A Taste of London (2)

Katie & Me, on a ramp between the Tate Modern and The Globe Theatre,
with the Millennium Bridge & St. Paul's Cathedral in the background

Now it's time to talk about being a total tourist in London. A lot of people told us that we were silly for trying to tackle London in one weekend, but I think we managed to cram a lot into just 2 days around the city. I definitely felt like I got a sufficient taste of what London has to offer - and lemme tell you, it tasted great.

I learned rather quickly that my friends and I each have vastly different expectations when we visit a new place, which made it a little difficult to decide on what we should all do and see. Jessie and Alissa cringe at the mention of itineraries and timetables, while Katie and I get frustrated and anxious with the complete spontaneity. Jessie seemed to want to wander and explore, Alissa just really wanted to go on the Beatles walking tour, and Katie wanted to do all of the site-seeing. They asked me what I cared most to see and do, and I realized that the thing I was most excited about was the food. I had to explain to them that eating my way through a city is really the only way I know how to fully experience a city. I just never really did the official touring around touristy thing. (I mean, I've been to New York countless times, but still haven't gone to see Ellis Island, The Empire State Building, or the Statue of Liberty. But I have eaten in restaurants all over The City.) So I told them that I didn't mind whatever we did during the day - I thought that seeing Buckingham Palace and all of the other iconic touristy things would be cool and interesting, but I said I'd be happy with anything as long as I got fed (all the details about the food to come in Part 3!).

Katie & I are making ridiculous, forced grins on top of the bus.
I promise we actually were enjoying ourselves though!

On Friday, we took a double decker bus tour figuring that it'd be a fun and relaxing way to get a broad, general view of London.We walked around for a bit and had a fabulously long lunch before finally checking in to our new hotel. It was pretty late in the afternoon by that point, so we just rested for a bit before heading out again for dinner and the rest of our evening.

On Saturday, Katie & I wanted more of a game plan. We were all for that sense of adventure and excitement, but at the same time, not even having a rough outline for what we wanted to do in London seemed foolish when we were dealing with such a limited time frame to experience the city. We came up with a list of places everyone cared most to see and I looked up the locations and the nearest subway stops so we wouldn't waste time trying to figure out how to get around throughout the day. We decided to go see Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey first, since all four of us were interested. There wasn't much

Me, Jessie, Katie, & Alissa outside Buckingham Palace

to do at the palace, but it was pretty cool looking. I had been a little reluctant to spend the 14 pounds on the ticket to get into the Abbey, but I'm really glad that the other girls encouraged me to go; it's really remarkable inside. The architectural detail was stunning and there were a shocking number of tombs all over the place. They weren't always clearly labeled though, so I wasn't always sure if I was walking on top of someone's remains, someone's ashes, or just a memorial. One area of the Abbey, Poet's Corner, is reserved for commemorating writers. I was so excited to see so many writers and poets that I've had to read for my Victorian and Romantic literature courses over the past year. They have the remains of Chaucer, Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling. We saw memorials for Lord Byron, CS Lewis, TS Eliot, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Shakespeare. I walked out of there feeling like such a legit English major; it was great.

Afterwards, we explored a little bit before heading to lunch. We stopped for random photo shoots along the way, and I got lots of really great scenic pictures around the city: 

Behold: Big Ben in the distance. It's really so much shinier in person 
than it seems in photos and films! I didn't realize that so much of it
is gilded.

Katie, Jessie, Alissa, & me in the phone booth
(Not quite as awesome as the ANTM Cycle 5 photo shoot,
but still fun!)

After our Saturday lunch, we split up for a few hours so everyone could do their own thing. Alissa finally got to go on her Beatles walking tour and Jessie got to go explore Notting Hill while Katie and I went to the Globe Theater. I spent a good portion of my trip texting Chloé, asking for help on how to best tackle London. She and Mom had fantastic ideas for us - including Mom's suggestion to check out The Globe. It hadn't even occurred to me that I could go do that; I had completely forgotten about Shakespeare. (How embarrassing!)

View of the Globe Theater from the street

It was such a great idea. Katie and I went on a tour that took us inside the theater part (half of the building is set up like a museum gallery) - while they were running a dress rehearsal for an upcoming production of Macbeth. We were able to sit and watch around 20 minutes of it, and it was so cool and so exciting. I'd love to go back to London sometime in April or May so that I could actually catch a full production of one of the Shakespeare plays since we couldn't while we were there.

We had such a hard time getting tickets to see a show. Katie and I had both been really eager to find tickets to see anything while we were there, but we couldn't get anything at a reasonable price for that weekend. Again, Chloé was incredibly helpful and she found us tickets and gave us a number to call and it worked; we got four tickets to see the last showing of :

I hadn't read it before and I really knew nothing about the play going into it, but I was just excited to be able to see something while we were there. We really lucked out though; the actors were great and I laughed hysterically the entire time. I would definitely recommend anyone read/see the play. It was a wonderful way to wrap up our last night in London. 

We had to wake up at 3:30 the next morning in order to make it back to the airport in time for our flight. It meant only getting a couple hours of sleep, but I think it was a good thing - if I hadn't been so exhausted and groggy, I would've had a really hard time leaving London.