Our hostel
used to be an old courthouse where Charles Dickens worked while writing Oliver
Twist and apparently it was also the same courthouse where the Clash stood
trial for shooting a prized pigeon, so that was some interesting history to
start out our trip. It was not the
cleanest or nicest of hostels (we think our bedrooms may have been old jail
cells in the courthouse) but for $33 a night in London it sure did the
job. After getting settled, we checked
out the bar in the basement of our hostel before exploring a few places close
by, but we kept it an early night because we had a free tour to look forward to
in the morning.
Unfortunately we weren’t lucky with
the weather and were stuck with the typical rainy London, but our tour guide,
Rowan, made up for it all.
He
held a bright pink umbrella to guide us all day—which he referred to as “Mr.
Pink” and was so incredibly personable that he topped our Munich tour guide
(sorry Mr. Oz) and has become my favorite so far.
He
began by telling us London history about the Duke of Wellington, and then going
even further back. He was so
knowledgeable and the first tour guide we had so far that was actually born and
raised in the city we were touring!
After leaving Hyde Park we moved on to Buckingham Palace just in time to
catch the end of the changing of the guards.
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| Buckingham Palace |
Afterwards he took us down “the Mall” (the
street tinted red to look like a red carpet leading up to Buckingham Palace) to
the Clarence House, the official residence of Prince of Wales and the Duchess of
Cornwall, and Princes William and Harry.
It is also guarded by the royal guard.
Then we
went to St. James’ Palace
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| St. James' Palace |
Followed by the apartment of Nell Gwyne, the long time
Mistress of King Charles II, and then we
made our way to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, the Admiralty
Arch--- home to the smallest statue in the UK and possibly all of Europe....
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| See the nose?! |
…. A statue of a nose. No one
knows who or why it’s there, but it was quite a funny story the way Rowan told
it. This led us to the Horse Guard’s
Parade—where women’s beach volleyball took place in the Olympics!
Then we made our way to St. James Park and
caught a glimpse of the Royal Pelicans that were a gift to King Charles II from
a Russian Ambassador waaaay back when, they’ve lived there all this time! Apparently they eat live pigeons…. No
explanation for that but they’ve become quite famous.
Our last stop was Big Ben, Westminster Abbey,
and Westminster Parliament Buildings.
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| Big Ben |
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| Westminster Abbey |
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| Westminster Abbey |
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| Westminster Parliament Building |
On the way to the next bar we got the pub crawl to start chanting “Lets go! Hokies!” but just after I thought I got it on video…. I looked at my camera to see my memory card was full. Definitely a bummer I didn’t catch it but a good memory nonetheless. The pub crawl was fun to see so many different areas of London—it went through Covent Garden, Leicester Square, and Piccadilly Circus where most of London nightlife is!
The next
morning we woke up and explored the markets, pouring rain and all. I wish we had more time because we only got
to one of the major markets—Camden area—and there are soooo many in London.
There were a bunch of different stands with jewelry, clothes, and food—everything you can imagine, mostly handmade really cool stuff. We ate lunch at the markets, where every stand let you try everything it was so hard to decide but I ended up going with the Hog Roast. It was absoluteeely delicious.
After finishing lunch we headed towards the
tube—aka the underground—subway of London and made our way to the Broadway district
and were able to get tickets to see Jersey Boys! Unfortunately we still hadn’t gotten used to
walking on the opposite side of the sidewalk and all went down the up stairs…
it was an awkward debacle but I don’t think any of us forgot again. Broadway is BIG in London so I’m so glad we
managed to get tickets. The show wasn’t
until around 5 so we walked around the area looking for a place to hangout for
an hour or so and stumbled upon Montague Pyke.
This place must be the equivalent of buffalo wild wings in the UK
because it was PACKED with people all going crazy over the England vs. Ireland
Rugby match that happened to be going on.
Luckily we grabbed a seat just as a huge party was leaving and got to
experience the local excitement that comes with a good rugby match.
Caught up in the match but having a show to
catch we had to leave before it was over but we found out later that after a
back-and-forth game England came out for the win! (except deep down I was
hoping for the Irish, gotta go with your roots!) Jersey Boys was wonderful! It wasn’t exactly
the broadway feel because it didn’t have extravagant costumes and an elaborate
story, I’d say it felt more like a musical but I still loved it! I have always enjoyed the hits from Frankie
Valli and the 4 seasons so it was really cool to see how they originated and
get a play-by-play of their hardships on the way to the top
After the show we headed back to Montague
Pyke for a quick dinner because it had been so much fun earlier and the food
wasn’t too pricey compared to other places we had checked out. When we finished eating we made our way to
Molly Moggs for the most entertainment we had in London by far. There was a free drag show and we made it
just in time for the last set of songs.
The drag queen (I never found out his name) noticed our presence immediately-- since there were 8 of us suddenly squeezed in the center of the itty bitty bar snapping pictures left and right. He asked us where we were from, to which we responded America and he was so sassy and started yelling obscenities about America and basically making fun of each of us publicly over the microphone for a good 5 minutes… but it was all in good fun because when we stuck out the humiliation he said “well what are you doing here, get yourselves a drink! What do you like? Champagne???” to which we replied yes and he demanded 85 GPB from us, then quickly laughed and said “Just kidding I own this F****** bar, get these girls a bottle of champagne and 8 glasses!” and then a free bottle of champagne later we were immediately accepted into the crowd of drunken men dancing and singing along. It was quite a fun time and I’m pretty sure he ended up singing for an entire hour after we arrived… much longer than was supposed to be left when we arrived so he must have liked us! The night ended with one extremely drunk woman getting in a cat fight with another over…. A bathroom stall? A few shoves, scratches, and two very angry women later we took that as our cue it was about time to leave before any other craziness happened and we made our way home… sad that we were coming up on our last day in London.
There were a bunch of different stands with jewelry, clothes, and food—everything you can imagine, mostly handmade really cool stuff. We ate lunch at the markets, where every stand let you try everything it was so hard to decide but I ended up going with the Hog Roast. It was absoluteeely delicious.
After that I walked around the rest of the
markets and found one that served Octopus and Squid tentacle stew…. It was
probably the most interesting food item I’ve seen yet. 
All of us ended up getting a little dessert
too—a freshly made churro filled with caramel and chocolate…. Oh my gosh it was amazing.
The drag queen (I never found out his name) noticed our presence immediately-- since there were 8 of us suddenly squeezed in the center of the itty bitty bar snapping pictures left and right. He asked us where we were from, to which we responded America and he was so sassy and started yelling obscenities about America and basically making fun of each of us publicly over the microphone for a good 5 minutes… but it was all in good fun because when we stuck out the humiliation he said “well what are you doing here, get yourselves a drink! What do you like? Champagne???” to which we replied yes and he demanded 85 GPB from us, then quickly laughed and said “Just kidding I own this F****** bar, get these girls a bottle of champagne and 8 glasses!” and then a free bottle of champagne later we were immediately accepted into the crowd of drunken men dancing and singing along. It was quite a fun time and I’m pretty sure he ended up singing for an entire hour after we arrived… much longer than was supposed to be left when we arrived so he must have liked us! The night ended with one extremely drunk woman getting in a cat fight with another over…. A bathroom stall? A few shoves, scratches, and two very angry women later we took that as our cue it was about time to leave before any other craziness happened and we made our way home… sad that we were coming up on our last day in London.
We
woke up to a snowing London ready to go with a long non-stop day ahead of
us. First stop- Platform 9 ¾.
We all took our turns getting our
picture with the platform, but when we were done the man arrived with the Harry
Potter scarves you could borrow for your picture… If all 8 of us retook our
picture I’m pretty sure the people behind us would have been very angry so only
a Emily and Lindsay did. Lindsay got a
little too excited about running into the wall and yep, you guessed it… she
broke platform 9 ¾. I literally died
laughing, it wasn’t too awful she just kinda took the trolley off of the wall,
it still “worked” but the attendee was not too happy with us so we still ended
up making everyone behind us mad and we had to get out of there fast… Next stop-- British Museum.
With not much time and 4 gigantic floors of
history before us we set off in different directions all going to what
interested us most ready to meet up in an hour and a half. The museum was amazing with the Rosetta Stone
and pieces of the Parthenon
but my favorite is and always
has been at every museum the ancient Egyptian sections. I’m also a big fan of Roman sculptures, and
ancient pots, and such but I have always loved the mummies and hieroglyphics
and everything that comes with Egyptian history, so that is where I spent most
of my time!
Afterwards we were all hungry and tried as best we
could to find the famous Chipotle in London—closest taste to home possible--
but it was a little out of the way so we settled for Tortilla, a Mexican place
with essentially the same menu going on.
When we finished we went to the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square.
I could have
spent all day in there, but we literally only stayed for 45 minutes because we
had so many other things on our agenda but they had paintings by Van Gogh,
Monet, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt.
You weren’t allowed to take photographs but I couldn’t help myself so I
snuck a few in.
The top left is Van Gogh: Sunflowers, Top Right is Van Gogh: Two Crabs and bottom is Monet: Bathers at La Grenouillère -- these were my favorites!
Next stop- St. Paul’s Cathedral
followed by the tower of London! I was expecting a tower but in reality its
more castle/palace-like and apparently way back when was guarded by a moat and
wild animals (lions, etc).
The next
place was Tower Bridge, it is the most famous bridge in London, most people
mistake it for London Bridge but in actuality London Bridge is a very
insignificant small bridge crossing the River Thames that isn’t extravagant or
special at all, the special one is Tower Bridge!
It was
getting dark but there was still much more to see so we pushed on and walked to
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre! I was
particularly excited to see this one after taking two Shakespeare classes in
high school.
It had
been a full day of walking but afterwards we caught the tube to the Westminster
area to see Big Ben and the London Eye lit up at night. It was beautiful. Pictures do not do it justice (mostly because
I don’t have a high quality camera) but I was definitely happy we pushed on to
see it.
We finished the night with the obligatory England phone booth photos
and then headed
towards to bus station to catch our overnight Megabus to
Edinburgh! We weren't sure what was ahead of us on this bus but hey...
we saved money by not having to reserve a hostel for the night and the
whole trip only cost $17.50!
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| Rosetta Stone |
The top left is Van Gogh: Sunflowers, Top Right is Van Gogh: Two Crabs and bottom is Monet: Bathers at La Grenouillère -- these were my favorites!
Next stop- St. Paul’s Cathedral
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