London

June 19 & 20, 2010

Right before we left for the airport for London, Preethi's straightener exploded on her head. She was half way done with her hair, and I had just gotten out of the shower so we looked reallll cute when we had to camp out in the airport for awhile before our flight. Preethi, Yelena, and I all ate some chips, and I had a San Miguel beer, then we took a little nap before our flight. When we arrived in London, we grabbed some lunch, exchanged our euros for pounds, and caught a bus to the city center. I fell asleep as soon as I sat down on the bus. Half way to the city, I started waking up and freaking out a little. I was like "oh my gosh we are driving on the wrong side of the road...oh my gosh where is the driver!?". Then I remembered where we were. Hahaa! We got to Victoria Station (which was PACKED!), got in line to buy tickets, and took the tube to our hostel. Yelena had two suitcases with her because she was going straight from London to Belarus then back to the US, so it was a little hectic trying to lug them around through the metro station.

We finally got to our hostel--Hillspring Lodge. It was the cutest hostel we have stayed at so far! They have a restaurant, a deck with flowers everywhere, and three adorable lounge areas. There was a bunch of furs everywhere--like bear furs hanging on the walls and horse hair seats--that kind of creeped me out a little. Other than that, it was awesome! We freshened up a little in the bathroom while we were waiting for check-in to open. When it opened, we headed up to our room, I unlocked the door and opened it up to an Australian man washing his face. I thought we had the wrong room, but I opened up the door a little more, saw our three beds open, and remembered what we booked. We booked a 4 bed mixed dorm, and since there were three of us girls, we figured it wasn't very likely that someone would book a hostel alone. We were wrong! He was moving to London, so while he was apartment hunting, he was staying in hostels. We barely saw him, but when we did, he was really sweet and put up with all of our crap. Our bags took over the room, my alarm woke him up at 6:45 in the morning the next day, and we were in the room getting ready for like an hour and a half. We kept saying sorry, and he yelled at us for saying sorry so much. Then I apologized for saying sorry so much. Haha!

We headed out for the day around noon. We went to London Bridge first! We had an awesome view of the River Thames from there. Across the bridge and around the corner, we found the monument built for the great fire of London. On our way to see the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange, we had our first view of a classical double decker bus and a red telephone booth. The taxis in London are the cutest taxis ever! They look so old-fashioned--I love it! It started raining while we were outside the Bank of England. Unfortunately, we forgot our umbrellas in the hostel (of all the cities to forget an umbrella--London is not the one!), so we had to take cover until it died down. It kept raining pretty hard then stopping, then raining again and stopping. It eventually stopped for good, and we headed for St. Paul's Cathedral. Then on our way to St. Paul's, we ran into Guildhall Yard, which is a little square with a gorgeous church. We also saw some kind of 5K race going on. We, of course, made a caffeine stop and I had some British tea. St. Paul's Cathedral was amazing! It sits on Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the city of London. It's also the seat of the Bishop of London. The services for the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Winston Churchill all took place here!

Our next stop was Tate Modern Art Museum. The bridge from Harry Potter--London Millenium Bridge--is right outside Tate! That bridge is AWESOME! It looks so contorted and twisted. We explored a few floors of the Tate Modern. One of the first rooms we walked in had this painting on the wall with a dead bird like running into the wall. I still don't know if it was a real bird or not--it looked like it! We saw Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus there! I love Dali.

We went to Shakespeare's Globe afterward which is on the exact spot where many of Shakespeare's plays opened! CRAZYYY! We saw the ruins of Winchester Palace and a big pirate ship on our way to Southwark Cathedral. We seemed to stumble upon a lot of neat things in London. Winchester Palace was the palace of the powerful bishops of Winchester and was one of the most important buildings in medieval London. Southwark Cathedral is a really interesting church. It looks like two completely different buildings because half of the outside is designed completely differently from the other half. It was beautiful nonetheless. We saw the London Dungeon and passed by tons of creepy characters in costumes on the way. It looked awesome!

We saw these model elephants literally everywhere we went while we were in London. Each one was painted differently, and there were over 250 of them that invaded London for a public art exhibition (trying to raise money for elephants throughout the world). They were awesome! We took pictures of sooo many of them. We walked through this park area to get to Tower Bridge. I'm in loveee with Tower Bridge! It's an adorable 19th century drawbridge. We got to see it opening up for the boats, which is actually extremely rare! It only opens up about 500 times a year, which seems like a lot, but it is actually really difficult to catch it opening up. We went to the Tower of London, but it was closed by the time we got there. It is London's original royal fortress by the Thames River. The Tower of London is a little bit of everything. It has been a castle, fortress, prison, palace, and now a museum. It contains the crown jewels, is guarded by beefeaters, and is a world heritage site. Tower Hill Memorial is right near the Tower of London. It is a national war memorial on the south side of Trinity Square Gardens. It was built to commemorate those from the Merchant Navy and from fishing fleets in both world wars. It is for those who have "no grave but the sea".

Next stop: Piccadilly Circus! Piccadilly is a famous road junction and and public space. The Statue of Eros stands proudly in the middle. Piccadilly kind of reminds me of Times Square. Only half of it was all lit up though because the other half was under construction. We headed down the street to Trafalagar Square after checking out a few shops in Piccadilly. The National Gallery & Nelson's Column are two of the main attractions in Trafalgar Square. Admiralty Arch is just across the street too. We went to a restaurant right outside of Trafalgar Square to get some fish & chips. The place was packed, and the only table left was the one in the corner. Preethi and I left to put our order in at the bar so that Yelena could save our table. When we came back, Yelena told us there was a MOUSE under our table! I sat down to save our table while she ordered (which was actually kind of pointless since we were switching tables anyway), and he ran up right under my foot! It wouldn't have been so bad if we weren't in a dark corner so we couldn't see where he was coming from or if there were more. We switched tables and ended up staying. The food was good, but hard to enjoy when you are thinking about the critters running around there. By the time we were done with dinner, it was late. We were tired too, so we ended our night there.

The next day, we woke up early (& woke up our Australian roomie early) and left for the London Eye! We checked it out, but then decided we would rather go up after we had seen most of the sites so that we could point them out. The London Aquariam is right next to the Eye and is gigantic! We saw Big Ben & the Houses of Parliament, which are right across the river from the Eye. Big Ben is so cute! He's not as big as I thought he would be though. A little farther down the road lies Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster. Most of England's kings and queens have been crowned here and many are buried here as well. It's gorgeous. Even farther down the road is Westminster Cathedral. I think it looks like it should be a building in Candyland or something. I loved how all of the apartment buildings surrounding it copied its design with the stripes.

We walked to Buckingham Palace afterward--the official residence of the Queen of England. We were stopped outside a souvenir shop looking at some paintings when Graham pulled a Jack x 100 on us! I said I didn't really like one of the paintings that much, and Graham came up behind us and said "Yea I don't really like it that much either". At first I was thinking who is this creep behind us, but then I turned around and was like "GRAHAMMM!!". It was crazy--we didn't even know he was in London yet, and we somehow ran into him. We all went to Buckingham Palace just in time to see the Changing of the Guard! It was packed! There were people on horses controlling all of the people since they had to make a path for the guards. The band played for a little bit, they chanted a few things, and then they marched out of the palace. Every guard was carrying something--if it wasn't an instrument, it was a gun. I don't know how they can keep straight faces when they are wearing such goofy hats and doing such a funny march. You can't get close enough to the guards at Buckingham Palace to take a picture, so we went down the road a little bit to St. James Palace. We took pictures with a guard named Charlie. I felt bad because everyoneee was taking pictures with him, and he just stood there so seriously. We asked him what his name was, and he didn't respond right away. So we asked him if he wasn't allowed to talk, and he whispered that he wasn't supposed to, but he will anyway, and that his name is Charlie. We said nice to meet you, and then Yelena and I decided to take another picture with him--one of us on each side pretending to kiss his cheeks! He just smiled :)

After saying bye to Charlie, we went back to Trafalgar Square. We took pictures with the GIANT lion statues at the base of Nelson's Column. My entire body was as big as one of its legs! I told Megh that I tried to steal it for her, but it was a little too heavy :) It was HILARIOUS to watch Yelena and Preethi try to get up on them. Yelena got half way up and just stood there frozen, and Preethi was practically laying on the lion, clenching on to it so that she wouldn't fall, while she was walking her feet around the lion's leg trying to get to the front of it. There was an Indian festival going on in front of the National Gallery, so we got free lunch! The chicken and rice were delicious, but the dessert was a little questionable. It was free, though, so I had nothing to complain about. I really liked the fountains and the statue of a glass bottle with a ship inside of it in front of the Gallery too. We went inside the National Gallery after lunch, which has over 2,300 masterpieces inside, and it is free to get in! We saw Cezanne's Bathers, van Gogh's Sunflowers, Stubb's Whistlejacket, and many many many more! The Gallery itself was just as beautiful as the paintings in it. After the Gallery, we took Graham to Piccadilly Circus since he hadn't been yet. We stopped at this really cool souvenir shop on the way. EVERYTHING was decked out in the English flag--even this old-fashioned car sitting in the middle of the store.

From Piccadilly Circus, we hopped on the tube and took it over to Hyde Park. Outside of the park and across the street is Wellington Arch. There were guards under the arch and their leader was walking them through a bunch of different positions and commands, teaching the crowd at the same time. We walked into the gorgeous and gigantic Hyde Park. There was an enormous open field with hundreds and hundreds of people playing countless different games and sports. It was nuts! We decided to walk across it so we could see the Marble Arch on the other side. On the way, we ran into Speaker's Corner. Some of the most influential figures in world history such as Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and V.I. Lenin have attended meetings here. Oliver Cromwell's corpse was hung up here in a cage for public display as a warning for others who might want to abolish Monarchy. It is a place where people from almost every walk of life, every class, and almost every country come to discuss important issues. People stand up on these little pedestals and voice their opinions while other people gather around them and debate. We listened to a few groups. One guy was particularly popular--he was red in the face from screaming so loudly. It was a little shocking to see people so worked up, so we didn't stay long. We went to the Marble Arch, which is a white Carrara marble monument that is located in the middle of a huge traffic island at one of the busiest intersections in central London. Another intersection we probably shouldn't have crossed, but we did anyway! After seeing the arch, we headed back to Hyde Park to go see the Peter Pan statue. The craziest little squirrel came up to us when we were walking through the park. He like ran up to us and kept reaching out to us like he wanted us to give him something. Yelena found some food in her purse, so Yelena and Graham handed him pieces of it, and he took it right out of their hands! He eventually took the whole wrapper and ran away with it. Then another squirrel came up and started doing the same thing, found the other squirrel with the wrapper, and chased after him. haha! We found the Peter Pan statue, took some pictures, then spent some time near the pond/river watching all of the ducks and ducklings.

We got back on the tube to go to ABBEY ROAD!! (the famous street where the Beatles shot their "Abbey Road" album cover and the road where their recording studio was). We texted LC on our way there because there's a live feed on the internet so you can see everyone on the road, but I'm not sure if she saw us or not. That road was soo busy and everyone was trying to get a picture like their album cover, so it was hard to get a good one. It was amazing to be there! We signed the wall in front of their recording studio with an "All You Need is Love" quote, hung out there for a little while, then headed back to the metro station.

We had seen all of our sights by this point, so we decided that it was time for the London Eye! The sun had just come out and the skies were so blue--perfect timing! It is the world's third largest observation wheel, and you can see 25 miles away in all directions. It is ENORMOUS!! We got our tickets, watched the 4D movie about it (which was actually really cool! and we got sprayed with water), then got in line. We jumped in one of the giant glass ovals as it was moving. Each car can hold probably thirty people. It moves reallyyyy slowly so that you can see everything. I love seeing cities from a bird's eye view--we could see absolutely everything! I took like a million pictures while I was up there. Afterward, we went to dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant, which was really good! Graham had to leave us after dinner to go meet up with his friend, so Yelena, Preethi and I went to King's Cross Station to go to Platform 9 and 3/4--the platform for the London to Hogwarts trip on Hogwarts Express! We took some pictures there, realized how exhausted we were, and decided to go back to the hostel for the night. On our way back to the hostel, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up breakfast (since we were leaving at 5 a.m.--Preethi and I for Dublin, Yelena for Wimbledon), some cookies and a giant strawberry milk bottle that we took swigs out of. We figured out how we were going to get to the bus station in the morning, and went to bed. I had such an amazing time in London--I really love this city ( and their accents too :] ).