I can't believe it's March already! Time is flying, like I knew it would. All of a sudden I'm very conscious of my academic obligations...ugh. I have a book review due the 12th...so I should probably start reading that...I also have midterms this week, I feel ok about 2 of them and not so great about the other 2, I definitely have some studying to do. I'll be productive for the rest of the day, fold my laundry, change my sheets, I should probably wash my sink too...and study, of course. According to my french professor, colleges in Europe base their entire grading system on one final exam. Grade point averages don't really exist, it's pretty much just pass or fail. I would hate having my entire grade hinge on one massive test, that would be awful. I've heard the students get a month off or something like that to study, but studying for five weeks straight would be horrendous. Basically, I prefer the American style, break it up into smaller bits and give people more opportunity to succeed. However, the competetive nature of getting the best grades and going to the best college is pretty stupid, then it's not about learning at all...actually, the whole school system makes it difficult to want to learn, but that's a completely different topic.
Anyways...LONDON!
I was only gone for 3 days, but it feels like a week. Maren and I left Thursday night around 7:30 and got back this (Monday) morning around 9. No expensive taxi rides like the Ireland trip, we took the train (Chunnel!) and arrived at St Pancras in London about 2 hours after we left. St Pancras is very pretty, it was just liked the many revamped train stations in America, except it's actually still used for its intended purpose. We woke up early Friday morning and left around 9:30 for Madame Toussaud's wax museum. We decided to walk there, it was easy to get to, just had to take a left on Euston St, but it was a long walk. Fortunately, the weather was lovely and sunny, sun is a rare thing in Brussels but it's been nice for a while now, perhaps it's a sign that spring is coming. These wax museums are essentially a building filled with photo opps, you just stand next to a wax model of some famous person and have your picture taken over and over and over. Nonetheless, it was really cool, it's amazing how realistic the figures look, (also, really expensive). After that we had some time to kill before Kristin, my friend from Wisconsin studying in Spain, arrived. There was a park next to the museum so we explored that, it was quite lovely and would've been stunning if it was summer and everything was in bloom. We had lunch outside in one of the cafes in the park. London seems to have a lot of expansive parks (according to my free map from the hostel we stayed at). It's always nice to be able to get away from the city without actually leaving it. This park even had a college in the middle of it.
After lunch we walked back to St Pancras to wait for Kristin. It took a while, but she finally got there. That was around 5 maybe, and we had a show to see at 5:30. We decided there was no time to go back to the hostel and after some confusion, managed to hail a cab. I knew the cab couldn't be too expensive because the theater was only about a mile and a half away from where we were. We got to the theater just in time. I'd bought the tickets Thursday night and expected them to be in the highest balcony all the way back to the left or right because they were the cheapest tickets available, but we were on the floor in the middle of the row. What luck that the show I really wanted to see was the cheapest. What show? Avenue Q, of course! It won best new musical in '04, so I'm surprised it's still showing anywhere, but I'm really happy I got to see it. It's essentially Sesame Street for adults, puppets interacting with real people and all. Seeing a play in Westend was on my list of things to do while in Europe, so, mission complete! Finding dinner afterwards was rather difficult, it was pretty late and we couldn't seem to find a restaurant anywhere. Eventually we found a place and I had some fish and chips.
Day 2, another early start. We planned to see Westminster Abbey and then head over to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. However, we weren't the best navigators and eventually it was too late for Westminster. Then we decided to head to Picadilly Circus...again, poor navigation led us in the opposite direction. Oh well, we ended up at Wellington's Arch, which was impressive. At that point it was time to get to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. Weeellllll, they do it every other day from August to April and even though the hostel had information saying it would happen that day, it was wrong. Bummer. Also, the guards are not out in the open where you can bother them, like they show in the movies, which really isn't surprising, and they didn't have their red coats on because those are their summer coats. Their winter coats are grey. At least while we were there a bunch of horseguards, (at least I think they were horseguards, they were riding horses), rode past in red, that was neat. Also, even though in the end it's just a building that you can't even go in, not all that impressive of a building either, I don't think you can go to London for the first time and not see Buckingham Palace.
After that confusing and slightly disappointing morning we headed over to Westminster Abbey and didn't get lost at all. Westminster Abbey is the grave of many previous kings and queens and other famous English people and is also the place where the coronation ceremony has taken place for centuries. It was amazing. I saw the tombs of King Henry VII, Elizabeth I, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, a few King Edwards who died about 800 years ago and many more. Westminster Abbey is a 10th century church, making it 900 years old, people, that's insane. As I mentioned, Westminster is where coronations take place, they've been using the same chair for coronations since 1308 and it's on display. It doesn't look very nice, but the fact that it's 700 years old makes it incredible. I've been to the Santa Croce in Florence, which houses the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli and Michelangelo, but it doesn't hold a candle to this place.
Westminster Abbey is immediately next to Parliament and Big Ben, which is a beautiful building. Right as we were crossing the bridge to get to the London Eye and had a better view of Parliament, my BRAND NEW battery died. As you can imagine, I was NOT happy. Fortunately, the charger I ordered is here and I can pick it up tomorrow, hooray! Well, Maren and I had bought combined Madame Toussaud's - London Eye tickets at Madame Toussaud's so we just had to exchange our vouchers but Kristin had to wait in a much longer line. So after lots of waiting we made it onto the Eye. For those that have been to Chicago, this is a lot like the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier where you just have a very slow ride to the top and a nice view and then come back down, except instead of typical ferris wheel carts you stand in giant pods that can hold about 20 people. Maren thought it was a waste of money, I'm not sure what she was expecting because it was exactly what I was expecting. I will admit that it is outrageously overpriced though. London in general is outrageously overpriced. I spent a LOT of money this weekend and I'm not a fan, but I'm very very glad I got to see London.
After the Eye we had lunch and headed over to Tower Bridge. Maren was convinced that London Bridge was THE bridge to see. It's not, Tower Bridge is the famous one. I'd thought that perhaps London Bridge was impressive too, before the trip, but figured out pretty quickly this was not the case. It took Maren a bit longer...the map showed that Tower Bridge and London Bridge were right next to eachother, we crossed over Tower Bridge and had a clear sight of London Bridge and could plainly see that it was just another average bridge. Even still, she didn't get that we were at the main event. ANYWAYS, once that was cleared up we continued to the Tower of London. Unfortunately, despite the signs saying the last admission was at 5, the last admission was actually at 4, apparently they're changing their hours and had the new signs up. Well, it was 4:30. It was ok for Maren and I since the Tower would be open on Sunday, but Kristin had to leave early that morning. I don't understand why there was no indication that the tower was closed anywhere but the information center. Putting big ol' signs up that say "tower closed for the day" wouldn't have been very difficult and would've saved the woman working at the information center from hearing many questions on the subject. Oh well.
So no Tower. We tried to find the Underground station to take us to St Paul's, but ended up walking most of the way there instead and so just continued. St Paul's is MASSIVE, more important people are entombed in it but we didn't go inside. It cost money anyways, everything does in London, and it costs a LOT of money too. We stood in awe for a bit, walked over to Millennium Bridge, (which they call the wobbly bridge, but I didn't find it wobbly at all), and I bought some delicious sugary roasted peanuts before we walked over it. On the other side was the Tate Modern, an old factory tranformed into a modern art museum, not very pretty on the outside, and Shakespeare's Globe Theater. That would've been cool to see on the inside, I did go to the bathroom in the visitor's center, which was a very nice bathroom. They had a model of the theater in the lobby so that was good.
We had some more difficulty finding the Underground, but of course got there eventually. It didn't help that the two most useful lines were closed for the weekend and at least one other had issues all three days. We went to Trafalgar Square which had a large obelisk dedicated to Horatio Viscount Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, where he died. The National Gallery was lit up with a rotation of abstract paintings which was pretty awesome. It was good that we were there at night to see it. On to Picadilly Circus, one Underground stop away, very easy to find. Picadilly Circus is the Times Square of London with a big wall lit up with giant ads, also awesome to see at night. Again we had difficulty finding a place to eat, this time there were multiple options but they were out of our price range. Eventually we found a TGIF, and yes, ate there. We were exhausted, it was a long day. Apparently TGIF is the place to be on a Saturday night though, the place was packed and included two birthday parties (as in groups of girls, not little kids with balloons). The bar was downright hoppin'. I had a delicious Amaretto drink which involved two scoops of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, mmmmm.
Day 3, Kristin left for her flight early and Maren and I decided to sleep in a bit since the Tower of London didn't open until 10 anyways. A bit was about an hour, haha, it still felt like a more relaxed morning. Again, we had difficulty getting where we wanted to go. We tried to use the busses, to no avail, but we got there. Thank goodness the Tower was closed on Saturday, because it's HUGE! There's SSOOO much to see, we got there maybe around 12:30 and didn't leave until around 5. We went on a guided tour first and got to see the chapel where Anne Boleyn is burried. Then we saw the Jewel Tower where the crown jewels are kept. They're incredible, I saw the biggest diamond I'll probably ever see in my life, the first star of Africa, about the size of an ear. The crown the queen wears for addressing the parliament was remarkable, it had 3 impressive stones in it, the second star of Africa, the black prince's ruby and a sapphire with some fancy name and story that I've forgotten. Coronations must be exhausting for the person ascending the throne, they have to bear a lot of weight. A crown full of gem stones and gold on their head, a sceptor, an orb, a massive cloak, a big ol' ring, multiple swords throughout the ceremony, these gold cuffs...it's crazy.
Next we saw the White Tower, the castle where the royal family used to live back in the day. After that we made our way through the rest of the towers, each of which had its own story. It was fascinating and incredible to be in a place with so much history. We were there so long we completely missed lunch, I had most of a brownie Maren bought that she didn't like and she had some shortbread. I didn't mind spending the day there at all, this was one place where I think I actually got my money's worth, and let me tell you, admission wasn't cheap.
So we had another transportation adventure while figuring out what we wanted to do next. It involved an old double decker bus, I'm happy I got to ride on the upper deck of an old bus, the new ones just aren't as cool. We ended up at Camden Market JUST as it was closing, I managed to snag a pair of sunglasses. I keep on losing my sunglasses, I hope I don't lose these. We shopped for a little longer, until everything else started closing, and had dinner at an Asian buffet and I do love my Asian food. The train left at 5:57am the next (this) morning. All in all, an excellent weekend, despite often getting lost and that it was rrreeeaaalllllyyy expensive. I swear I'm trying to be frugal! I'm gonna need an amazing summer job...
-Lauren :)
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