London: Day Three

The very wee hours of London Day Three were lightly disrupted by Katie scurrying about to get to her early morning flight, but then Clarissa and I re-zonked and had a nice rest until around 8, when we hopped up and headed into central London again for our day. She had a train at 5, I had a train at 7.

The first order of business was The Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. This only happens every few days, and by chance it was happening that morning (Sunday). It officially starts at 11:30am, but we wanted to be there early so we could actually see.

The "Front" of Buckingham Palace

People lined up to see the Changing of the Guard

Some guards changing!

The would walk right up in our faces, then spin around and march off. A few of them were adorable and wished us a good morning as they approached. Always the guys in the fluffy hats, never the other one.

The band gets ready to march off.

The new guards, I am fairly certain

Then we wandered through an extremely expensive neighborhood on our mini-adventure to Hyde Park (trying not to get too horribly lost on the way). 

This one is for Daddy 

We still don't quite know what this sign was telling us

It started raining when we hit Hyde Park, but we persevered nonetheless.... 

Our other main goal of the day was to take a walk Clarissa found in her Rick Steve's Great Britain guide, from the Eye of London to Trafalgar Square. We hopped the Tube from Hyde Park to the Eye, and on our way stopped by an amaaaaazzzzing bakery/sandwich shop. We think it was called The Queen of Tarts. HIGHLY recommended. 

I cannot even explain how utterly amazing this cake was. Marble cake with what I believe to be buttercream frosting. Moist and vanilla-ey and oh so excellent

Oh so wet

National Gallery in Trafalgar Square

We are confused by the black telephone box

Also possibly worried

London: Day Two

London Day Two was a pretty excellent day all around. Yes, my foot still hurt, but beyond that, yesterday was pretty much put well behind me.

The night before, I had checked on the first tours of the morning, and so set my alarm to have me up, breakfasted, and in central London at that time. It went swimmingly. I was tired enough the night before that I had gone to sleep plenty early, and sleep quite deeply, so I was up and bouncing with my alarm. Wasn't thrilled with the breakfast offerings (I'm finding breakfast to be quite an anemic affair in Europe thus far), but remembered the hunger of yesterday and scarfed down a quick bowl of cereal. I checked out and was on my way! Knew the right bus to take this time, and where to get off, and was on my tour bus easy as pie. As it turns out, I could have saved myself some of the stress of the previous night by just reading my ticket- the ticket was valid for over a year- the 48 hour countdown wouldn't start until I exchanged it on the bus! So I was good through Sunday, should I care to go cavorting after my friends returned to their respective countries.

Now comes the picture heavy part. Are you ready?

The Marble Arch

I got on at the Marble Arch. Apparently this area is where all of the public executions (hangings) were carried out for hundreds of years. A few interesting phrases came about from this:

1. The hangings were a hugely popular form of entertainment for the masses. Thousands would turn out (hangings were only held every few months, and multiple prisoners would be executed at a time), and the over-consumption of alcohol was commonplace. Thus, the effects of such an indulgence were dubbed a "hang-over." Not only was it the effect of alcohol hanging over from the night before, but it was the lingering effect of the hanging.
2. The prison were the condemned were kept was almost a mile away from the hanging grounds, and the men would naturally not feel overly cooperative during the transportation. To counter this, it was standard policy to get the men insensible with drink so that they would be compliant as they were walked down the road to their deaths. Thus begins the phrase "One for the road," the road in question being the one that leads from what is now the Old Bailey to the modern home of the Marble Arch- or from the medieval prison to the gallows in London. 
3. Finally, the guards that drove the wagon that watched over the prisoners had to be stone sober- thus, they were literally "on the wagon."

The regular double-deckers, as seen from the top deck of my sight-seeing bus

All of the fancy car dealerships line Hyde Park- including Aston Martin!

We drove past Buckingham Palace (though not in front- buses are deemed commercial vehicles and thus not allowed to drive across the... East Front? It's actually the back of the house- the front faces the gardens. But they don't want to call it the back, so it is I believe called the East Front. Or whatever other direction it faces.), and then over to Parliament, with Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. 

Crossed the Thames for the first of many times that morning, and had our classic view of Old Facing New- Big Ben and Parliament directly opposite the London Eye. 

We wound our way past Downing Street (not on Downing Street- it appears to be cordoned off. Security, one presumes) and through Trafalgar Square for the first of many times. I cannot tell you how many pictures I took of Trafalgar Square, and how hard it is to actually get a good picture. I blame the extreme height of Nelson's Column. Also, it had started to pour at this point, so I moved under the little bit of cover at the front of the top deck, and was unable to get as many good pictures from that point. 

Nelson's Column, as I believe it is called. Many people think it is Napoleon standing a top the column, because of his stance, but it is actually Admiral Nelson himself- he lost an arm in battle, and kept his sleeve pinned over his chest. Moreover, Nelson and Napoleon were archenemies, so a statue of Napoleon would never have the place of honor in a place dedicated to Nelson. 

Fountains in Trafalgar Square

Rainy London!

From that point, we wound our way through the City of London. This is actually distinct from London the city- the City of London is a little 1-square mile chunk that is the original Roman settlement. The boundaries are marked by dragons! Central London is made up of the City of Westminster and the City of London, and London itself of 30-something boroughs. 32? It's the number of pods on the Eye of London, at any rate. 

This is what most of London would have looked like pre-Great Fire. All wood. Can you see why the fire spread quickly?

Dragon! Also, London Bridge!

We went past the Tower of London (which I explored on foot a little the next day) and crossed the iconic Tower Bridge- twice!

Fun note about the Tower- when it was originally built, it was in the middle of the Thames. But when the Thames was wider and shallower, it build up a horrible stench. One year during Victoria's reign, it got particularly bad, and she had a genius architect figure out how to build inwards. So now the Tower of London sits on the edge of the Thames. Which explains why I honestly thought that the prisoners were kept in the Tower Bridge up until last weekend. Because I knew it was in the middle of the water...

I got off briefly at Leicester Square (apparently pronounced Lester), which is where they have held all of the Harry Potter premiers, and dabbled with the idea of getting lunch, but it was freezing and no place appealed to me, so I hopped the bus for another half go-round and then took the Metro to meet these lovely ladies...

The ladies

The Katie

The Clarissa. And the New Hair. 

We found an Italian restaurant straight away for lunch. Very yummy food, pretty snotty waiters- at least one of which was actually Italian. I myself had my first every gnocchi- in a wonderful gorgonzola cream sauce. Oh yes. I think I'm a gnocchi convert, and now I'm absolutely dying to make the pumpkin gnocchi in gorgonzola cream sauce recipe I have saved on my computer.... But that's for another season, on another continent. Must concentrate on Europe right now...

We checked into our hostel, after wandering around in a complete circle to get to the right street. We literally chose the street about 10 feet to the left of our intended street, and walked counter-clockwise (read, further to the left) in a huge circle for about 20 minutes until we reached the proper street. We are silly that way. We had our own room at the hostel, one actually meant for 3! It had a twin bed and a queen bed. Katie had a very early flight, so we let her have the single bed, to minimize early morning disturbances.

We had a show that night- Our Private Lives, starring Colin Morgan. A-ma-zing. Totally twisted, but then, it is billed as a black comedy.

Must end now so I can post before my internet runs out!

London: Day One

Oh, London Day One. What an interesting day. Looking back, I'm actually very grateful for it- this may sound silly, but I feel like it has fundamentally changed my time abroad, for the better, and in doing so perhaps changed me a little for the better as well. At the time, however, it was almost enough to overcome my extremely well-trenched optimism and sense of whimsy.

The day started out fairly promising- I woke a full half an hour before my already very early alarm (set for 4:55am), and so was actually able to sneak a few bites of breakfast and put on makeup before I went down the street to catch the first Metro of the morning a little after 5:30. I had no troubles with anyone unpleasant on the Metro, and made all of my transfers quiet easily. The lady at the train station gave me quite a few disapproving looks when I had her print out my tickets, but after an oddly long wait I got them. Security and customs were easy, if a long wait, and then I dashed up the platform in the wrong direction for my car, but halfway through my dash back down the platform, a nice lady informed me that since they weren't sold out and had no stops, I could just sit anywhere I liked. So I hopped on the middle of the train and settled in.

I believe you already know how the train ride went, so I'll move on!

At St. Pancras International- all of these place names just seem so very British!

I arrived at the St. Pancras International train station. I can't help but read "St. Pancreas" every time I see that, but there you go. It's a lovely train station, and lots of convenient currency exchanges that don't rip you off.

I grabbed a free map of the London Underground (or the "Tube" as it is more commonly termed), and boldly set off. No idea where I was going, but jazzed to be in London. It's pretty! It's historic! They speak English! I had vague ideas of wandering into the heart of London, but it was starting to close in on 9am, and I had told my hostel that I would arrive at 10. 

Fortunately, my time in Washington DC and Paris have given me a pretty good understanding of metro systems, and I was able to navigate my way to my hostel with little issue, passing many thrilling stops such as Baker's Street on the way. My Underground even became an Aboveground towards the end of my journey, which always makes me happy. 

The hostel was pretty comfortable and cute. I checked in, though I could not move into my room for another 4 hours. At this point, I was feeling the early start and my legs were randomly quite sore, so I opted to curl up in the lounge and use the wifi rather than stash my baggage somewhere and head back into London. It felt wonderful, but was probably Mistake No. 1. 

I found the coinage very fun 

Four hours later, I moved into my room, and still wanted to curl up and watch movies for the rest of the day. But no, I told myself sternly, the whole point of getting here a day early was to actually see London! So I went to the front desk and learned how to get to Oxford Street from the hostel (the female front desk person had assured me that this was the place for reasonably priced shopping). The front desk guy told me that the bus that passed directly in front of the hospital actually went straight to Oxford Street. But he wasn't sure which side of the street. The one on the other side, he thought. I know a fair bit about bus systems, and so wisely asked in which direction I should take the bus. "To Oxford Street." Excellent. Easy to remember. I purchased a ticket for the Original Tour, so that I wouldn't have to decide what to see with my time, and resolutely marched out into the crisp London air.

As I crossed the street, I saw a bus about to pull up to the stop, and booked it. I had only glanced at the stop on the closest side of the street, just enough to see that it didn't list "Oxford Street" as an end-point. Therefore, I reasoned, it must be the one on the other side. I climbed aboard, and went up top.

Cute English homes, as seem from the bus

The bus announced that it was heading to Holborn, I believe. Hobourn? Regardless, this didn't sound correct. Then, out the window, I can see a bus from the same line, going the opposite direction. On the front of the bus, I see "Kilborn - Oxford Street." I realized that I must be going in the wrong direction. I decided to give it two stops so I wouldn't look silly, then hopped off the bus and crossed the street. I waited patiently for 10 minutes for my new bus, and didn't look at it when I got on. I just knew it was the right number, now clearly going in the right direction. Right?

Well, I got on, and pretty soon the bus was announcing that it was heading to Willesden Bus Garage (pronounced like "carriage," except with a G in front). As I was already in Willesden, this seemed suspicious. I hop off of this bus too. Immediately behind it, another bus on the same line pulled up- and this one said "Kilborn - Oxford Street" on the front! I excitedly ran up and got on. The driver looked at me, bemused. I scurried up to the top, very pleased with myself. 

Two stops later, the bus pulled into to the Willesden Bus Garage and ended its run. I finally figured out that all of the buses on this line say "Kilborn - Oxford Street." Turns out, Holborn is on the end of Oxford Street. So the first bus was the right bus all along. I walk a little bit and locate a stop. So, about 40 minutes after I first walked out the door of the hostel, I am finally on my way. On the same side of the street as I started. Ai yi yi. 

I finally get down to Oxford street, and wander for about 30-40 minutes looking at shoes. I can't find a pair of flats that is cheap enough to motivate me to... actually buy flats. I almost died at the collection of reasonably-priced adorable heels and hats at Marks and Spencers, but firmly reminded myself that I was only looking for walking shoes. 

Oh, and remember that peanut butter and Nutella baguette I was slowly eating on the train (see Train post for details)? It was now about 4pm, and that, plus a small bag of peanut M&Ms, was still all I had eaten at this point. 

I decided that it was time to move on and find my tour bus. I never did pick up a proper map of London in the entire weekend, but I did have my little map of the tour route, which included a few cross streets and the like. I set about trying to find a stop. 

An off-shoot from Oxford Street, as I recall

My first telephone box!

I had been walking for about 20 minutes, getting turned about several times, when suddenly my left foot went wonky. I didn't step wrong, I didn't land on anything, just one step it was fine and the next step something was wrong. I still don't know what went wrong, and it's still acting up a little. After another 3-5 minutes, it was getting seriously painful, and I looped back around to Oxford Street and ran into the first cheapish looking store I saw and bought the cheapest pair of shoes they had- which rather unfortunately turned out to be flip flops. In London. In February. 

I'm going to fast-forward through most of the rest of the evening. Basically, I wandered around for a very long time, getting lost on multiple occasions, and when I finally found a stop for my bus, it was getting dark and the tour buses had stopped running for the evening. I have to tell you, it took some serious powers of optimism and rational thinking to not burst into tears right there on the street. But I prevailed, and I knew my ticket was good for two days as part of a winter special they had going on. So I found my way back to my hostel, via the Tube this time. I picked up some almonds, a bottle of water, and chocolate on my way back, in case I didn't like any of the food offered by the hostel. Fortunately, that night was "Mexican Night" (I gather it is more of a long-stay hostel, so they try to jazz it up with theme nights and game nights and the like), so they had nachos that evening! So I limped back to the hostel, and spent the evening watching more of The West Wing and eating my nachos and chocolate, and then I went to sleep. 

The super-cool old-fashioned double-decker bus (enough hyphens for you?) I came upon

So, Day 1 was interesting. If you are on Facebook, you probably saw something to that effect on a status update. But I resolved that it was an experience to go down in history, and that the next day would be better.

And it was.

To come: London, Day 2....