England Trip - Part 2

Alright, on to Part Two of the trip now.

On Tuesday, after a brief stint in Norwich to visit YayCoffee, see the castle and a do a bit of shopping, we continued on to London, sans YayCoffee.

On to Part 2...

We got into London kind of late-ish. Did I mention that England closes at like 5. Why would no one mention that to me? Basically just bars and restuarants open after 5. Puts a real damper on maximizing the hours in your day.

Anyway, so we arrive at Victoria Station finally after a mix-up on whether we needed to be on the eastbound or westbound train. To be fair, we were in the north/south bend. That is always confusing to me. But finally we get where we needed to be. We exit the tube and proceed to get completely turned around. I KNEW I should have brought a compass but was told that was foolish. Turns out that our hotel was EXTREMELY easy to get to once you determined exactly which side of the station you were on and which was was indeed north. I think having the Atlantic on the west really screwed with my interal compass.


Victoria Station


Out of focus double decker buses

We stayed at the Elizabeth Hotel which was also nice and roomier than expected. Does anyone know what is up with the Brits and their crazy obsession with doors? There were so many doors in the hotel! You would walk by two rooms and then have to go through another door to get to the next set. And there were crazy pathways and hidden stairways. It was a bit like being in the Clue house without all the inconvenient murdering. But one of the passageways did plop you out right in front of the kitchen which made me giggle. Apparenly you have one little fire that destroys 85% of your city, and you get paranoid.

Once we got settled and found the closest restuarant (which was, of course, a sandwich shop. You couldn't escape them!), then Dinah and I went on a Jack the Ripper walk. The walks were some of my favorite things to do. It was like being IN the History Channel. So fun! It was really cool being at all the murder sites and hearing the stories. However, the spastic English weather was in full effect, so despite it being a bit warm when we went to dinner, by the time we got to the place to meet our guide, it was quite cold and rainy. We were shocked by how many people braved the weather to go on a mid-week walk.

We arose the next morning and headed off on a city tour aboard a double decker bus. Let me tell you, New York City cabbies seem cautious compared to these guys. I was actually thrown from my seat and into Taryn at one point.


Buildings along the Thames


Buildings on The Strand?


Really Old Building 13

You might have noticed that label below that last pic. Yeah, I have no idea what a MAJORITY of the buildings actually are. In my next post, I will be having an "Identify this Really Old Building/Statue" contest.

After the scary, wet tour, we headed to Westminster Abbey which was just.... amazing. It was incredible. Knowing its history and being surrounded by all of the memorials and sculptures was just incredible. And, I learned that the English apparently don't have that walking across graves thing that some of us do. Is that a Southern thing? Anyway, like I said, amazing!


Westminster Abbey


Westminster Abbey


Westminster Abbey

Next, Taryn and her friend Rick Steves planned a little walk around the Westminster area for us. We checked out Big Ben, House of Parliment, the Texas Embassy (left over from when Texas was its own country, but now is really just a Tex-Mex restuarant), and Trafalgers Square.


Big Ben


London Eye


Me and the Eye. See, I WAS actually there. This will be the only picture of me you find. :)


Taryn and Ben


Texas Embassy


Trafalger's Square...not a great picture though

We headed back to meet up with Dinah and get some dinner. We went to this place called Jenny Lo's Teahouse. It was Chinese food with a Vietnamese twist. Pretty good, great prices. Then we went back to the hotel to rest up from our busy day and caught some of the Brit Awards on the telly. Oh, Oasis. Just. Wow. Um... Yeah. I was sad Lily didn't win. She didn't seem pleased either.


I like your shoes, Lily!

The next day, Taryn and I headed over to the Tower of London which I also loved. What? It was super cool. I wish I had gotten to see more torture devices though. Just in case you were wondering, the Tower is well stocked for the coming zombie wars.

Anyway, we did the Beefeater tour. Our Beefeater was a bit difficult to understand. You had to really focus. Let your mind wander in the least and you completely missed whatever he said.


Tower of London


Tower, again


Jewel Tower


Armory. Perfect for zombie attacks.

The Tower also provided a nice view of other sites nearby. I don't really know the names of the buildings, obviously, but the Gerkin and that really old building were quite interesting to see right next to each other.


The Gerkin and Really Old Building 19


Tower Bridge

Then we walked over the St. Paul's Cathedral. Absolutely breathtaking. I probably spent more time there than anywhere. Just WOW. The architecture, the history, everything was amazing. The ceilings were unbelievable. The amount of work that went into it is just mind-boggling. It was one of the few places I actually WANTED the audio tour so I could learn more. I have no pictures from inside because I am not a BRATTY RULE BREAKER unlike some other visitors that day. The signs did not say no photos unless you really, really want one. They said NO PHOTOS. Grr... Some people.


St. Paul's Cathedral

After St. Paul's I headed over to Chinatown to look around, thinking perhaps I would strike backpack gold in another Chinatown (I have a black leather backpack that I use all the time which I got in Chinatown in 1995. Yeah, it's a little beat up and worn out). I walked around that area, then around Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. Ooooh, I got to see the big Equius poster. Hot!


Chinatown


Equius or Naked!Harry Potter


British theatre is more exciting than American theatre


Piccadilly Circus (would have been a better night picture)

By that point, I was losing light and needed to get back to the room to meet up with YayCoffee. We all headed over to Embankment for dinner as we were going on another walk that night and needed to meet up with the guide. It was an Alleyways, Apparitions and Ale walk. SUPER cool. We didn't see any ghosts, but the stories were quite interesting anyway. I learned that the grass in St. James's Park is so green because it is a mass burial site for plague and fire victims. Fascinating. Oooh, and we think we found Sting's apartment! He wasn't home. Darn.

The next day was our last real day in London. Taryn and I headed over to Buckingham Palace to check things out. Sadly, we didn't get to see the changing of the guards. Apprarently they are changed less frequently in the winter months. I thought the Victoria Memorial/Monument was really cool. I do love a good fountain. Then we walked through St. James's parks where I informed Taryn that there were dead people everywhere.


Buckingham Palace


St. James's Park


Victoria Memorial

There was this castley type thing that we could see but not identify. I thought maybe St. James's Palace. Dunno. Anywho, from that point, we headed over to Oxford Street to do a spot of shopping. We hit H&M and Top Shop. I got a couple of really cute shirts, earrings and a purse. Oh, and a scarf. Sandy tells me it is a boy scarf, but I choose to disagree. First, it has a pink stripe. Second, it is NOT a manly fabric. Third, I saw a WOMAN wearing the EXACT same scarf. I wanted photographic evidence, but Taryn said no. Anwway, it was totally a girl's scarf.

We spent the rest of the day just sort of roaming around. We had wanted to try to get tickets to a show, but nothing we wanted to see had discounted tickets. Then we met up with the other girls and hung out and prepared for our journey home the next day.


Name that Really Old Building or Castle

Our flight left at 10 a.m. on Saturday, so we were up quite early to head out. By this point, my calves were a just giant knots of muscle. So bad that it actually HURT to walk. I tried to stretch, but it was not helping. I also was quite congested which meant that my ears were clogged...the...entire...flight. They didn't pop until sometime on Sunday. Quite annoying.

The flight home wasn't too bad either. Good movies. I had lots of stuff to read and ended up staying up the whole time.

So, that concludes the tales of my England adventure. Nothing really wacky happened. No mishaps. That is kind of unusual for me. I wasn't attacked by any wildlife at all. I am still a little drained, but it was definitely worth it. I would love to go back and see all the things I missed. Because of time constraints, I didn't make it to any museums. So those would be great to see. And I would like to have some more time to just wander and maybe relax a bit more.

If you would like to see more of my photos from the trip, check out my Flickr.