Our Trip to London

Jess and I went to London! This was our first time in the UK and it was a very interesting place. I did find the traffic driving on the other side a lot more disconcerting that I'd expected and I just looked both ways twice before crossing any streets because I was never completely sure which way the traffic would be going!

Jess ended up having a conference in Toronto he couldn't miss on the first day of our trip so I went to London on my own. When I arrived, I took the tube to my Uncle Rick's flat and visited with him for a bit before heading out to explore a bit on my own. He is working in London temporarily and lives in a lovely neighbourhood just west of central London called Maida Vale. His flat is just around the corner from the Maida Vale tube station which made it an extremely convenient homebase for our trip.

I decided to go to the National Gallery because art galleries are Jess' least favourite type of museum so I figured it was a good place to go without him. The art was beautiful, of course, and overwhelming in its sheer volume. I don't think I was able to fully enjoy it all though because by this time, I had been awake for something like 36 hours but I knew that in order to fight off jet lag, I needed to wait until the evening to go to sleep. But I found myself nodding off while standing in front of the paintings and I got worried that I was going to collapse and make a scene so I went outside to walk around instead. The National Gallery is right on Trafalgar Square and it was fun to see this place I'd heard so much about but had no idea what it looked like. I saw the famous lion statues and I saw Big Ben off in the distance and I did some souvenir shopping.

The main things I noticed on my first day in London were the crowds and the languages. The crowds were thick and constant. Everywhere we went, any time of day, the sidewalks were always crowded with people. And I would say less than half of the people I heard speaking around me were speaking with a British accent. Either they were speaking with an American/Canadian accent, or they weren't speaking English at all. I heard a ton of French as well as German, Russian, and all sorts of other languages. Edmonton is a fairly multicultural city but London is a REALLY multicultural city.

The next day, Jess arrived and we headed out to explore some more. Have I mentioned yet that it was very rainy while we were there? Nice and typical London weather. We spent a few hours at the British Museum, which some call the world's greatest collection of stolen items. While it's probably true that England had no business carting off all these treasures, it is truly amazing to see all these ancient artifacts under one roof. Wow. So much to see. I got an audio guide and explored a couple of sections but really only scratched the surface of what there was to see.

This is Jess in front of the Rosetta Stone. I think this must be their most popular artifact in the whole museum because there was always a large crowd around it trying to see it.

The next day we decided to go to the Tower of London.

We tried a tour at first but the crowd was massive and we could hardly hear him so after a while, we decided to just explore on our own.

One part has been turned into an armoury exhibit.

This suit of armour was for a boy. I think it would have been just right for Connor.

These posts are in the central hall that was built by William the Conqueror. I can't believe I'm touching posts that were touched by so many famous people over a thousand years ago! (I love history)

Maira made me a card with her picture inside it to help me not miss her as much. I promised we would take pictures of me holding her card in front of different things in London to show her.

In this picture, you can see how close the famous Tower Bridge is to the Tower of London, you can see it off in the distance in the upper left hand corner.

After exploring the Tower for a few hours, we navigated our way along the Thames to St. Paul's Cathedral. 

Unfortunately, we just missed the last tour but I did get to sit on the steps and feed the birds. This is me taking a picture of myself feeding the birds. Mary Poppins was one of my favourite books and movies when I was little so I had the tune "Feed the birds, tuppence a bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag" running through my head the whole time!

 We ate at a fish & chips restaurant just around the corner from St. Paul's. London is so multicultural that this was our only night of traditional English food. Every other night, we ate at a different ethnicity restaurant. We had everything from Thai to Lebanese to Vietnamese to Palestinian food while we were in London.

The next day, on our way to Piccadilly Circus, we stopped off at the Baker Street station to take a look at Sherlock Holmes' address. 221B Baker Street.

At Piccadilly Circus, we picked up tickets for a show that night at the Criterion, "The 39 Steps". It was supposed to be a hilarious comedy based on an Alfred Hitchcock story.

After that, we headed back to the British Museum because there were so many rooms there that we hadn't explored yet.

I figured out the secret to spending hours here without sore feet. They have these folding stools that you can carry around with you and sit down whenever you need a break. I loved that stool!

I had an audio guide again so I would just plunk myself down in front of interesting looking exhibits and then listen to my audio guide tell me all about it.

In the Africa section, there was this tree made entirely out of old guns.

Afterwards, we went to Trafalgar Square and then wandered on down by Parliament and Big Ben.

After supper, we went back to Piccadilly Circus for our show. 

It was very well done but not quite as hilarious as promised. Though it would be hard to enjoy any show when you are as short as I am and have someone this tall sitting in front of you... See the stage way down there? I couldn't either.

The next day, I got to spend a few minutes shopping in Liberty of London. They are world famous for their fabric so I was very excited to have a look. I bought one meter of a beautiful cotton print but now I'm scared to cut into it because if I make a mistake, I can't get more without going back to London. 

While I was shopping, Jess had fun wandering the nearby streets, taking pictures of the different stores.

 Then we headed to St. Paul's because we wanted to go inside this time and climb up to the top.

It was a long climb up over 500 stairs but the view was definitely worth it.

We could see Shakespeare's Globe Theatre just across the river.

After St. Paul's, we walked down by the river and walked by Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

Then we went for a walk through St. James's Park. It was a very beautiful park that reminded me a lot of Victoria. We got to see a mother swan with her fluffy little babies sitting by the side of the pond. They were so beautiful!

At the end of St. James's Park is...Buckingham Palace!

The intersections around Buckingham Palace were the only time I've ever seen crossing signals for horseback riders. There was a light for pedestrians, one for cyclists and one for horseback riders.

With sore feet from all that walking, we took the tube home, ready for a new adventure the next day.

We decided to visit one of London's biggest outdoor markets the next day: Portobello Market.

After the market, we walked through Little Venice, a neighbourhood near Maida Vale that has a canal running through it.

After Little Venice, we took the tube south of the Thames and stayed there until sunset.

We ended up right by the London Eye but we decided not to go on it since we'd had just as good a view from the top of St. Paul's.

While Jess had fun taking pictures of Parliament and the Eye at sunset, I sat and read Pride and Prejudice on my Kindle.

The next day was Sunday so we went to church in the morning at the Hyde Park chapel. This was the one time we decided to ride on a double decker bus instead of the tube.

 In the afternoon, we went to Hyde Park. There was a triathlon going on so it was really busy and noisy. We headed away from the noise and made our way into the much more serene Kensington Palace park. Such a beautiful spot, it was a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

 There's a statue of Peter Pan tucked away by one of the park paths.

The next day was our last day in London. Jess had some meetings with UK government people so he spent a few minutes with me at the Victoria & Albert design museum and then he left me on my own to explore displays of design through the ages.

For lunch, we ate at the cafe around the corner from the V&A. They had the most amazing ice cream, it was really rich and creamy and packed with fresh fruit. Yum.

Once Jess was done with his meetings and I had a little post-museum nap, we decided to rent bikes and bike around Hyde Park and Kensington Park.

At one edge of the park, there's an interesting monument to Britain's great empire. It depicts Queen Victoria sitting on top of her throne with her imperial subjects below her at each corner of her throne. Not exactly politically correct but an interesting monument to look at nonetheless.

Right across the street from the monument was the Royal Albert Hall.

Once we'd returned our bikes, we wandered through the rose gardens in Hyde Park. The roses were in full bloom and it smelled heavenly.

This was our last trip on the tube to our home station.

We got up very early the next morning for our flight to Lisbon. London was very interesting and I'd love to go back again someday.