When I told my host mom we were going to London for four days, she acted disgusted and asked, "Why? You need to spend more time in Paris!" Women in Spain feel no qualms about giving you their opinion…on everything. Sarah and I were both like, WE DO NOT SPEAK FRENCH (my host mom does). I do want to see more of Paris, but we were like…YAY ENGLISH! Let me say that London felt a lot like the United States compared to France or Spain. After all, she is the mother country. In general, it seemed a unique blend of both old and modern. Many places in Europe feel antiquated and locked in the past, but London was very original in its mixture. All the technology was what we have in the US. That may seem weird to say, but the computers here in Granada are like the computers we had nearly ten years ago. I had a student in one of my English classes today (I teach classes for an internship) ask me if the technology was more advanced in the US. It was difficult to word my response in a way that didn't come off as snobby. Anyways, London was fun! And here are some pictures and stories of what I did. The picture above is of Westminster Palace (Is it incredibly idiotic that I didn't know Big Ben was a part of Westminster Palace? Sad, I know.) And below, another picture….the building is huge.
Aaaaand another picture…but notice King Richard the Lion Heart raising his sword below! Surely you remember Robin Hood;).
Here is a picture of Sarah, Caitlin, and I. We went to London together. Caitlin met Sarah and I there.
So I got super excited when I saw this statue of Oliver Cromwell. In college I took a class called Tudor History and another class called the Idea of Freedom (in which there was a book called Inventing Freedom, which talks of him) and between the two Civil Wars in England over the King vs. Parliament and Protestantism vs. Catholicism are fascinating. Especially since those issues spilled over into the American Revolution.
Parliament Street! While looking at Westminster Palace we kept walking and saw the governmental buildings of London. I don't know where to input this comment in the blog, but I also saw Fleet Street and freaked out. My friends thought I was weird throughout this for my historical nerdiness. Fleet Street is the street where Bloody Mary (Mary I) held her public bonfires to burn protestants. When british people call cigarettes a "fag", the word comes from the wood used for those burnings. If someone brought a log to add to the fire of those to be burned alive (in order to purge them of their 'heresy'), the logs were called fags. The people who brought them received a special dispensation for their sins by engaging in such a 'pious' act. Anyways, such is the bloody history of Fleet Street. Now, it's just a bunch of stores on a normal street. But I did take a picture of the street sign (not much to look at so didn't post it). It's cool to me because my professor in Tudor History joked of the underwhelming nature of Fleet Street and how now it's just a sign. At the time, I never thought I'd see it.
So I started with Westminster because it was pretty, but really we did that the second day we went around London. The first day, stepping off out of the train station, you see this: St. Pancreas Station. I thought it was King's Cross, but no King's Cross is right next to it (they are hyphenated as a single destination for a lot of transportation). St. Pancreas is the international train station. However, it is the station used in the Harry Potter films as King's Cross (according to Sarah and Caitlin who were obsessed).
Buckingham Palace: to be honest, underwhelming. We didn't even know it was the palace when we saw it. We looked like idiots asking a british person where it was. It just looked like a governmental building. I am sure it's pretty to tour, but unfortunately it wasn't open during the season we were there.
We bought tickets to the Mews and the Queen's Gallery. We thought that they were part of Buckingham Palace. No. The Queen's Gallery was in some normal side building. The art exhibit was on Georgian Royalty (the dynasty during the American Revolution). Disappointing since they should know all we (Americans) care about is the crazy one who used too much lead-based cutlery to eat. They didn't talk or have paintings of him, just his father and when crazy George was a boy. Lame.
The Royal Mews was okay, if you are a car person you'd probably love it. It has the horses, carriages, and cars that the Royal family uses. Below is the most…fancy of the royal carriages. It was neat, it's just that we paid like 30$ for those tickets and felt a little jipped.
Fish and chips. When in Rome right? Well I tried, I really did. Then I pulled a bone out of my mouth and I was done. Sarah and Caitlin glared at me a lot…but I was sorry. I just couldn't do it. But they liked theirs. So if you've always wanted to try it, I wouldn't be discouraged.
The Tower of London: My absolute favorite part. Sarah and Caitlin were bored to death (I was quite annoyed at their Harry Potter obsession though, so we were even). What are those red flowers below you might ask? Hundreds of thousands of poppies. Oh, and they aren't real. They were each individually hand-made using clay to represent the veterans who died in World War I. Quite an amazing site. We were lucky to get to see it since the flowers are for sale to raise funds for veteran services.
Why was this my favorite part you may wonder? Actually you probably aren't wondering. The history:). I felt very…alone whenever I saw one of the biggest historical mysteries of all time and my friends didn't care at all. Below is a picture of the famous staircase where two princes were killed (or were they?) in the Tower of London by their evil uncle. He had locked them up while he was ruling as regent, but he wanted to be king. He claimed they disappeared, but many of the common people saw him as a murderer and hated him. Later on, construction to preserve the Tower was taking place and workers found the skeletons of two little boys underneath a staircase in Bloody Tower. Historians today still debate what happened, though I for one think he had them killed.
Below is one of the hundreds of engravings in the walls of White Tower. Queen Elizabeth was imprisoned here by her half sister, Mary I. Elizabeth's mother, the infamous Anne Boleyn, was also imprisoned here awaiting her execution. I wrote an essay in my Tudor History class on the Act of Treason (1534) which made it to where calling Henry VIII any bad names was grounds for execution. Anyways, he locked up many people he saw as potentially dangerous to his reputation. They and others covered the walls with their engravings. There are even some men who were captured as American Revolutionaries who made carvings on the wall.
And of course, the Tower Bridge, which I did walk across.
Walking up the stares out of a Tube station to get to the London Eye….and using zoom...
This is a picture I took by Westminster Palace with the London Eye in the background.
Crossing the bridge...
Shazam! Well…yes it is lit up because they cancelled our appointment when we got there. So we went the next night.
The inside of St. James Cathedral, which was actually probably my favorite cathedral I've been inside. It still felt…religious. It still has services and people for you to talk to if you have questions. I didn't feel like it was only a museum. I know technically many catholic cathedrals, even Notre Dame, have services, but I felt different in this one.
Kensington Gardens (after I went to Hyde Park…I mean that one's in like every regency novel ever).
Still in the Kensington Gardens, but this is my last picture. I chose this one because I wish I had seen rural England. When we were taking the Chunnel back to Paris to fly back, I saw bits of the English countryside, and it was beautiful. There were rolling green hills like out of a movie. So though London is awesome, I wonder if the English countryside should get more credit than it does. In the city, the rainy weather can seem dreary. But in the countryside it seems…ethereal. All the sudden the stories of fairies and elves make sense. It seems…magical and wild.
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