"Are you alright?" Everyone in England says this and it means "How are you?". Lets just say it is hard to get used to people asking you that question in order to say hello! This past weekend I traveled to London to meet up with Tym and stay with my good friend Erik Anderson, who is studying in London.
Friday night I flew into London and met a boy in the airport from Boston who was studying in Scotland. We talked throughout the plane ride and he ended up having to travel to the same train station so it was nice having a companion to talk to and figure things out with! When we finally got to the St.Pancras/King's Cross Station I found Tym and Nick kept going on his way! Luckily for us, I didn't get into St. Pancras until just after 12:30am and the trains shut down at 12:30. So the directions Erik had given us didn't work and we had to figure out the bus system instead! Having no map and only roughly an idea of which bus to take and which direction to go, we jumped on a double decker bus and hoped for the best! Getting off the bus, we took Erik's directions and asked a lady to tell us where a certain stop was. She was from Australia and so helpful! No one is Paris would ever take the time of day to tell two people where a bus stop is! It was refreshing to know that people would be helpful! We found the bus stop and waited for the bus to come only to realize that when it came they did not have change to break 20 pounds and he told us we were at the wrong bus stop. So we went to a different stop around the corner, only to find the bus was already running late. The bus was running so late that we ended walking to a different stop only to have the bus that was running late drive past us. That went on for a good 30 minutes of waiting, being passed by a bus that we needed and then going to another stop and being passed by another bus. It was an extremely frustrating 30 to 45 minutes and we finally were able to find a bus going in the right direction! The same guy who drove the very first bus that couldn't break 20 pounds was driving this bus and just laughed and told us to get on! We rode for several stops and finally arrived at the correct stop where we waited until Erik showed up to take us to his apartment! We were so exhausted and went to bed almost as soon as we got there!
Saturday morning we headed out for a full day of sightseeing with our first stop being the Sherlock Holmes museum! We found 221b Baker Street and went in the gift shop to buy our tickets! Before entering the museum, which is just a little victorian style house decorated based off of only the details given in the books, there is a police man out front that you get to have your picture taken with!
The policeman at the museum entrance!
What's that you say, Watson?
My future child.
Pipes, revolvers and a Holmes hat!
The murderer...
The wax mannequins were so creepy!
Tym on the porcelain toilet. A man walked in and asked Tym if he wanted the door closed, pretty funny!
After the museum we head to see Big Ben, Houses of Parliment and Westminster Abbey. The train to get around London is relatively easy and it was not hard to get from one sight to the next! Getting out of the train station you can see Westminster Abbey with Big Ben in the background. The nice part about these sights is that they are all right next to each other. After walking through the square with these sights we could see the Thames River and the London Eye. We spent a lot of time here wandering and taking pictures before Erik called and asked us to meet him for supper!
We met Erik and his girlfriend near Picadilly Circus in London's China Town. We went to this crazy busy Chinese restaurant and got shoved in a tiny little back room. Our waitress forgot about us and another waitress brought in a group of 12 extremely drunk adults so it became an even smaller room! Then the waitress told us they had a bigger group coming in and made us move to a different table. Definitely was not a restaurant that you would see in the states. No customer service and making their customers move tables to accomodate other customers. We were starving and tired so that didn't help the situation. Our food was good and we ate really fast!
We talked about going to a pub after dinner but we decided we were too tired and instead went back to Erik's and watched Due Date before we all fell asleep.
The next morning we got up early again and Tym and I headed out to see a street market in CamdenTown. The girls in my fashion classes told me it was a neat market but had lots of goth and punk rocker type people there. We thought it would still be fun to try and headed up that way! The market was neat and had all kinds of fun stalls with different types of clothes and whatnot. After awhile, all of the stalls started to look the same and we headed back to the street to look for a British flag. We saw a store that had really "goth" people working there but they had British flags and we decided to go in. Bad idea. The worker who brought us into the store was getting harassed by the other co-workers to show us to the back of the store, so he did. Leaving out major details, those same co-workers were saying really inappropriate things to Tym and I. They were making things very uncomfortable and were not going to let us leave the store unless we bought the flag. Tym, being a bargain shopper even in the time of a crisis, schoomzed his way into a 5 pound flag instead of 10. We started to head for the door when they grabbed our arms and were trying to get us to go into a basement and the lights weren't even on! We pushed them out of the way and ran. When we finally got out of that store, that looked completely normal from the outside!!!, we just walked and did not say a word. We were both so freaked out we walked into a busy tourist store just so we had people around us and we felt safer that way! When we calmed down we kept wandering and found some food venders and we got Tym his first crepe!
The next morning we got up early again and Tym and I headed out to see a street market in CamdenTown. The girls in my fashion classes told me it was a neat market but had lots of goth and punk rocker type people there. We thought it would still be fun to try and headed up that way! The market was neat and had all kinds of fun stalls with different types of clothes and whatnot. After awhile, all of the stalls started to look the same and we headed back to the street to look for a British flag. We saw a store that had really "goth" people working there but they had British flags and we decided to go in. Bad idea. The worker who brought us into the store was getting harassed by the other co-workers to show us to the back of the store, so he did. Leaving out major details, those same co-workers were saying really inappropriate things to Tym and I. They were making things very uncomfortable and were not going to let us leave the store unless we bought the flag. Tym, being a bargain shopper even in the time of a crisis, schoomzed his way into a 5 pound flag instead of 10. We started to head for the door when they grabbed our arms and were trying to get us to go into a basement and the lights weren't even on! We pushed them out of the way and ran. When we finally got out of that store, that looked completely normal from the outside!!!, we just walked and did not say a word. We were both so freaked out we walked into a busy tourist store just so we had people around us and we felt safer that way! When we calmed down we kept wandering and found some food venders and we got Tym his first crepe!
We soon left CamdenTown and headed towards Buckingham Palace. The weather was beautiful and we got to walk through a neat park on our way to the palace. After seeing Versailles, it is hard to look at another palace the same but it was crazy to think that every inch of the ground there was covered by people for the royal wedding! We got to see the balcony where the royal couple had their famous kiss and that was neat! It was hard to imagine that many people in such a small area!
Right above Tym's head is the balcony!
From Buckingham Palace we walked to the nearest tube station and took the train to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Tower Bridge was really neat! We were able to walk all the way across and look out over the Thames River. We got some great pictures with our flags here too!
Tower Bridge is in the back right corner of this picture below of the Tower of London. We were both really excited to see the Tower of London because famous prisoners were housed here before their executions, the crown jewels are here and they are so many neat stories behind the Tower! We went to the ticket booth at 3:55 and turns out it closed at 4:00. So when we go back to London, we will definitely be headed back to the Tower of London!
Long story short, I was sleepy and getting crabby hungry.... and I accidentally headbutted Tym's forehead. Tym didn't even get a mark, but my head looked like a stuck a suction cup to it!
After walking off my headbutt, we headed towards Millennium Bridge, which is in a Harry Potter movie!!, and Shakespear's Globe Theater. Just our luck, the Globe Theater closed 15 minutes before we got there so that is also on the to-do list when we are back in London over spring break!
St. Paul's Cathedral
St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge.
Globe Theater!
Before heading to the trains to head back home on the bus, we stopped by a little pub called The Anchor. We ordered little pies with beef, mash, mushrooms or vegetables in the middle. The "pie" crust was really dry but it was still pretty good!
Cheers mates!
After we were completely stuffed, we took the train back to Erik's to grab our bags! We packed up really quick and headed for the bus station via the Tube. The key to any city is figuring out their metro or "Tube" system. From there everything is at your finger tips and you can travel around so easily! We took the Tube to London Victoria and got all checked in for our bus rides home. Said another tearful good bye and headed towards our respective buses.
My bus ride back left at 9:30pm and I feel asleep until our passport check at the England border and then our bus drove onto a ferry and we all had to get out of the bus and ride on this "cruise ship" type boat for nearly an hour (1:30 to almost 2:30 am). I couldn't sleep so I wrote postcards and made a to-do list for the coming week. Finally we docked in France and was able to get back on the bus. From here I was unconscious until the bus stopped at Porte Gallieni in Paris. I took the metro back to my apartment and got in just before 7:30am. I was able to sleep until 8:30 and then I made breakfast and headed to class. It was a wonderful weekend and made every tired second of monday completely worth it! I had a great time and London is such a neat city!
A crappy picture of the water and lights outside the ferry window.
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