London Day Two

The London Eye

London Day Two- Monday March 29^th 2010

London!!!

Today I woke up relatively early, ate breakfast, which again let me emphasize is a typical European breakfast… cereal and milk, juice, nutella and bread. Period. Always. We got ready and walked to Westminister Abbey. We had to wait in a long line to get inside, and it was relatively expensive to get in… about 12 pounds to get in for students. We spent about 2-3 hours in the church. We got an audioguide in English and took pictures, which we had to sneak in because pictures weren’t allowed.

The Houses of Parliament

The Palace of Westminister is the meeting place of the two houses of Parliament of the UK- the House of the Lords and the House of the Commons. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminister. The name may refer to either of two structures: The Old Palace, a medieval building complex most of which was destroyed in 1834, and its replacement New Palace that stands there today. It has retained its original style and status as a royal residence for ceremonial purposes.

Melanie was our navigator for the trip. She did a lot of planning beforehand and kept a small notebook with her that included details and and iternary she wanted to follow. So when she was on her way taking us to the globe theatre we found a science museum that was free to get in… so of course we how to stop in. Which was probably the best idea we had all day, the museum was enormous and bigger than any science museum ive ever been in by far. With six floors of exhibition space and artifacts, the museum was like nothing ive ever seen. The size of the museum just stunned me. I mean, it didn’t look THAT big from the street. The ground floor featured an energy hall, a theater, an ‘exploring space’, an imax movie theater, a modern exhibition, and a ‘force field’ room, just on the first floor! On the second floor up they had a plasticity section with plastic matt hanging from the wall that you had to walk through, and a mathematics section, and an agriculture, cosmetics, cosmos, time, 1001 inventions, and a telecommunications section just on that floor! The museum was so huge it was overwhelming- and we had no intentions to stop by until we found out it was free. We ended up spending over three hours in the museum. They had an entire room, about the size of two football fields, dedicated to just models and designs of ships. Ive never seen so many models in one place in my entire life. The third floor included science in the 18^th century, a launchpad, a health section, which I thought my mom would love, a motionride simulator, and a flight simulator. All of the information I acquired just by walking through this museum was more information than anyone could retain in an entire semester of a science class. I was having trouble processing everything… I even saw a model for the London Stansted airport, the first X-ray machine, and the first design for an airplane… to name a few.

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of the British monarch. Located in the city of Westminister, the palace is the setting for state occasions and royal hospitality. It has been a rallying point for British people at times of national rejoicing and crisis. Originally known as Buckingham House, the building which forms the core of today’s palace was a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 on a site which had been of private ownership for over 150 years. During the nineteenth century it was enlarged principally by architect John Nash after being a private residence for the Queen of England, known as the “Queens House”. Dah. The Buckingham Palace garden is the largest private garden in London. The state rooms, used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public each year for most of the summer months.

Hyde Park

Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London and one of the royal parks of London, famous for its speakers corner. The park is divided in two by the Serpentine. The park is contiguous with Kensington gardens and is a total of 625 acres. The park is the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851, for which the Crystal Palace was designed by Joseph Paxton.

Kensington Palace

We had to walk through Hyde Park to go to Kensington Palace, a historic Royal Palace. The walk there was okay, but on the way back it was raining and we were somewhat miserable. “The Enchanted Palace” was a very cool experience. The spaces and rooms were very mystical. It was a weave of fashion, performance, dreamlike installations, and tales of the palaces’ princesses, all set against the backdrop of the magnificent State Apartments. Today Kensington Palace is the official residence of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and Princes and Princess Michael of Kent. It was the official residence of Diana, Princess of Whales, until her death in 1997, Princess Margaret, until her death in 2002, and Princess Alice, until her death in 2004. Each room had its own unique experience, which is what I liked most about the palace. There was one room with a magic throne, which you sat in, and the secret was that whatever wish you made would come true. So I sat in the chair and wished for a brownie, then everyone bowed to my wish. I never got a brownie though…. Haha!

On the long, long walk back to our hostel, and after stopping a couple times in the rain, we finally made it back to our hostel. When we got back we found the bar to be really busy, even for a Monday night. We relaxed for a little before we headed out to Piccadilly Circus to walk around, get food, and shop.

Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus is a busy plaza at the junction of five major streets in Central London. It reminds me a lot of Times Square in New York City. The Circus was created by architect John Nash as part of the future King George IV’s plan to connect Carlton House- where the Prince Regent resided- with Regent’s park. We went here when it was dark when the electronic billboards were lighting the streets below. I found a really cheap sports store were I bought two shirts and a pair of speedos for the beach. I also bought a cinnabon which was delicious! There was no seating though so I had to eat on the street… the countless souvenir stores and the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum are what I remember most about the shopping center. Justen and Melanie each bought t-shirts: Justen bought a hoodie and Melanie bought a Jersey. I bought a black and white scarf for only 2 euros! It was a very cool atmosphere. There were people everywhere until the late hours of the night, and almost everything was open, something you don’t see in Florence.

Trafalgar Square

On the way to and back from Piccadilly Circus we stopped at Trafalgar Square, which includes Nelson’s column, guarded by four lion statues at its base. Statues and sculptures are on display at the square, including a fourth plinth displaying changing pieces of contemporary art, and it is a site of political demonstrations. The name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar from 1805 in which the British Naval defeated the Napoleonic army. In the 1820s the Prince Regent commissions the landscape architect John Nash to redevelop the area. Nash cleared the square as part of his Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. The present architecture of the square is due to Sir Charles Barry and was completed in 1845. According to Wikipedia, Trafalgar Square ranks as the fourth most popular place on Earth with more than 15 million visitors a year.

London, I found, has a lot of American restaurants. When we first got here yesterday we found a subway pretty close to the bus station and we just HAD to stop there to get a sub to eat. Little did we know that there were subways everywhere in London. We got subway probably about 3-4 times during our whole stay in London. We also got McDonalds of course… which is everywhere in Europe, and in my opinion, tastes more healthy than the McDonalds in the States.

The Metro in London is called the London Underground, famous for its symbol, which is a red circle with a blue horizontal strip running across with white letters reading ‘Underground”. Its famous for its saying “Mind the Gap” which is what they say over the intercom system when the metro comes to a stop. Its real funny because the gap between the metro car and the concrete slab outside is an inch or less. So everywhere in London you will find shirts reading ‘Mind the Gap’ kinda like in Florence when you find close up shots of Michelangelos David. Anyways, the transportation in London is very confusing. The London Underground could’ve been convenient for us if the ticket machine would’ve taken our money. For some reason, none of the machines at the station would accept our money. So we were only to get on the metro once by sneaking on, and that almost got us in trouble. The only way out of the metro, we found, was to swipe your ticket, and we didn’t have a ticket, so finally Melanie asked the information desk for one and they sold us a day pass.

The other form of transportation, besides the old-fashioned taxi cabs, were the big red buses, another popular feat of London. The problem with the bus system in London is that its not very tourist-friendly. They are mainly used for the locals, or people who travel throughout the city a lot, and have a card they can swipe. But when you don’t have a card and you buy a one-way ticket like we did, apparently all you have to do is show the bus driver your ticket. We didn’t figure this out of course cause nobody bothered to tell us what to do, so we looks like retards trying to feed our ticket into a car-swiping machine. Eventually the bus driver yelled at us and told us to sit down. Little things like this would of course happen to anybody new to the city, but all-in-all, London is a pretty organized and easy to get around city. It very busy all the time, unlike most of the cities in Italy.

After we got back from Piccadilly Circus we stayed in the hostel and talked to a local who happened to be in the lounge on her computer. The two TVs in the lounge didn’t work so instead Justen and I just sat there and talked for a couple of hours. We got a very cheap bottle of wine from the grocery store down the street and I ate candy while we talked our trip thus far. Spring Break is going pretty well do far, I am just upset that I have to leave this place on Wednesday morning to go to Barcelona. London is a lot better than I thought it would be.