When in London...be a Tourist

Instead of laboriously covering every single minute of the last four days, I am going to review the Top Ten Events of London, in no particular order, while explaining some of the things I've learned, along with some humor and humility.

1. Saw Big Ben/Took a Picture with a Guard
One of the most photographed, recognized, and admired sites in London is St. Stephen's Tower. Wait, what? Right -- the tower you see off to the left is NOT Big Ben. Now, Benny resides inside the tower as the Bell. It weighs a lot and makes beautiful noise that echoes around the area every hour. This tower is connected to the Houses of Parlaiment, a historically divisive branch of English government. When you watch "The Prime Minister's Question Time" on C-SPAN on Sundays, it's from this building, which was pretty exciting for a geek like me. When we saw the tower and heard the bell, Elizabeth and I jumped up and down: "Holy crap, we really are in London!" In attempts to navigate the busy London streets, we ended up walking right alongside the large building and seeing a Royal Mail truck deliver into the driveway. While the guards had the gate open, I took some pictures and then Elizabeth and I got a picture with a guard (only after saying "Please"). He wasn't in one of those red outfits, but had a cool Constable's hat, and we got to stand on the driveway of Parlaiment with him! Wohoo!

2. Explored Westminster Abbey
Shortly after the guard extravaganza, we made our way to the crowded Westminster Abbey. It is one of the oldest churches in the world; built over 700 hundred years ago as a Catholic place of worship, on the orders of the King. It then became Anglican and has since been under the Church of England. While it still has regular services, it is world-reknowned as the burial location for all the Kings and Queens of England, as well authors and poets such as Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Rudyard Kipling. George Handel (composer of the Messiah), Charles Darwin, and Lawrence Olivier are also buried there. There are also memorials to the Unknown Soldier, Sir Issac Newton, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Franklin D. Rosevelt, Benjamin Disraeli, Oscar Wilde, and Winston Churchill. This is not even the beginning to the number of graves, tombs, and memorials contained in the huge Abbey. It is also the traditional location for coronation of the English monarchs.

We spent at least an hour going through much of the church, seeing lots of names we didn't recognize, and had frequent, "oh, wow! He/she's buried here!" The number of plaques, busts, tombstones, and shrines are quite overwhelming, and although we made it to every section oft he Abbey, we probably missed a good chunk of the names. It was really crowded, partly because it's a tourist attraction, and partly because it was Remembrance Weekend in England (the weekend where all the fallen from war are remembered), but we still managed to see a lot. The most striking part was seeing the effigy's and tombs of Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. It was also kind of strange to accidently walk on Charles Darwin's grave...it was marked by a plain, white marble tile with a plain, black engraving, right near Sir Issac Newton's memorial. It was highly inconspicious, which made it all the more exciting to find!

3. "Eyed" London from Above
We booked ahead and found ourselves on the fast-track to a Discovery Flight on the London Eye. The Eye is currently the largest observation wheel in the world (although word has it Tokyo and Beijing are working on bigger ones). We got in a little pill-shaped capusule with our tour guide Robert (an attractive New Zealander) and a hand-full of other people. For a half-hour, we learned about London's history and landscape, while veiwing its varied structures and shape from above. We took the flight at 3:30, which was about the time the sun started to go down around London. It was beautiful timing on our part.

The thing I noticed about London was how it contained so many different structures and types of architecture; the city's centuries-old buildings coexist peacfully with ultra-modern structures straight out of "Back to the Future II." It's a city of many extremes that surprise, but don't shock; seeing this from above was amazing.

4. Ate at the Original Hard Rock Cafe
Although it was quite rushed, we made it into the place the Hard Rock cafe was born, and had a very busy dinner. It was not quite as impressive as I expected it to be, but I guess I can't expect much differences between internation-chain cafes. It had classic Beatles, Queen, and Who memorabilia, which was kind of cool.

5. Saw 'Wicked'
We swung cheap(er) tickets to the musical, "Wicked." They tickest were half-price, and even that doesn't need to be translated into American dollars for fear of shocking my bank account. Nevertheless, it was completely worth it. While the show was dramatically different from the book, it stands on its own merits and still teaches some amazing lessons, namely, "There's more than one way of looking at things." I fell in love with the music and the script, and although I was peeved by some of the differences, I still decided this is one of my favorite musicals. The actor who played Fiyero wasn't bad looking, either, which definitely helped!

6. Didn't Die in the Tower of London/Fortress of Death
The boys went to Oxford on Sunday while Elizabeth and I decided to hang back and take advantage of a tour deal we came upon. In the morning, we decided to go to the Tower of London, which we figured would mostly be inside (thus, gettingus out of the rain). Luckily, the rain stopped and sun came out for what really wasn't just a tower and was mostly outside.

The Tower of London began with the White Tower, originally built in 1078 by William the Conqueror. It was expanded in the 13th century, partially demolished by Oliver Cromwell, and then expanded again by Charles II. It served for centuries simultaneously as a Royal Palace and prison.

Prisoners like Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Thomas More, Guy Fawkes, and several monarchs, all served luxurious time in the Tower. While some of these Prisoners, like Ralegh, were allowed home-comforts (he wrote a whole book while in prison, and was allowed visitors! He also lived with his wife there), it was generally a bad place. Torture was not out of the question, and it was one of the many places where bloody executions were held, including Anne Boelyn's and Lady Jane Grey. It also happened to be a Royal Residence and hosted many distinguished guests just yards from tortured prisoners.

It remained a prison through World War II, but no longer serves that purpose. While the Royal Family does not take up residence there anymore, it is still a Royal Palace and is guarded as such. It also houses some of the Crown Jewels and a shrine to the English monarchy. It is a huge fortress filled with stories of love, death, and torture; quite the lovely morning trip!

7. Became one of those people parading around like they've met somebody famous
After the Tower, we headed to Madame Tussaud's, one of those wax museums with imitations of famous people. So yes, we became those people who take pictures with wax figures acting like they are real (despite most of them being incredibly dressed up and us being in jeans). It was still fun, and while there was the standard George Clooney, James Dean, Marylin Monroe, Beatles, and Oprah, there were also a wax Royal Family, Shakespeare, Issac Newton, Van Gogh, Einstein, Fidel Castro, George Washington, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin, George Bush, and Queen Elizabeth.

We also ended up going through a haunted house of Serial Killers (I guess it made up for not going to Elitche's Fright Fest this year), on two trips on the Spirit of London (a Disneyworld-like ride in little taxi cars driving through London history), and seeing a eight-minute video about aliens and celebrities (I had moments of amusement, moments of feeling I was wasting my life, and mostly realizing that the movie is better for the under-ten year old generation). We discovered it was quite more than a wax museum, but much like an amusement park that took two whole hours to get through. We made it worth it!

8. Visited 221b Baker Street
While we didn't make it through normal museum hours, we trekked up Baker Street and made it to 221b Baker Street, the home and office of Detective Sherlock Holmes. Ok, it's fiction, and the actual Holmes address is a bank that still gets letters requesting Holmes' help. Nevertheless, there is a museum dedicated to the famous fictional detective and his creator, as well as a pretty awesome store. We did get to go shop, and it felt like we were thrust back in time to when Sherlock Holmes would have been investigating murder around London; the employees were dressed in 19th Century garb, and music was playing from that time. I also felt like I was returning to my middle-school years, when I fell in love Holmes' stories. It made me want to go back and read the collected works again! It was really cool, and I'm glad I remembered to look for it.

9. Got a "private" coach to Buckingham Palace
We found a tour deal that allowed us 48 hours to on or off a double-decker tour bus that took us around all the main sights of London. It was a great, efficient way of finding our way around, but it expired before we made it to the museums. We did make it on in time to make it to a connection point, and having befreinded the tour guide and bus driver, we ended up staying on the bus, even thought it wasn't in service, and making our way to Buckingham. So, it was just Elizabeth and I on the bus with the best tour guide we had in London, Trudi, and Frank the bus driver. They got us to Green Park, one of the many Royal parks in the city, and directed us toward Buckingham. It was awesome. Trudi informed us the changing of the guard wasn't happening, and he didn't think the Queen was in ("I hope you didn't have an appointment or anything," he said. I replied, "No, we had to cancel. We are too busy").

Buckingham was nice to see. There wasn't a changing of the guard; ther guards that were there were not even in the cool red outfits you always see pictures of. All of the guards I saw in the city didn't have those outfits. I decided it was a summer thing or something, which was kind of disappointing, but it's all the more reason to go back to London!

10. Saw some Original Art and one of the World's Largest Collections of "Things"
Our last adventures were exploring the National Art Gallery, including original art by Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Monet, Raphael, Michaelangelo, Botecelli, Vermir, and Rembrandt. It was the most easily navigable, amazing gallery I've ever been to, and was filled with lots of good art. I didn't know a whole lot about what I was looking at, but it was nice to see. I also got a discounted book on the gallery's mosaics, which were my favorite part and probably the most overlooked (they are on the floor as you enter the museum).

Even though we got lost, we managed to get a taxi and made it to the British Museum. It houses the largest collection of everything I have ever seen, from all continents and all centuries. We saw the original Rosetta Stone, some mummies, Samuri Armour, sculptures from the Parthenon, and King George III's library. I went to the Museum to see the First Emperor exhibit, which transformed the famous reading room into an educational haven on China's first emperor. It also brought in real Terracotta Soldiers and horses from the burial site of the emperor, which was really the draw for me. Unfortunately, I was stupid to not book ahead of time, and didn't make it before it sold out for the day. I am half-tempted to book a flight back in December to see the exhibit, as it is only going through April, and is pretty amazing. We'll see.

Still, we made it through the best of the free things in London: two of the greatest museums in the world. As our bank accounts were mainly crushed by the Pound, it was a nice relief to not have to spend money to see something cool.

All in all, I had an amazing time. We saw as much as we could, and met some amazing people along the way (tour guides, hostel mates). It was definitely too short of a trip. The oddest realization was being out of Ireland, missing it, and finding out just how much we love Eire. It was also interesting to say we were from the States, but traveling from our homes in Ireland. Trudi was especially impressed we have been living in Cork ("So much better than Dublin!").

I miss London already and know that I have to go back someday. There's not really a question, in that regard.

In the meantime, I need to get a move on my 4, 4,000 word papers due for UCC in less than a month, study for a history midterm, and prepare for Sam Jones to come to Ireland this weekend!

I love study abroad. Minus the homework part.

~MJ




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