Monday:
Today was our arrival to London day. OF COURSE our flight out of Barcelona was delayed due to heavy amounts of fog in London. The good part about this journey was British Airways didn't screw us like last time and a super amazing British man with a fancy British Airways sky miles card asked for an upgrade so Megan and I could sit together (he was supposed to be sitting next to me). At one point he made a comment about bringing us up to first class with him, but that didn't happen. My first London fail if you will. Arriving at Heathrow is always a pleasure. And when I say pleasure I mean torture. Luckily, the two dudes behind us in the immigration line were from NYC and worked for a record label and were sharing stories about things that happened backstage at the Grammys so that was enjoyable listening. After security was sure we weren't a national threat we were able to promptly buy a ticket for the Heathrow Connect and load up our Oyster card (the card you use to travel on public transportation) for a 7 day pass. The city of London is divided into zones (1-6) for the purpose of travel. The average tourist will never leave zones 1 and 2 and travel to each additional zone costs more money as it is farther out. The cool part is buses (yes, the fun double decker, red ones) cost the same per trip no matter what zone you're in. London has the world's oldest and most expensive public transportation. But it works and it's almost always on time. Any who, we make it to our final stop (Marble Arch on the Central Line) in order to get to our hotel. This station has a lot of steps. My suitcase weighs 50 pounds and I have no upper body strength. Cue British man to the rescue. This awesome guy offers to help me carry my luggage. I then ramble about how I normally don't pack this much, but I'm here for 6 weeks. He just smiles and nods. We part ways and Aimee, Megan and myself arrive at the Thistle Marble Arch. A nice hotel EXCEPT they charge you a fortune for internet. Also, it costs to make local phone calls here, but you don't get charged for incoming calls or texts, so I suppose it balances out.
Our hotel is located one block off Oxford Street which is the major retail shopping area in Central London. It intersects with Reagent Street which is the major high end shopping area in Central London. It's crazy crowded all.the.time. The hotel is directly across the street from The Marble Arch, which is an entry way into Hyde Park. Once we regrouped we headed down Oxford Street to find some food. After much walking and deliberating we discover The Slug and Lettuce which is a terrible name, but was full of young businessy people, which is London is a phenomenal way of knowing if a pub or restaurant is worth your time. The food was great, the service was great and I was able to order a Strongbow and try a strawberry lime cider. Oh, also it was 50% off Monday. So you can't really beat that. It was all fabulous. Also, here in the U.K. you only tip your waiter 10%. It's so hard to get used to since I often tip double that in America. We then headed to the Apple Store (yes, love for Apple seems to be universal) to get an adapter for Aimee's computer. While checking out we were discussing rap music with the guy helping us (shocker, theme of the trip) when an Apple employee comes running at us yelling "Yay America!" Turns out she's originally from L.A. and heard our accents and wanted to come meet us. I love being a novelty.
We headed back to the hotel to get some rest, but Megan got me hooked on a TV show on the BBC Two called simply, The Tube and it's basically a documentary/reality show about The Tube. This weeks episode focused on Tottenham Court Road station and the major construction overhaul it's getting to allow 200,000 more passengers a day to pass through. The underground transports a total of 4 million people a day. That's insane. After watching this show I now have a brand new appreciation for the work it takes to keep a subway functioning. Also, they don't really have commercials here on the local stations. Apparently you pay an annual fee to have local television channels and this fee eliminates commercials with the exception a few between shows. They also aren't allowed to advertise prescription medications so overall tv viewing is much more pleasurable.
Tuesday:
All three of us have been to London before (Aimee with Alex for his work, Megan for study abroad and me for a few days) so this helped us direct what we wanted to do while we were here. Our first stop this morning was for Leicester Square (pronounced Lester) to visit the tkts booth to buy half price theater tickets. Megan and I decided to see "Dreamboats and Petticoats" and are given 8th row seats for 31 pounds, which after conversion to U.S. dollars is half of what we would pay for tickets for a show at the Fox in Atlanta. London's West End is known for having tons of theaters showing wonderful shows every night of the week. At some point in this day we eat lunch at Pret. Pret is amazing. Bascially Pret sells SUPER reasonably priced sandwiches made the day you purchase them. They are good like Panera, but SOOOO much cheaper. It's basically healthy fast food and it's something I'm really going to miss when we head home. They also carry the BEST salt and vinegar chips. We walk to Trafalgar Square (which was built to commemorate naval heroes) and look around. They've added a new statue since I was here in 2008. It's a little boy on a rocking horse. It seems weird until you read it's purpose. It's there to commemorate the heroes of the future. The children who have yet to be given the chance to prove themselves. I thought that was pretty cool. They also have the official Olympic countdown located here.
After walking around we take a trip to the British Museum which is an amazing place because it is free. We were able to see so much, but we still weren't able to see anywhere near everything they have. London has so much history wrapped into it and while you're here you see that America has no clue what being old is all about. It's simply amazing the things the museums have acquired and preserved. I just can't get over it. Highlights included the Rosetta Stone, pieces of the Parthenon, Cleopatra's mummy (so thrilling as I had never seen a mummy before) and the 2012 Olympic medals. They even have a watch and clock room and they've already saved and displayed a Swatch watch from the 80s. Crazy. Makes me feel old.
By the time we finished looking at everything our brain could take in it was time to head back to the hotel to change for our show. We decided to eat dinner at a pub called The Lord of the Moon and the Mall on Whitehall road, in sight of Tralfargar Square. Eating at pubs is so different from bars or restaurants in America. With pubs you typically walk to the bar order your food and drink and pay up front. They then bring you your food and you don't have to tip. We got the idea to go to this pub from the fabulous Rick Steve's London book. You can order a meal with an alcohol drink or soda for 5.95 pounds, which is pretty cheap for this city. After eating Aimee headed on her own way while Megan and I headed for the Playhouse Theatre to see our show. It is a small, intimate theatre so sitting in row eight made us feel like we were right up close. The show was great and the music was phenomenal. They sold ice cream during intermission so of course Megan and I had to partake. We also had a colorful group of people sitting around us. And I'm not saying that because they were wearing bright colors. We also didn't realize how close the theatre was to the Thames River and the Jubliee Bridge. So when the show got out we walked onto the bridge at were able to see the beautiful London Eye at night.
A perfect end to an awesome night!
Wednesday:
I shall deem Wednesday the day we learned so much that my brain nearly exploded. This day was honestly like watching a full 24 hours of The History Channel in the amount of information we were presented with. We started the day buy taking the Tube down to Tower Hill for a visit to the Tower of London. All Megan and I had been here before, but it turns out we had basically gone in walked around and ran out. Or something. Because we basically missed all the amazing things here. The sightseeing started off wonderfully as we received a student discount. It seems like every historical place here offers a student discount, which is really awesome and America should take note. Once entering the Tower we did what any self respecting person would do, headed for the Crown Jewels, as this is where they are stored. They are beautiful! Frustratingly, they have taken down a lot of the information about the jewels to replace them with multi language ones for the Olympics, so if we didn't have the Rick Steve's book we wouldn't know what we were looking at. After seeing the amazing crowns and such we went on a tour with a Beefeater (or their proper name Yeoman Warder). We got lucky and were able to tour with an awesome one. In fact he's the one who's picture is on all of the adverts (that's what they call advertisements around here). We were able to see the ravens who live here. It's crazy, they have their own caretaker and everything. They've also recently added this really creepy animal statues all over the place to show the kinds of animals who have lived in the Tower through out time. Apparently they we often given to kings as gifts from other nations. But the statues are just plain scary. Especially the monkeys. They have ones showing their teeth and occasionally you'll look up and just see one of those damn primates and it's just uncalled for. I should add they are made out of chicken wire. It's just weird. From there we climbed all over the Towers, getting a great view of the Tower Bridge, seeing words and symbols carved into the walls by prisoners in the 1600s and the unfortunate run in with historical reenactors. I am frightened of these people. I do not like that they have them posted up in towers where you don't know they are around until you stumble upon them and have no where to hide. I would appreciate if my entry fee had not included these guys. They also have an amazing museum here were we saw armor, weapons and so many other cool things.
After this we headed over to the Westminster Tube station (they have SO much security there as it sits right next to the Houses of Parliament). We were able to get a a wonderful view of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament before heading over to a place I was very excited about, The Churchill War Rooms. These are basically the bunkers used during World War II for the Prime Minister and his staff for safety during the Blitz. In addition, they also have a museum dedicated to Winston Churchill. This is the most comprehensive museum I have ever seen. They have an interactive, digital table top where you can click on any day in Churchill's lifetime and see what was going on (from personal to war related topics) They have everything! We were able to see his Nobel Prize (cool because I had no clue what those looked like) and my favorite the ACTUAL National Geographic map used to divide up Europe after the war. It's so amazing. The bunkers were closed towards the end of the war with everything left as it was in case it needed to be used again. It's so amazing to see it, since it's exactly like it was. They still have the maps on the wall with pin marks showing where submarines had been sank and chalkboards with the count of ships attacked. This whole thing is a national treasure that does not get enough promotion. I would recommend this to anyone who has any love for history.
Thursday:
We started today off with another trip to Leicester Square to buy theatre tickets, we choose We Will Rock You, which is a musical based on the music of Queen. Aimee and Jill decided to join Megan and me for this one. We split up after buying tickets and Megan and I headed for our Beatles walking tour. I was really excited about this one. We were able to see a lot of interesting sites and get a good view of areas of the city we would not have seen before. This was when we realized the royals have stores they endorse. The tour took us down Seville Road where all the expensive tailors are located. It was here that we saw the symbol of royal family posted on the window of one of the shops. Pretty cool to know that's the location that tailors all the clothes for the royal men (including Princes William and Harry). Interesting we were on this street because it's where the Beatles performed their last concert on the roof of Apple Studios. Our tour guide was probably the best tour guide I've ever had. He was so passionate about what he was doing and it turns out he owns the Beatles shop I bought my little Abbey Road signs from in 2008. He has all these pictures of himself with Paul McCartney (who still lives in the St. John's Wood area of London). He says they often see Sir McCartney while on these tours (but we didn't). George Lucas has even listened to one of his tours, so he's pretty good. I just loved how enthused he was for the Beatles!
After this walk Megan and I just kind of strolled around and ended up at the famous London hole in the wall, Pizza Hut. And I must add a Pizza Hut here is much nicer than one in America. It's almost fancy. After eating I discovered Primark. Oh.my.gosh. Primark is a huge clothing store that basically has everything (similar in layout to an H&M), but everything is insanely cheap. Because of this everyone and their brother is inside and being obnoxious. The cashier was telling me this wasn't even a busy day and that we should just avoid coming on a weekend. I was able to get a pair of turquoise flats and a purse for 12 pounds. Cray! After this Megan and I didn't want to see another crowd so we headed back to the hotel to wait for dinner. We had dinner at a little Italian restaurant and then headed to We Will Rock You. I love Queen songs and the actors singing them did such a great job. Bohemian Rhapsody is not included in the show and at the end the actors come back out and sing it and everyone sings along and it's just so enjoyable. Another fabulous London night!
Friday:
Our last final day we visited Harrod's Department Store, which is this huge overwhelming place that sells everything. When I say everything I mean a giant stuffed gorilla to bullet proof clothing. We also went to the Liberty department store which is famous for its Liberty print fabric. Both of these stores are full of pretty things that are far out of my price range. Kinda depressing. What I did for the rest of this day is a bit of a blur to me, but I do know we had dinner with Ashlyn at The Slug and the Lettuce. Except instead of it being the awesome place we went earlier in the week it was playing terribly loud and just plain terrible techno music. No mas. We ended up at the Glenn Miller bar at our hotel. They were not playing Glenn Miller. In fact they seemed to be playing the tv over the speakers. We spent well over an hour people watching and trying to guess what brought people to town and their relationships with the people they were with. It was a fitting end to our last night of London vacation.
No comments:
Post a Comment