Hi all. Back from my trip to London. London was really sweet, with tons to see and do. The only problem is everything is bloody expensive. O well.
We started on Thursday flying from Basel to London and arrived at around 12am. Being the penny pinchers we are, we set up camp at the airport for the night (score, free accommodations).
London has like a million (well, 5) airports so it’s a little of a hassle to get from the airport to town (especially since I arrive at 1 airport and Dima at another) but o well.
We woke up early Friday and took the 5:45 bus to London and arrived at around 7. Walking around London early in the morning without much sleep can be damn dangerous as we almost got ran over a few times (since they drive on the wrong side of the road, thus making you look the wrong way for traffic) but we managed to make it out alive. After a quick stop at the hostel and tourist info center we started our exploring and kill some time till Dima arrived. On a quick side not, buy a day/3day pass when your in London, so much to see and do and will make your money’s worth easily. It’s kinda expensive, but like I said, you make your money back and it’s worth it.
The first stop we can to was Trafalgar Square.
The main reason we came here was for the National Gallery (Keegs likes art, figured Dima would less, thus, do it before he arrived), but we stumbled across something much cooler, Canada House. Canada House is the High Commission in London (embassy, but for countries in the Commonwealth).
canada house
It was pretty cool to get a quick taste of home, and they had some free internet to check on Dima’s flight (not delayed yet).
After a quick note in the guest book, it was off to the Gallery.
The Gallery was pretty nice with some famous paintings there (Virgin of the Rocks, by Da Vinci (it was in Da Vinci code, that’s all I know)) and some other stuff (Rembrandt’s self portrait).
We found another Sunflower painting by Van Gogh another sunflower pic. Using Keegan and my super sneaky picture taking skills we got another one (take that British Museum).
After getting through about ½ of it, it was time go to another airport to pick up date. Quick check at Canada house to see if it was delayed or not (wasn’t) and I was off. The trip to Gatwick airport was much easier (express train) but like twice the price, o well, can’t expect to save money in London. I got to the airport to find the flight was delayed 10 min, no biggie. 5 min later delayed another 10 min. This more or less went on for another 2-3 hours so that was brutal, but at least I caught up on my sleep. Eventually the commie arrived and it was off to the hostel again.
We got back to the hostel to find out Keegan didn’t pay for it yet, so we did that and went to drop off our stuff in the room. Here’s another thing where Britain is backwards, you have to “lock” the door to unlock it, and “unlock “ it to lock it (like the motion to normally lock a door would unlock it). So not knowing this, we locked it from the outside and when the door closed we were locked it. We wanted to climb out the window but a 4 story fall wasn’t too ideal, so after 10 minutes of yelling we broke the door (o yeah, who’s the man now). We went to complain about how the door doesn’t lock and blamed it on the people in the room before and then took off to meet Keegs at the British Museum (I’m not paying a damage fee).
We got to the museum pretty late so most of the exhibits were closed but we got to run through only some of the Egyptian and Greek stuff. Luckily the Rosetta Stone was still open for viewing, so we got the check that out. (Stone used to decode hieroglyphics).
There was a pretty cool Crystal Skill form Mexico as well.
After the museum we decided to check out Westminster at night. The first stop was Big Ben in the Parliament. Quick fact, did you know Big Ben refers to the Bell inside and not the clock? Second quick fact, did you know it’s not the biggest clock face in Europe? The biggest is in Zurich.
Across the Thames was the London Eye (or British Airways Eye or something). It looked fairly nice at night, but is a rip off to go on (like 20 pounds, unless your disabled then it’s free for you and your helper, our conscience was too strong to try that).
We made another quick stop back to Trafalgar Square to take a few pictures before heading to dinner.
On Saturday, we went to the Portobello Road/antique market. It was located in the Notting Hill region (apparently there’s a movie from here also?). It was pretty neat with a bunch of old stuff.
Afterwards we went to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards, unfortunately so did a couple thousand other people so we didn’t get a great stop. We never say the actual changing of the guards, but saw all the guards marching and a bunch of the military band and stuff like that, it was pretty neat (and long, took an hour).
The next region we hit up was Greenwich. The region was pretty nice, like a small English town and didn’t seem too touristy. The first thing we saw there was the Cutty Sark, an old wind powered boat. It was pretty cool.
We also check out the National Maritime Museum and Queens House (an old Victorian style building that used to house one of the older queens, as well as a school for medicine and some other stuff). The Museum was pretty neat with a bunch of stuff to see (and free).
The last stop in the region was the Royal Observatory. The Prime Meridian is located here and was pretty neat to see.
After leaving Greenwich, we decided to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Normally entry is like 8 pounds, but we went during Evensong (spelling?) so it was free, but had to stay for the service. I managed to take 1 covert picture inside but felt bad go to a service to take pictures.
Afterwards we went across the Thames on the Millennium bridge to check out the Globe Theatre.
Around that region had a Santa festival thing, and there were a bunch of drunk santas everywhere. It was funny. They stormed the Tate modern art museum and party and stuff but got kicked out by security. It was amusing to watch it all. Since we were in the Tate, we decided to take a quick look around (I like how things are open late here). Once again I discovered I don’t understand modern art at all and most of it seems like stupid things made with drunk, high , or both.
On our way out we got some free coffee coupons, so we went around the Picadilly Circus area to get it. Picadilly’s was kinda neat and was like a mini Time Square in NYC.
While we were there, we say a double decker bus (new one unfortunately) that was going to Abbey Road and decided to hunt down the street sign from the Beatles album cover. The ride on the bus was fun as we had to top to ourselves and it drove along Oxford street which had a lot of lights and stuff. Was cool.
We eventually found the location that the Abbey Road sign was from, but learned that it was replaced with a normal sign and stuff after it was stolen a couple times. O well.
We managed to just make the last tube train home for the night and went to bed.
On Sunday we went to see the Tower of London (the only site we paid to see). It was well worth it as well. Along the way was the HMS Belfast, so that was kinda cool.
Also near the Tower of London is Tower Bridge. We wanted to go to the top or watch it raised, but it was too expensive and wasn’t scheduled to be raised till Wednesday.
We waited around for the Tower to open and went in to take a look.
One of the towers in the complex was Bloody Tower. It was originally called Garden tower or something, but the new name stuck due to the crimes committed in the tower (mainly the murder of 2 young princes by their uncle).
The main tower is White Tower and it as the first tower to be built and where royalty and stuff lived. It now housed the museum stuff for the armory.
Around the ground are 6 ravens. The story goes that there used to be lots and they would crap everywhere and fly everywhere so the astronomer (it was locked here originally) got annoyed and told the king to get rid of the birds or him (thus the observatory was moved to Greenwich). Eventually they got rid of the birds but kept some because of the Legend that if the Ravens left the Tower and monarchy would fall. To this day they have 6 at all times (and a couple in reserves for backups).
The Bell Tower is also here and it gets its name because of the bell in the tower (pretty self explanatory). The bell would ring 1 hour before executions so the town folks could gather (football wasn’t invented yet).
The most Important thing in the Tower is the crown jewels. They were amazing and had like the worlds 3 largest diamonds in they (or something like that). The display of the main jewels were under pretty tight security, so we couldn’t take pics (that and Keegs flash went off and they kept watching is) but Keegan got a picture of the Crown of India.
After the tower, we went back to Westminster to see Westminster Abbey, unfortunately it was closed on Sunday and we couldn’t see the inside.
After another picture of the Parliament we were off to our next stop.
The next place was Downing street, where the Prime Minister lives, but all you can see is a gate, so nothing much.
On the way back we found the Princess Diana memorial walkway but there was nothing too special as well.
The last thing on your list to do was track down an old double decker bus (the one with the pole in the back). We went to monument to track it down and found the monument. Not sure what is’ there to honor.
After some jay walking/running through traffic, we managed to board an old bus. It was pretty cool and we had it all to our selves.
Later that night we went to The Maple Leaf pub (Canadian themed pub). They tape Hockey Night in Canada, so I was able to watch a game (flames game wasn’t on tv and they didn’t show highlights :( ). We watched the Sens kill the Leafs 8-2 so that was cool.
Afterwards we took the bus back to airport to sleep (save a couple bucks) and flew back to Switzerland the next day and went straight to work. Ahh..the life of a praktikant.
Anyways that’s all for now. On Wednesday Dima, Keegan and I went to the Matterhorn (famous mountain in Switzerland), inspired the Tolberone bar shape and stuff like that. I’ll have the post of that before I’m off to Italy (Friday). Take care and leave me a message :)
