we went over to our hostel, which was unfortunately a ways out of the center of the city, on the outskirts of hyde park. it was by far the worst hostel/hotel experience we had on the trip, but i'll get to that soon. we hadn't exchanged any money yet, so we couldn't properly check in yet. the whole separate british currency thing was pretty annoying, but the good news was that the pound was at one of its lowest points in a long time, so we saved money. but even with that, london was unbelievably expensive. just in case you haven't got the patience to read through the rest of the tale, here is a picture that really wraps up everything necessary in london--people driving on the left side of the road, double-decker buses, big ben and parliament and the london eye:
we walked from our hostel to find some lunch and ended up stopping at a little asian restaurant that had apparently been visited by an iron chef or something like that in the past. it was good food, albeit expensive. i had a kind of gooey rice dish that had duck, shrimp and squid in it, among other unidentifiable seafood bits. we then metroed over to parliament, it really is a pretty magnificent site.
we walked around that area for a while, then went over to westminster abbey. we had gotten a pretty late start that day, so the abbey was already closed by this point. we then walked to buckingham palace. we took a break in the park in front of the palace and had an ice cream. we had been sitting in these lounge chairs that were all over the park for about ten minutes when a guy walked over asking us to pay for sitting in them. we awkwardly got up, told him we were broke and left. that area is pretty nice, but i was not terribly impressed with buckingham. it's pretty plain. which i guess is a good description of my general opinion of england.
across the park from the palace is this more imposing structure that had something to do with horses. i think we decided it was a horse hatchery.
next, we went to trafalgar square and went into the national gallery. it was pretty nice, but i don't think we stayed for very long. one really nice thing about london--all of the big museums are free. not the case with landmarks or churches, but it was refreshing to not have to pay.
this was the location of the texan embassy to england during the period that texas was an independent republic. now, its a tex-mex restaurant and from what i've been told not a great one.
we walked around picadilly circus and just happened to walk right into the middle of the london premiere of the new movie, public enemies. just as we had figured out what all the commotion was about, people started screaming and johnny depp's car pulled up. cindy claims that she saw the back of his head before he walked away. exciting stuff. we stopped in a pub/restaurant for the obligatory fish and chips. apparently fish and chips from london is a joke compared to the dish along the southern coast. and it really wasn't great, just extremely bland. we had hoped to catch a show that night, but they were all either sold out or had already started. so instead, we watched an american movie, the hangover (or as it was called in france, 'very bad trip'). that was funny.
returning to the hostel around midnight, i realized just how awful our nights were going to be. it had been one of the worst heat waves in a long time, so it was still hot and muggy when we got back. and naturally, there was no air conditioning. also, since we got in so late all the good spots in our room of nine were already taken. i was stuck climbing up onto the third level of a bunk bed that was not properly secured to the wall. every time i stepped up the thing swayed like it was going to collapse and crush me. that got me lots of dirty looks. needless to say, i did not sleep well and woke up a couple hours later in a pool of my own sweat. that scene was similarly reenacted the second night.
we woke up early the next day to get a better start that our first day. we started by going out to westminster abbey and doing the audio tour. it was pretty interesting, even though i don't know a whole lot about british history and it was mostly old kings and queens buried in there.
then we metroed over to the tower of london, which was something of a fortress for royal families to stay in if the city was under threat of invasion. lots of torture chambers and prisoner carvings on the walls. we saw the crown jewels, which i'm sure was the most valuable collection of objects i've ever seen. the grounds of the tower (which is more like a little castle) are populated with huge, scary ravens. they say that when the last one leaves the tower, it will mark the end of the monarchy.
the tower bridge, right next to the tower of london. this is NOT london bridge, which is now somewhere in arizona.
we stopped at a stand for burgers and fries. it had been over five weeks in europe for cindy and me, so american food sounded good. hunter had only been gone for a few days, so i'm sure his cravings didn't compare to ours. we went over to st. paul's cathedral, but it was some exorbitant admission price so we just napped in the yard. or at least i napped.
then we went to the british museum, which is actually pretty legit. we only had about half an hour because we were meeting my friend zadie, who studied in oklahoma my sophomore year. but we did have enough time to see the rosetta stone and lots of mummies.
we met with zadie at leicester square and had a drink before finding a pretty nice restaurant for dinner. in keeping with the theme of trying out local flavor, i had a meat pie which is basically a nice version of a chicken pot pie. but it was really good. we mentioned to zadie that we had wanted to see a show while we were in town, so we went to one of the many discount ticket booths and found out that, among other shows, grease was starting in about ten minutes. i guess grease is cindy's favorite musical, so it was decided that we must go. zadie had to catch a train back home so she couldn't join us. it was a bummer that we didn't get to spend much time with her, but it was still really nice to see her.
we got our fairly cheap tickets and ran/speedwalked over to the picadilly theatre. we actually had pretty decent seats and got in just as the first song was starting. i've never been a big grease fan, but i had a good time. the guy playing john travolta's character looked like peter pan and sang about an octave higher than travolta, which detracted a bit from the overall performance. but it was good. after that, we went back to the hostel for another hellish night of very little sleep.
up next: brussels! horses are funny. as are signs relating to horses.
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