I arrived in the London airport on Friday night and stayed at Heidi's house for a few days. We stayed in London Tuesday-Thursday, and were back at her house Thursday night with time to pack and get ready for the early trip to the airport Friday morning. Before we went to London, Heidi and I took day trips to Cambridge, Ipswich and Windsor.
A few observations about England in general: British accents are awesome! They just make me want to smile, which probably reinforces the stereotype that Americans are all smiling idiots :p Also, it was pretty easy to hear the differences between the British accents and it was so interesting to try to distinguish between them. Heidi's household was a great case study. Heidi and her mom have both been in England for 14ish years and I think they sound British, but I know they sound more American than most of the people I met. Everyone else thinks they sound American. Heidi has two younger siblings: Ethan (9?) and Keeley (5). (That was a guess on names spelling). Anyways, they both sound a bit different, and Ethan prides himself on the fact that he can sound quite American at times if he tries :). Heidi's boyfriend Matt is from London and he has an awesome accent! He's a nice guy. I met him on a couple occasions.
More observations: Instead of "yield" signs says "give way." There are a ton of roundabouts. Riding in a car in England is kind of scary because if I wasn't thinking about it I would see a car coming on the right side, get caught off guard and think we were going to crash. Hedgehogs are supposedly all over England...like deer in NY (other wildlife includes: moles, badgers, and hares). Dove chocolate is called "Galaxy" in the UK. People think it's weird to drink tea without milk and sugar. I got to try a crumpet, yorkshire pudding, duck, brussel sprouts, and a number of other things that I will tell you about if I remember. "Toasties" are common pub food, but they are just grilled cheese. People says "cheers" as a sort of thank you. I encountered a good number of American jokes...probably more so because Heidi and her mom are American. There are still people living under thatched roofs in England, and they still train people to be "thatchers." The British tend to leave their garbage on trains, at cafes, and even at tables at rest stops.
Onward...
Heidi's house is considered "big" by standards over there, but I would have thought it was rather a cozy size for a five people living there. Four small bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom. A kitchen, living room and computer room downstairs.
This one is Heidi's house
The first day, Heidi and I went to Cambridge. They were doing construction on the train lines that weekend so we had to take a bus. The weather wasn't the greatest when we were there, especially that day. It was snowing and blowing. It was the wind that made it feel very cold though. I was introduced to Costa Coffee, which is a rival to Starbucks. We went there maybe three times during our trip and I think I tried a different dessert each time. Cambridge is cool because it has a lot of old looking buildings. That is one thing that I know I said way too much-"that building is so cute" or "that's so quaint. I love it!" But I did, I love the old buildings. We walked through some of the academic buildings at Cambridge, and into an anthropology museum. Here's a few pictures from our walk:
Monday Jodi drove us to Windsor Castle. It was about a two hour drive from her house and is pretty close to London. Windsor was a nice area...a number of pretty old buildings :) The castle was neat too. There weren't very many places to go into in the castle, but we got to see several apartments that were absolutely gorgeous (chandeliers everywhere!). We also got to go into St. George's Chapel, a gorgeous church where a bunch of dead royalties are buried. That night I got to meet some of Heidi's friends at a pub in Stowmarket.
Tuesday morning we caught a train to London. It took about an hour and a half to get there. We stayed on a street that was right across from King's Cross Station which was pretty cool. It was a tiny room, but perfect for us. Tuesday we went to see Buckingham Palace. It was a nice building, but not overly impressive. We also saw Big Ben (the tower isn't actually named Big Ben, it's the bell).
Then Heidi took me to a market in Camden. There was a lot of alternative shops. It kind of reminded me of India at one point because we went into an underground market area that just looked like a maze of shops.
By this time it was nearly dinner time. We had tickets to see Les Miserables that night, so we went back to the hotel to change and headed to the West End for dinner at Prezzo, a nice Italian restaurant. Then we walked around some shops in the West End for a while before we headed to The Queen's Theater for the show. Les Mis was absolutely incredible! We had awesome seats (thanks to Heidi). It was the best show I had ever been to. I would absolutely recommend it, and especially in London. Afterward we went to a pub called St. James. I met a Swiss girl and her family who had just been to see "Thriller" and she described it as "exciting."
Wednesday we got a lot of sightseeing in. We started at West Minster Abbey which was huge and incredible. I don't know how many more times I can say that about a building, but it was. All of the royalties who were not buried in St. George's were buried here, along with a ton of others: Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Isaac Newton. It was almost overwhelming how many dead people there were. There was writing all over the floor and on the wall, and there were statues and monuments everywhere. Mary Queen of Scots' tomb was particularly pretty. Henry III who reconstructed West Minister to look like it does today was buried there, along with some Richards, Edwards, more Henrys, Elizabeth, etc....
Next we went to see the Churchill War Rooms, where Churchill lived and worked during World War II. That was pretty interesting. You got to see his bedroom, study, telephone rooms, map rooms, etc....They also had a Churchill museum.
We went for lunch at Pret, which is a sort of cafe. They have pre-made sandwiches, soup, toasties, salads, fruit, pastries, and coffee drinks. I think we went there for lunch both Wed and Thurs. It was very good. I enjoyed it. After Lunch we went to The Tower of London. This was one of my favorite things in London. It is very well preserved, originally built in the 1000's as a fortress and a royal residence. Even though it's original purpose was not a prison, it was used to house prisoners and traitors since maybe the 1100's. The Tower itself was huge, and we spent a good chunk of the afternoon there. We walked through the medieval palace, saw where prisoners were kept and tortured. One thing that was really cool was that we got to see some of the carvings left in the walls by the prisoners there. The only thing we did not get to see was the crown jewels. There was a huge lineup so we decided not to wait.
After the Tower of London, we went to the Tower Bridge. I guess it was recently repainted because Heidi said it did not look like that the last time she was in London. It was painted light blue, red, and white. It looked a little childish to me, but the tower itself was really cool-looking. With our London Pass we were able to go up to the top. The view was kind of obstructed, but you learned about some of the history and you got to go in a replica of the engine room.
We did a bit of walking up and down the Thames. I saw the London Bridge. It's not very impressive looking, but it is impressive how long there has been a bridge there. Originally there were houses and shops lining the bridge. Supposedly it was pretty crowded. At night we decided to ride the London Eye. It's a pretty expensive attraction, but you get an absolutely gorgeous view of the city and you spend quite a bit of time up there, maybe a half hour. If you go, definitely go at night. It's so beautiful! Dinner was incredible that night. We selected a place called The Slug and Lettuce (all the places in England have weird names). I ordered an open chicken pie and it was soooo good! Chicken in a creamy applewood smoked bacon sauce in a pastry, with fries and peas! Excellent! I want to try to make something like that.
The first thing we did Thursday was go to King's Cross Station to find Platform 9 3/4. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. It wasn't even in between Platforms 9 and 10! But there was a sign on the wall right next to where you entered to get to the Platforms so that was nice, I guess. And they had a cart and some scarves there that you could take pictures with (which of course we did).
Then we went to the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theater in the morning and St. Paul's Cathedral that afternoon. With our London Pass we got a free ticket to a "hop on, hop off" boat cruise also." The Globe reconstruction was interesting. Fun fact: It has the only thatched roof in London since the Great First of 1666. It took them years to get the city to approve it. The theater is built with similar materials to what they would have used in Shakespeare's time. The wooden beams were made from green wood that was set to dry and therefore they have big cracks going down the middle. The plaster is also made with a mixture of goat's hair, though in Shakespeare's time they would have used cow hair. Right now they are working on an indoor theater to be lit only like candlelight. Did you know that Shakespeare's plays have different Acts because in indoor theaters the candles had to be replaced? Another fact: the Globe was reconstructed by an American who came to England in the early-mid 1900's trying to find the place of Shakespeare's original theater. There was only a small marker where it had once stood and he decided to try to get the city to held rebuild it. The city wouldn't give him any funds so he ended up enlisting the help of numerous sponsors.
St. Paul's Cathedral was another grand building. Again, it was huge and magnificent, and beautiful. There was a whispering gallery you could go up to, so Heidi and I climbed 250 some stairs up through very narrow hallways to it. It was really cool looking from up there. Heidi snuck a couple of pictures from up there but I only got a couple of the ceiling. What is up with everyone and ceilings in Europe?
I enjoyed the boat trip. We took it from the Tower Pier right next to the Tower of London to Westminster and back. I think we went under four bridges in the process. One of the crew members did a little narration of the trip, though he wasn't a tour guide. He had a really cool London accent.
Honestly, I can't really remember what we did the rest of our time there. We walked around a bit more, went to the West End to look around. I know we stopped at a Costa and I got a tasty piece of banana nut bread. Our train left around 8 that night to head back.
Overall, I wasn't as impressed with London as I thought I would be. I've heard so many people say they love London. I definitely liked it, glad I went, but it's not my favorite. I loved all the history and the old buildings, but otherwise it didn't seem very friendly or very clean. Maybe it wasn't exotic enough for me ;) I would definitely not be opposed to living in other parts of England for a while though.
I hope I didn't forget too much. I may update this within the next few days if I think of anything else. Maybe Heidi will catch something I have forgotten.
Wish I could have stayed a little longer, but all in all I had an excellent week. Can't wait to go back!
No comments:
Post a Comment