the big smoke

October 28, 2008
LONDON.

Disclaimer: THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG. GO AHEAD, SIT DOWN AND RELAX.

So this weekend we took a pretty successful trip to London. Thursday we took the 5:15ish bus and thought we were going to be late…so that’s lesson number one. Never leave during rush hour. However, once we got there, we found that our flight had been delayed anyway, so everything ended up being fine. We flew EasyJet, which was actually nice for what it is. Our tickets were £65ish pounds round trip, which is pretty freakin sweet. After we finally arrived at London Luton, we had to find the EasyBus, which would drop us off within about ½ mile or so of our hostel. However, we had to find it in the dark, which was, to be honest, sketchy. We walked through tunnels, hedges (“I bet many a girl has gotten knocked up here…”, under bridges, along the highway, etc. We had absolutely no clue where we were going. Claire and her “grandfather” had looked up where our hostel was in reference to where we got dropped off, but we had no real map on us, so we just walked up the road until we saw the landmarks the hostel had pointed out in their email. The Brent Cross tube station. Once we found it, it was simple. The tube was literally across the street. We think we arrived sometime around 10:30pm-ish…none of us really paid attention to what time it was. We found the desk, gave them our passports, got our sheets and room number, and went to bed. However, once we actually were awake and had time to explore, we found that our hostel was absolutely massive. It was situated on four floors and included a basement with pool table, main level with (free!!) internet, a first floor with bedrooms and a common area/kitchen. The second floor had more bedrooms and the bathrooms. We spent many a hour in the common area, drinking beer, eating “dinner” usually consisting of chips and candybars and playing/reading out loud Trivial Pursuit (the old old old UK version—like before Russia was Russia and there was a West Germany) cards. Good times.


Friday began with going to the tube station and buying day passes for £5.90. We then took the Northern Line to the Tower of London where we spent £16.50 to get into the castle. Although that’s quite a bit to spend, since I pay UK taxes, I had the option of giving the “tax” money back to the castle instead of the government. For that good deed, I get free, unlimited admission to the Tower of London for a year! Once inside the tower, we jumped into a tour group and our guide (aka our “beefeater”) was adorable. We saw amazing buildings—it’s crazy to think that at some point, those were royal grounds! I walked the same path that kings and queens walked! I may have also walked on some pretty nasty ground—executions, betrayal….I guess it comes with the territory…We also saw the Crown Jewels. Uh, I can have some crazy jewlrey?!? The jewels belong to the country and the role, not necessarily the Queen herself, so I guess I’ll just have to become Queen someday. We also took a walk on Tower Bridge, what most people think of as the “London Bridge.” Thank you, Fergie, for making the rest of the world think you (and therefore all Americans ) are stupid since you danced on the Tower Bridge while singing, “London, London, London…” Thanks a lot. Aaaanyway. However, from the bridge we did see an Obama—Biden sign in a flat window above the street. I don’t know if it was an American person’s flat/office or what, but it’s interesting how the rest of the world relies on how the US is run.

After the Tower we had some quasi-amazing KFC. It was amazing mostly because we were starving. Quasi-amazing because it was really greasy and not quite as good as authentic KFC.

There’s a company in Edinburgh called NewEdinburgh which gives free walking tours during the day (it’s absolutely amazing. If you ever have the chance to take it, go for it! The guides work strictly on tips and so they literally HAVE TO give a good tour because they make what they get in tips.), and they also have a tour in London (called NewLondon…obviously). So we went on that tour. Saw an amazing dressed Asian couple. The girl had on every color imaginable and then to top it off, heeled camo boots. The guy had the best rat tail ever. Refer to my pictures. But on the tour we saw a whole lot of the city, including: the old city wall, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Millennium Bridge (aka the “wobbly bridge”), the Tate Modern Collection (aaaamazing.), the London Eye and the Priory of Scion. There was a whole lot of history lessons in there…but we were tired and I can’t remember them. After the tour, we were starving and so Claire had the genius idea of finding Chinatown and eating there. So we found this place and had an amazing traditional Chinese meal (I felt like I was in China again!! So much food, such a little bowl!) After dinner, our nightlife consisted of Trivial Pursuit, snacks and beer. It was pretty much amazing.

Saturday, we got up early and made our way to Leister Square to try to get our hands on some tickets for a play later in the day. We ended up getting tickets to Avenue Q for Saturday night, which I had never seen, but had heard from many sources that it’s ridiculously funny. So with tickets in hand, we started our sightseeing for the day.

We started off going to Piccadilly Circus. Maybe I’m just missing something, but I didn’t really see what was so great about it…but took the picture to say I was there. Claire and Anna really wanted to go to the Portrait Gallery to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit, so we went there next. She’s famous for her photography, particularly her portraits of famous people. It was fabulous. Her portraits are really inspiring and made me really want to buy a nice camera. Some of the portraits she takes (okay, most of them) are breath-taking. Amazing. Spectacular. So it was really nice to see. Claire wasn’t so keen on the rest of the artwork there, but I decided that since we were in the National Portrait Gallery, I was going to actually look through the rest of the exhibits. I mean, lets be honest: I love art. Love making it, love looking at it, love everything about it. Of course, there are periods and genres I like more than others, but I enjoy looking at it all and appreciate its worth. The collection at the Portrait Gallery was quite spectacular. So much art! However, my favorite part of the day was definitely the Tate Modern Collection. The Tate was amazing—they have thousands of pieces of crazy good art. Famous art. Beautiful art. Ugly art. Strange art. Paintings. Portraits. Sculpture. Video. Photography. Everything! My favorites were the Cubists, Impressionists and Expressionists. Monet, Manet, Picasso, Kandinsky…it was amazing. Fabulous. My Mecca. Art to me is so fascinating—and the imagination and vision of the artists never ceases to amazing me…I can’t wait for the Louvre. I’m definitely spending the money to revisit it. And not just for the Mona Lisa. She’s kind of over-rated. I’ve seen her before. She’s mysterious. I got it. There are definitely other pieces of art I would enjoy browsing more. After the museums, we had good burgers at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which was really good. I had a burger topped with a portobello mushroom and it was quite tasty. They had some gooood chunky fries as well.

Next was Avenue Q at 5pm. Umm, it’s hilarious. It’s basically like a version of Sesame Street…but for adults. Some stellar song titles include “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” “It Sucks to Be Me,” “I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today,” and “If You Were Gay”…just to name a few…It’s quite racy, and very profane. The cd cover has a Parental Advisory sticker on it. But still, it’s HILARIOUS. After the show, we made our way back to the hostel and did what else? but play Trivial Pursuit and eat candy.

Sunday was a pretty low-key day. We started by going to a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We though we were going to be late; however, American slavery worked in our favor and it just happened that the night before, Daylight Savings time had ended so we were actually an hour early. The service was gorgeous. And the music was amazing. I really wanted to just sit in my seat and close my eyes so that I could focus solely on the music while the choir was singing, but I was pretty sure that people would think I was asleep. So I didn’t try that.

After the service we started touristy things and went to see Parliament/Big Ben, Westminster and Buckingham Palace. I’ve seen them all, so nothing new for me. Wasn’t really surprised at anything, no new thoughts. However, a reoccurring though is that Buckingham Palace is incredibly ugly. I recognize that it’s the house of the Queen, but I mean, gah. Get a landscaper in there. Your house is ugly, yo.

After being tourists, we went to visit my step-sister, Lynn, and her husband and two kids (Tim is the husband; Leland is their son and Frankie is their daughter). They took us to lunch at this place that had the most amazing burgers and chunky fries (yes, even better than the day before), and then took us to the Camden Market, which is this trendy, bohemian, weird…place. There were lots of different people selling a whole lot of stuff. We actually went back through the market after we parted ways with them. But after the market, Frankie decided that she would like to try to convince Tim to go for ice cream, and luckily for us, it worked. So we went to this Italian ice cream place and had the most wonderful ice cream I’ve ever had.


After parting ways with Lynn, Tim and the kids, we went back through the Camden Market, and then went back to downtown London for an organ concert at Westminster. It was given by an amazing organist. I’ll just copy parts of his bio from the program:

“Léon Charles is the Organ Scholar of Westminster Abbey. Born in 1986 into a musical family, he received his early musical training at the Purcell School of Music on a government-aided scholarship….He proceeded to hold Organ Scholarships at Canterbury Cathedral and St. John’s College, Cambridge….Whilst at St. John’s, he accompanied the choir on seven BBC Radio Broadcasts, toured Estonia, the Eastern United States, Holland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria and Hungary, and appeared on two commercial recordings….As a recitalist, Léon has performed in many venues in the UK and the USA. He is also in demand as a choral & instrumental accompanist. Recent solo engagement has included the cathedrals of Canterbury, Ely, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Westminster Abbey, The Temple Church, the Cambridge Colleges of St. John’s, Emmanuel, Magdalene & Pembroke, and appearances as part of the Wymondham & Buxton festivals. He continues to study…and is an active composer, arranger & conductor.”

He sounds like a freaking genius. Aaanways. It was amazing. The music was beautiful. Unsurprisingly, we went back and played Trivial Pursuit. Then we took showers, packed and got into bed.

Monday, we got up before the crack of dawn (aka 3am) and had left the hostel by 3:30 walking to our bus stop. It was even more sketchy in the dark at 3am than at 10pm. Who knew? Although, there were other people at the bus stop when we got there, so at least we weren’t the only crazies.

All in all, good weekend. Successful trip. I can’t wait to travel even more….