On one hand, it was really nice to be able to do my own thing and see what I wanted to see without worrying about anybody else. On the other hand, it was weird being completely by myself in a huge city like London--but hey, at least everybody spoke my language! I got to London around 5 and made my way to my hostel by way of the Gatwick Express, a train that went right from Gatwick to Victoria Station. Then I had to figure out the Tube to get there and walk a few minutes from there. The place I was staying had been recommended to me by Hannah, who stayed there a few weeks ago when she and her friends went to London. I think I had a completely different experience there (and being alone didn't help), because I struggled there the first night. I was put into a tiny room with two sets of triple bunk beds, and my room was only half-carpeted so I had exposed concrete underneath of me. Oh, and there was no window in my room so I'm pretty sure that's illegal... and there were only two bathrooms to share with the entire floor, with absolutely no hot water. So yeah, that was different. I set my stuff down in my room and made my way to the London Eye, since my hostel was just a short walk from it. It was really cool to do at night and see London all lit up! I definitely had a few freak-out moments once we were near the top, but I'm glad I did it. It took about 45 minutes to go all the way around. I was considering not buying a ticket to do it because they are pretty expensive, but I'm glad I did because it was really cool!
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| View of Parliament from the top! |
I was already a little uncomfortable in the hostel when I went to bed that night, but once I woke up in the morning and couldn't even take a shower because there was no hot water and even the cold water kept turning off, I knew that there was no way I could stay there for two more nights. So I took a long, hard look at my bank account, scoured Kayak and Travelocity for a while... and booked a hotel. Sure, the people were plenty nice enough, but if I was going to be staying on my own I needed to stay somewhere else, just for my own sanity.
While I was waiting for that to go through, I went to Leicester Square to buy my London Pass, which is a sightseeing pass that gets you in to a lot of the sights and gives you unlimited transportation. Once I had that, I went to the Tower of London, which was so cool. It was rainy and wet, but I spent basically half of my day at the tower exploring all of the different buildings. It's a huge complex with a ton of history. The Crown Jewels are also there, and those were amazing to see.
After the Tower, I went to Westminster Abbey, because it closes earlier in the afternoon than most other things and I wanted to make sure I got to see it. I was absolutely blown away by this place. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside, but needless to say it was spectacular. It's huge, for one, but it's also amazing to think about how many people are buried and commemorated inside. And then you think about how many coronations and weddings have taken place there (most recently the wedding of Will and Kate!), and it's even more incredible. You get a free audioguide with your ticket, so I was able to tour it and learn about everything I was seeing.
And, as an English major, I have to say that being in Poets' Corner was by far my favorite part of the Abbey. Standing in the same place where people like Chaucer, Robert Browning, and Charles Dickens are buried and where there are memorials to dozens of other authors, playwrights and poets (including Shakespeare... my fav) was mind-blowing. Chaucer was the first to be buried in that area and it wasn't because of his writing... he had some position in the church and that's how he ended up there. But eventually it became a place to honor all sorts of writers and scholars... Handel is buried there too!
After I was finished at Westminster, I went back to Tower Hill to do the Tower Bridge Experience, which takes you up into the top of the bridge. It was cool, but it isn't something I necessarily have to do ever again. At that point, I was able to check into my new hotel, so I went to do that before I picked up my luggage at my hostel. When I went to check in, I was a little worried because they said they had overbooked my original hotel and they had to send me right down the road a block to their sister hotel. I had searched for so long that morning to find mine and I was nervous about what the new one looked like, but it was even nicer than the one I had originally booked at and because they had to move me, they gave me free breakfast every morning... not too shabby. On my way back to the underground to go to my hotel again, I stopped at a pub that had a sign out on the sidewalk advertising its pizza for dinner because it was getting late and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find anything by the time I got back to the Hyde Park area, where my new hotel was.
I actually met some American girls there who were staying in the hostel above the pub (which would be really interesting, I'm sure!). They were on their spring break from school in the US visiting a friend in Dublin and spending the weekend in London, and one of them noticed that I was traveling alone and told me all about how she traveled alone for a few weeks last summer because her friend who was supposed to make the trip with her got sick at the last minute, and she wished that people had approached her just like they came up to me when I was sitting waiting for my food! Needless to say, I was definitely glad for some company at that point. We all ended up hanging out at the pub for a bit and made friends with the two bartenders before I headed back to my hotel and they headed up to their rooms in the hostel. But we made plans to meet back at the same place the next night because it was karaoke night, which we were sure would be entertaining.
I got up early the next morning because I had a full day of sightseeing planned, and it all revolved around seeing the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace around 11:15. I didn't want to waste the entire morning before that, so I went to St. Paul's Cathedral pretty much as soon as it opened. There's a memorial inside to American pilots who died fighting for the British in WWII, which I thought was cool. And I got to hear about how important St. Paul's is to Britain and how badly people tried to protect it during WWII. It's a beautiful cathedral, and you'd think I would be tired of seeing churches by now, but every one that I go to is a little different. Actually, I'm pretty sure that St. Paul's is the only non-Catholic church I've seen this semester, so that's a nice change of pace!
After I was done there, I made my way to Buckingham for the ceremony. Let me just say that I've seen several changing of the guards ceremonies at Arlington and other places, and in terms of pomp and circumstance, Britain definitely has the upper hand when it comes to these things! The entire ceremony lasted over an hour. When the band started playing, though, they played some contemporary music... like You've Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story. One thing that was weird about the entire area around the palace was that there were no trash cans anywhere... I asked a police officer because I had something I needed to throw away, and he said they don't allow them because of fears of terrorism! Isn't that strange? I would never have connected trash cans and terrorism in my mind.
Anyway, after that whole ceremony, I knew I wanted to get to Kensington Palace, which is in another part of the city and is where Will and Kate live. I had downloaded this cool London Underground app on my phone which I thought would be able to get me anywhere I wanted to go... until I got to where I was supposed to transfer lines and found out that the line I was supposed to take to get there was scheduled to be closed all weekend. So I had to figure out how to get there and I ended up backtracking and taking two different lines, but I did eventually make it! That was another thing my London Pass got me into, so I toured that for a bit, but there wasn't too much to see. I didn't have to buy a separate ticket so it's not like I wasted money on it, but it's another one of those things I don't necessarily need to do again. Then again, it probably depends on the day because they have different exhibits open at different times.
The last thing I wanted to do that day was visit Shakespeare's Globe. I couldn't tell from my map which underground station was the best to take there, so I asked somebody in the underground station and they told me that most people go to Waterloo and walk up the Thames from there to get there. No big deal, I still had plenty of time before it closed for the day, so I took his advice. He didn't tell me, however, that it was a 25 minute walk up the Thames and that I would have no idea where to go once I got out of the underground station! I finally made it there in time for the last tour of the day (everything closes pretty early in London right now because it's not really peak tourist season).
I loved the Globe, for obvious reasons! Shakespeare is one of my favorite things to read and seeing a show at the Globe is definitely on my bucket list now. I got to learn all about how they researched how to rebuild the globe and how they do everything true to how it would have been done in Shakespeare's time... even when it comes to building sets and making costumes and stuff. So cool. They even built it with a thatched roof just like the original one had, even though there hasn't been a thatched roof built in London since the fire in 1666 and they had to do all of this special fire protection to it and get a ton of special permission. When we were there, they were setting up the stage for a school production they're getting ready to do of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. Usually, though, they only perform in the summer, because it's an open-air theater.
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| Right in front of the stage! |
I dropped my stuff off back at my hotel and went to meet up with my new friends for karaoke night... we didn't participate, but we loved watching all of the locals get into it ;) We met a British guy at the pub that night and we loved talking about how he feels about England and America. He had a very sarcastic sense of humor, but we asked him how he felt about the Queen and even he admitted he loved her (everybody there does... it's amazing!). He is not, however, a huge fan of Will and Kate... understandable. We did get him to try an American accent for us and that was pretty entertaining... I don't think they're as into the American accent as we are into the British accent.
The next day was my last day in London, but I didn't fly out until 6:30 pm, so I still had a full day of sightseeing ahead of me. I knew I wanted to see the British Museum, which opened at 10, so on my way there I stopped at King's Cross to see Platform 9 3/4 and then at Abbey Road. The British Museum is absolutely full of history... in just one section of it I got to see the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, and statues from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Unbelievable. It also has statues from Easter Island and a ton of Egyptian mummies. I was under the impression that the Magna Carta was there as well, and it turns out that it used to be, but about 12 years ago it was moved to the British Library, which was built for that and a bunch of other artifacts like original manuscripts and maps and such. I ended up talking to one of the docents about it and he told me that I should definitely make it there and told me how to get there from the Museum. He asked me where I was from and when I told him Indiana, he actually started talking to me about football! I was so shocked because I don't think I've talked to anybody about football since I've been in Europe. But it turns out he's a huge fan and watches all of the games he can get in London, and he even talked to me about Peyton Manning and how Indianapolis felt when the Colts released him. So that was pretty cool.
Once I got to the British Library, I was definitely glad I managed to find it. To give you an idea of how incredible it is, here's just a small list of the things I got to see inside of it:
- The only surviving Beuwolf manuscript
- A Gutenberg Bible (which I freaked out about... secretly a huge Gutenberg fan here)
- Original Beatles lyrics
- Handel's original Messiah
- Notebooks from Jane Eyre
- Old books of Shakespeare
- The Magna Carta--even though there's no evidence that there was one official copy of it, the British Library has a copy from 1215, which is amazing.
At that point, as much as I loved being in Ireland and the UK, I had been traveling for 10 days and was ready to get home. I loved London and I know now that I definitely need to go back... there are still things I would have loved to have seen, but as busy as I was, I ran out of time! London has such a different history than Rome, but that's what I loved about it... you could be anywhere in the city and run into something interesting, and it's history that spans from the Magna Carta to more recent stuff, like the building of the Globe. And it was just such a cool city overall.
I'm glad to be back in Rome... if you haven't heard, conclave starts tomorrow! Crazy! Let's just say I'll be hanging around St. Peter's when I'm not in class for the next few days...
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