition which houses the Queen Mother’s Crown (with 2,000 diamonds, including one that is 105 carats) and the Sceptre with the Cross (topped by the world’s largest cut diamond — 503 carats).

Men, on the other hand, will revel in bloody tales of woe and despair as they walk through the Beauchamp Tower (where political prisoners suffered), the Scaffold Site (where the beheadings of numerous people, including Anne Boelyn, took place), and the aptly titled Bloody Tower (where some of the harshest torture occurred).

Both sexes can enjoy searching for the Tower’s famous pets: the ravens.  There are 10 snarky ravens (Gwylum, Thor, Hugin, Munin, Branwen, Bran, Gundulf, Baldrick, Fleur and Colin) that are allowed to freely roam the grounds of the Tower.  The oldest raven ever to live at the Tower of London was Jim Crow, who died at the age of 44.

Adjacent to the Tower of London is Tower Bridge.  The Brits take pride in calling it the most famous bridge in the world.  Maybe it’s our California bias, but we can think of at least one bridge that’s just as, if not more famous (though it’s not nearly as aesthetically pleasing).

But the Tower Bridge suffers from a bit of an identity crisis.  Some people mistakenly think Tower Bridge is London Bridge.  London Bridge is actually the next bridge up the river Thames and it’s not nearly as interesting, iconic or popular as Tower Bridge.

Remember that nursery rhyme “London Bridge Is Falling Down”?  Well, the original London Bridge never actually fell down… it just got moved to Lake Havasu City, Arizona (presumably so drunk people could party on it).

Completed in 1894, Tower Bridge is 800 feet long with two towers over 200 feet tall.  It’s free to walk or drive across, and is a must-visit for any first-time London tourist.  The Tower Bridge Exhibition costs £7 and gives you access to the Engine rooms and the high-level walkways for a great view of London from the center of the city.

Get ticket information for The Tower of London here and Tower Bridge here.