Okay, so it’s been a while since my last blog post, and even longer since I actually WENT to London, so I probably better finish recording my experiences for posterity. (or other such stuffy notions regarding travel logs) PICTURES TO COME, LATER!!
SATURDAY IN LONDON: First thing in the morning, Jamie and I head on our way to Trafalgar Square. This is the place where people gather for big events such as New Years, since you can see Big Ben, just down the street through the buildings. The square, aptly named, commemorates the victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, the most decisive British Naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars (yes, I had to look that up). It was in 1805. The British were led by Admiral Lord Nelson (aboard the HMS Victory), who is featured as the statue atop the enormous pedestal. Well anyway, Jamie and I were headed to The Original Bus Tour information center, because we had booked a bus tour with them. It was kind of expensive (32 GBP!!), but it included a two-and-a-half hour bus tour, potentially three different walking tours, and a river boat tour. Goodness. So Jamie and I thought this would be fun! And it was! But to come back to the chronological sequence of events, she and I were hurrying to this information center with our vouchers to get our tickets printed and join the “Changing of the Guards” walking tour. We were in line, when this very loud, very friendly woman tour guide told us (and the others in line) that it wasn’t taking place today because some royal prep work was going on, and that it would happen tomorrow. With that, Jamie and I decide to do it Sunday morning, while we went over to a coffee shop and got breakfast (tea and croissant!). The barista asked if I wanted milk with my tea! :D they do things right, in Britain!!
Okay, Bus Tour general comment: Thank goodness we couldn’t go see the changing of the guards on Saturday. Not doing so enabled us to move up the time schedule on the bus tour, allowing us to be done in time to go on the Jack the Ripper walking tour, AND catch a riverboat at a reasonable hour.
Jamie and I enjoy our small breffast, then walk to the nearest boarding point for this tour thing. After several different buses, each belonging to a different Bus Touring company, shuffled themselves before our very eyes, it ended up that Jamie and I were the first ones to board an empty bus! Sweet! As we had not “cashed in” our vouchers for this tour, we were pleased when the bus driver ripped them out of Jamie’s hands and printed out vouchers for us! YAHOO!! So of course we then walk to the top of the uncovered seating section. Once we had decided to do this disgustingly overly-touristy thing, we were gonna go all out. There’s nothing that screams “YAAAAA, I AM A TOURIST” like gawking at the city through a camera lens from atop a gaudy, open-air tour bus. And it was glorious. The guy yapping at us through a microphone (and also standing up top with us) was Will, and the bus driver was Steve. Will was very engaging. There was a MAJOR traffic jam right at the beginning of our tour, which caused us to stay pretty much within the same half block, so Will had nothing else to do but talk about the square. He told us that he goes through it about 6 times a day, 42 times a week, so roughly 2000 times a year, and so he has nightmares about this place. We finally were allowed to turn onto the other street, and we were on our way. Caught that glimpse of Big Ben, another glimpse of The Mall (which leads up to Buckingham Palace), buildings, buildings, boring, boring, blah blah blah, OOOH, STATUE!!! Of an angel driving a chariot? And we saw some fake British Soldiers. When we passed the REAL Hyde Park, on the other side of the street (well, really it was in the middle of the two lanes of traffic, but since it was on my right (British road rules being backwards and all) I consider it to be COMPLETELY on the other side of the street from the park…. Sorry for rambling) but anyways, on the other side of the stree—FINE!! In the MIDDLE of the street was this memorial dedicated to the animals’ war. Will gave us a statistic for how many horses lost their lives in one of the major wars, and it was an obscenely high number. We turned a corner around where in the middle ages they would carry out their “hanging by the neck until dead” punishments…. I forget the name of the square…. and we passed a super straight street that Will said was laid over a Roman road, hence why it was so straight. Also, they would put the heads of executed criminals on stakes, since it was the entrance to the city. What a welcome, eh? So we pulled a U-ie (U-IE, U-IE, BANG BANG BANG!!), and went past the fence around the palace grounds. Will told us of the two major times that this perimeter has been breached: 1) Michael Fagan got across in July 9th, 1982, actually made it IN to the palace, found a bottle of wine, then went on his way within the palace trying to find a room to enjoy his wine. Out of a possible 775 rooms, he finds the queen’s bed chamber! He opens the curtains on the window, and that wakes the Queen up!! After a 20 minute chat, he asks for a cigarette, and that’s when she calls a footman who detains him and the matter is taken care of. The guy is actually now in a mentally insane asylum. 2) One morning (I don’t really know when) the guards found a pair of German blokes bathing in the lake. They had somehow hopped the fence with all their camping gear and spent an entire night in what they thought was Hyde Park! Um, what?! Moving along! We trundle past Westminster Abby and the Houses of Parliament. Oooh, a statue of Abraham Lincoln! And one of Winston Churchill, which makes much more sense. We learn that “Big Ben” is actually the name of the bell that sounds out the hour, while the rest is called “St. Stephen’s Clock and Tower.” We cross the river!! Pretty pictures ensue. Then we navigate the streets and go past where the London Eye is (glorified ferris wheel). 30 minutes for an entire revolution, each of the glass compartments can hold 25 peeps at a time. Peeps = people, not sugary marshmallows. Jamie is not a fan of the idea of riding it. She said that her sister wants to do that when she visits later in the month, but Jamie will have no part of it. And it costs TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS!!!! No thank you. ONWARD, STEVE!! I think Steve didn’t know where to go, because Will disappears for 10 minutes while we putz around. And sure enough, once he reappeared, Will told us that there was some construction so we couldn’t follow the course as faithfully as we would normally. Okay. (And right here, I know we go north over the fancy bridge AND somehow disembark the bus on the south side of the river, so I don’t exactly remember what we did in order for that to happen. Just consider me confused, and roll with these punches, please? Sweet.) Jamie and I get off the bus and we walk around the block to the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. It’s relatively cheap to see a performance of one of Shakespeare’s plays (11 Pounds to see a six-hour play, compared to 25 for a half hour ferris wheel ride) but of course it’s standing room only for six hours straight!!! Eep. Then Jamie and I walk across the bridge that the dementors (or death eaters?) destroyed in Harry Potter #6 the movie! How did they rebuild it so quickly!? Ha. Ha. It’s called the millennium footbridge. It was cool! And it led north across the river straight to St. Paul’s. Which is what we visited next. They would have charged us somewhere around 13 or 16 pounds for entry without our bus tour supplementary passes! OBSCENE! No pix allowed. Fine. But I think with how much you’re charging for entry, I should be allowed to take some measly pictures. So Jamie and I sat in the chairs, and with our cameras in our laps, snuck pictures of the dome and the breathtaking murals and statues. Then we looked over our shoulders and noticed a couple people not hiding their cameras at all. Heck with it, I’m doing the same. Plus it’s the only way to get a picture of the pipe organ! Then a guy comes up to us and tells all the people in the rear of the church to clear out since there’s a wedding taking place shortly. There’s a crypt in the basement of the cathedral, so we go check that out, enthusiastically, since Jamie said that Charles Dickens was supposed to be entombed there. Though, since we didn’t find him anywhere, he was probably in the cordoned-off section of the basement where the wedding party was. Grrrr.
LUNCH TAHM! We find a cute sandwich place called Earl of Sandwich. Think British version of Potbelly’s. Nom. Take the subway over to the Tower of London, which isn’t a tower at all, but a little compound of towers that looks more like a squat little castle. That’s where we started our walking tour of Jack the Ripper. We walked around while Rebecca (the same nice lady who at the beginning of the day told us that the changing of the guards wasn’t happening as scheduled) went through the 5 murders who were definitely Jack’s doing. We stopped at places that kind of looked like some of the murder sights (since they had either been destroyed or built over), and we actually went to the location of two of them. Creepy. Especially since in the course of the tour, we walked past the building where Jamie’s staying. EEEEE!!
Boat tour! We’re going to get the most out of our tour tickets, if it kills us! It was pleasant, even if it didn’t offer too much information that was new to us, having been on one comprehensive tour of the sights on the river already. The guide was pleasant, and had a quirky sense of humor. As he signed off the mic at the end of the tour, he nicely asked for tips as we left, politely reminding us that HE would be the one helping us across the gap between boat and dock.
We disembarked the boat next to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Snapped a few pictures and my camera dies! Nooo! Good thing I brought the charger this time! HA! So by this time it’s 6:30, and Jamie and I are EXHAUSTED. Quick stop at Jamie’s place to put my batt’ry on the charger, then we head over to Fire Stone, a pizza place. Well, we really headed over to the marketplace, since even though the stalls are all empty, there are still restaurants lining the edges. The pizza place was good, even if the service was lacking. AND we got dessert. ICE CREAM ON A WAFFLE!!! SCRUMPTUOUS!!!!!!
SUNDAY IN LONDON: De ja vu. Get up early(ish) and rush down to Trafalgar Square to catch the changing of the guards tour before our 24-hour-bus tour passes expire. Weeee might have been a little late. But thankfully, the man at the counter gave us a shortcut to catch up with the tour group; go down the street and then go down the steps at the column. We scurry off, and immediately notice just how many columns there are on every single building! Then we turn a corner and go “ohhh, THAT column!” because there’s an enormous column in the middle of the staircase with a statue on top. There’s a group of tourists at the foot of the stairs all staring at a guy who is from the bus tour company, so we stand in with them. We’re walking along The Mall, while he’s blathering on about interesting things, when we turn the corner and stop in front of St. James’ Palace. It’s right about the time when Jamie and I start looking at each other saying “should we ask him if we’re in the right place or not?” when guys start marching out of the palace into the little courtyard. They’re still assembling when (gah, I forget his name!!) the tour guide leads us down the street, like a maniac!!! As in, I’m pretty sure he took off running. And he’s depending on us being able to spot the little paddle he’s holding up in the air in the middle of the crowd from 50 yards away! But from where he has us, we can see the guards as they are marching towards us, silent, since it’s Sunday and church is in service. They turn the corner, THEN the band starts. And it’s a band of . . . wait for it . . . piccolos!!!!!! We marched along with them down The Mall for what must have been (wait, lemme ask Google Maps...) half a mile or so. And those piccolos were still going strong! It was phenomenal! Then whats-his-face leads us down through the garden/park thing to the other side where the other regiment was coming. We were a bit late I guess, since they were already almost through the gates. We filed around to the back of the square in front of the palace, where whats-his-name assured us that we were missing nothing by being up close near the palace, because all that was happening now was an exchange of pleasantries by the captains while their regiments (and bands) stood facing each other at attention. Then he led us to where the REAL changing of the guards takes place, and we stare at the old guards 'til a small contingent comes down The Mall from the palace where they take all of two minutes to change out the guards. Very exciting. Okay team, break!
Jamie and I return to her apartment, where we pick up her roommate. We three go visit the Cathedral where Jamie works, where her boss gives me a free pass to take pictures (2 lbs, otherwise!). We go over to The Clink Museum, a criminal museum. Kind of like the one I went to in Rothenburg, but this one was in english, and it was a LOT smaller. It covered enough area to fit in my basement at home. We tried to then go to the pub/restaurant called The Anchor. They said that Charles Dickens ate there. (I heard that one the day before, on the bus tour, about another place, so I’m beginning to get suspicious... either that or Charles Dickens ate out a lot) But the place was PACKED!!! We went to another place down the river a tiny bit called the Thameside Inn. I got a chicken pie, or something. It was good! And it was POURING DOWN RAIN outside! Sigh. Allie went back home, and Jamie and I tried to find Platform 9 and three quarters. No such luck. So we go for a consolation prize and try to find a waffle-with-ice-cream stand. We saw them everywhere on Oxford street yesterday when we went to the souvenir shop, but I guess it being Sunday combined with rain caused them all to be closed. So we kept walking down the street towards the next subway station, holding out the hope that at least ONE would be open! Ooh, there’s one! CLOSED! Ooh, another one! CLOSED! Rats. We trudge through foot traffic, 'til we get to the other station, and in the space right before the steps down to the station, we see one... and it’s open!!! Oh, glory day! And it was delicious. Ahhh. :D
MONDAY IN LONDON AND GERMANY: Not much happened on Monday. Hadta leave. Sigh. It was fun, London!!! I left london around 9:30 in the AM (London time), and didn't get home to Nürnberg until 9:30 PM (Local time). I had a somewhat harrowing train ride back home from München. Apparently I boarded the wrong train. I still got home, but it took twice as long as it should have. And I got to see a rainbow!
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