Mostly I packed my days with touristy stuff, and was able to see much more of the city than I expected. Heather insisted we walk everywhere, which was a great way to see much more than the city. I’ve discovered that if you take the metro/subway/tube to every destination, you miss all the fascinating stuff between the popular tourist hot spots. So in between the famous London sights, I saw a wide variety of neighborhoods. London isn’t organized like Barcelona. In Barcelona, center = old, touristy, and each concentric circle around the center consists of increasingly newer and less interesting neighborhoods. London is not like this. Everything is kind of mixed up together, probably a result of the river running through the city’s core. You can’t keep things organized when you’re building a city around a river, and I like it better that way.
Anyway, I got in at 3:00 am on Thursday night/ Friday morning, and started Friday with the sightseeing. I wandered around London all day Friday, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning, and it's amazing how much you can see when you speed-walk about 12 hours a day! Anyway, I saw St. Paul's cathedral, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, Tate Modern museum, Trafalgar's Squre, the National Gallery, some great open-air farmer's markets, Old Ben, Parliment, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, SoHo, Chinatown, some really wealthy but interesting neighborhoods near Hyde Park, etc. In other words, I covered a lot of ground in a fast weekend, and I could write a page on each thing, but I will spare you the pain of reading that and skip to the highlights:
Here's a picture of St. Paul's cathedral, but the best part of the picture is the blue sky! It was cold, but I felt very lucky to have blue skies in London in February! Lucky me. Interesting fact about this church: when it was built, the government didn't want a big dome on top because it was two Italian at the time. So they asked the architect to redesign the building to fit London's architecture at the time. The architect redesigned the entire church and submitted a new floor plan, which was approved, but built his dome anyway and somehow no one figured it out until it was too late to stop him. Now it's one of the most famous functioning churches in Europe, so I guess lying to the city planners paid off big time.
This next picture is of myself and my friend Heather, who showed me around the city all weekend. Heather and I lived in the same dorm freshmen year and sort of fell out of touch after we moved. She's studying for a year at City University in London, so I stayed in her building (you can rent rooms there for a reasonable rate) and she and her British boyfriend Michael hung out with me all weekend. I also was able to explore the city with my friend Tom, an Australian guy who I worked at camp with over the summer, who is now working and living in London until April. It was so awesome to see people from home that I've known for more than a month (unlike every person in Spain). Anyway, here's a picture of Heather and I walking along the river towards Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery.
Here's a shot Trafalgar’s Square from the steops of the National Gallery. The National Gallery was incredible. I saw quite a bit of DiVinci, which I've never seen before, plus some Monet (I fell in love with Monet when I saw an exhibit in Chicago when I was about 12), and Van Gogh. Plus many others, but I won't bore you. It's weird to walk into a room and and see the orignial of a painting that's hanging in your bedroom at home. Really surreal... whenever I see massively famous paintings I have a hard time realizing that all those postcards and prints are based off of this one, small, piece of art. Anyway, I was blown away by the art in that museum and it made me excited to see the Prado in Madrid, and of course it made me excited for Paris!
I had to take a picture of a man walking on a ladder around a plaza, when we were sitting having a coffee at a cafe. I never realized how scary the color of the lady's hair in the foreground is. Anyway, this is proof that sometimes the most memorable parts of a trip are the ones that aren't planned, and are free! This man went on to tight-rope walk across the square. (like slack lining, which many of my relatives may know of thanks to Bryant) It was entertaining!
Parliament and Old Ben, doesn't need much explanation.
Westminster Abbey: this was my favorite of all the touristy attractions. I spent a few hours wandering around, and it was so fascinating. There's a lot more history and interesting stuff in Westminster Abbey than I thought. For example, every king and queen of England for centuries is buried here. And around them is their family by blood and marriage, and all in these extremely elaborate tombs. My favorite part was a corner of the abbey called the Poets' Corner, which is basically a mini-cemetary for every famous artists, musician, writer that has come out of England, minus Shakespeare. I was wondering if these artists had to agree with the church and religion to be buried in Westminster Abbey, or if they just had to be famous enough.
Buckingham Palace: to be completely honest, this was not interesting in the slightest bit. They don't even let you within 20 yards of the red-coated super-serious guards, which would have been the most entertaining part.
Aside from these famous places, I spent my time hanging out with my friends and eating really well. On Friday and Saturday nights I ate in Chinatown (but actually had Japanese one night and Thai the next). My friend Tom is a bartender so we avoided obscenely high drink prices (7.50 pounds for a cocktail = $15.00 US dollars) by visiting him while he was working.
Anyway, I have returned to Barcelona with an empty wallet and a full stomach, and I'm very far behind in my class readings, so that's my plan for tonight.
And most importantly, my thoughts go out to my poor relatives, also known as the Bear fans. Sorry for your loss. Grandma said it was also about -30 degree wind chill in Chicago, so it seems you're really not getting a break! ;) Anyway, sorry to hear about the football game results.
Love and miss all of you.
1 comment:
Hi Laura,
Thanks for the reminders of London! Well, here's a question I was always asked...is London a dirty city? How does it compare to Barcelona? Paris was cleaner than London when I was in Europe (1977-1978).
Jill
Post a Comment