So I know most of you have been waiting for this launch for a full two weeks, for which I apologize. Let us hope this is not an omen of how often I will be posting over the course of the summer. In truth though, I imagine I will have far more time for posting once I make it to the continent next week. It turns out that when I can choose between spending time with friends and sitting on my computer like a zombie, I choose friends - even when it means getting a bit behind on my travel planning and reporting. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
So! As you may or may not have heard (but probably have if you’re here in the first place) I am starting out on a grand adventure across Europe and possibly East Asia because… I’m young and unemployed and have been saving money since before I can remember and why the hell not, right? Anyway, the start actually happened two weeks ago when I flew in to London, so let’s begin there, shall we?
I made it into London on Saturday, checked in at my hostel, finished up my Turkey blog, and promptly went to bed, because minor jetlag. Don’t worry, that didn’t last long. I woke up on Sunday to more or less wander the streets, because it’s London, and I missed it. I’ve only been there a little longer than a cumulative month now, but it feels like home. Plenty of people badmouth it. It’s expensive, things close super early, people can be a bit pretentious. But I like having dinner at five or six and going to bed at a reasonable time, and it’s refreshing to see people reading. For fun. In public. To be able to strike up a conversation about theatre on the underground. To hear a good half dozen different languages within three blocks of my front door. Part of me had hoped that going again I would realize I only loved it so much the first time because of its contrast with Egypt, but no. I just love it that much. I don’t even live there and it feels like home.
Anyway, I wandered on Sunday; picked up our tickets to Much Ado About Nothing; tried to pick up our tickets to Les Miserables but failed because the theatre was closed; then spent a decent amount of time wandering the Tate Modern Art Museum, because I missed it last time, and art. As per the usual, I didn’t stay out too late and eventually headed back to the hostel to make new friends whom I proceeded to beat at poker. For some reason the hostel seemed particularly full of Australians. No one could really figure out why.
Monday Lisa finally got in, so after a short trip to the British Library I took the hour long underground trip out to meet her at the airport. It was very much like every cliche movie scene you’ve ever seen in an airport, where one person is waiting there behind the barrier and the other one comes out and then said first person ducks under the barrier and they go running at each other for hugs and bouncing and over-excitement. It reminded me a lot of
, actually. We didn’t hang around the airport too long after the reunion though because we had reservations to make. As a sort of introduction to the city, we’d bought tickets on a double decker tour bus that mostly just drives in circles while the gps run audio guide tells you what everything is. It’s a quick way to get a good feel for the sights and what you do and don’t want to see. We sat on the top, of course, but had to move inside when it got too cold and rainy to bear.
The next day, our first full one together, was filled by all of the predictable must sees accompanied by all of the predictable weather. We didn’t have any times to make, but we got an early enough start and would have been to our first sight early if I hadn’t gotten us a wee bit lost. Oops? But as soon as I realized it, it was easy enough to catch the tube over to Buckingham Palace - or would have been if it wasn’t downpouring rain when we got off without the umbrella I’d left in the hostel. We tried to wait it out in the station for a bit and didn’t get too wet, but that’s London for you. Is it strange that I don’t seem to mind London rain as much as… well, any other rain?
Anyway, the morning downpour was followed by showers on and off all day, though we didn’t get caught in anything too heavy, thank goodness. We wandered from Buckingham Palace, which isn’t open at the moment, to Westminster Abbey, followed by a viewing of Westminster Palace / the Houses of Parliament, and the London Eye. Standing in line for the eye, it started to become apparent that the shoes Lisa had brought for the trip were not going to work, which gave us the perfect excuse to go shopping afterward. We spent a little time on Oxford Street, popping into shops whenever it started to drizzle and out again when we thought we could stay dry. We got Lee a pair of shoes and then decided we were hungry, so I quickly found the nearest Nando’s on Google Maps and we headed over for a very important dinner.
I say it’s important, but I’m not sure many others would agree with us. Nando’s is a chain, Brazilian influenced chicken restaurant. It is also the favorite London restaurant of one Bruno Mars, so… no explanation needed. It turns out they also have some phenomenal vegetarian options, including a portobello and halloumi burger, bean burger, and veggie burger, the last two of which I can personally attest were delicious. Lisa was particularly wooed by their sweet potato mash, and then we split caramel cheesecake because… vacation.
Dinner was followed by the part of the trip I think I was most looking forward too. I have long said that my biggest regret from my last trip to London was not seeing Les Miserables live. So we did. I got fairly cheap tickets for volunteering to sit in the balcony where there was little to no legroom. When that means you get to sit more or less on the stage though, I really don’t know why people complain. It was a great show, as it would have to be, because Les Mis, but I have to say I was less moved by the acting than I usually am. The cast was full of phenomenal singers, but I suppose when you perform the show night after night it’s hard to hold on to that emotional spark. Regardless, the show was amazing and I am very glad I went.
The next day we had set aside to be Harry Potter day, so we got up early and caught a train to Watford Junction and the Warner Bros. Harry Potter Studio Tour. We were at the station plenty early, but must have somehow mixed up the platforms or something because the express train we wanted never came and we ended up having to board a full service train that stopped at every station and took ages to arrive. Needless to say then, we were a little bit late. It is fortunate that the Studio Tour isn’t particularly fussed about punctuality. They are so not fussed, in fact, that when we arrived just behind a large school group, one of the staff members suggested we wait a bit longer to enter the tour so as not to have to deal with them. It was a good suggestion. Not just because they would have been insufferable, but because it gave us a chance to look around the shop
before we went in. And… well… we may or may not have spent far too much money on Lochaven jumpers, the very same that I have now been eyeing for years. I say may or may not because we definitely bought them, and they were definitely expensive, but can you really put a price on something that awesome?
Anyway, buying them before the tour meant we could wear them on the tour meant we could take pictures in them. Like Hogwarts students. Because it is us and we are nerds and it was epic. We even took a dueling class. I would post photos of all that, except I don’t have any. Now that my camera has those infernal spots on the lens, Lisa’s camera was heads and shoulders better than mine. As such, she became the official photographer and should you like to see her final products, I would kindly refer you to Facebook.
When we finally got back to London proper, much later than I had expected, we were quite hungry, and realized we hadn’t yet found time for a spot of fish & chips. So we did that before wandering through Borough Market, stopping by the Leaky Cauldron set from Prisoner of Azkaban, and heading to the Globe for a special production of Much Ado About Nothing.
Now, if you haven’t heard about Sam Wanamaker’s reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe, I am going to digress for a moment to extol its virtues. With the exception of a few safety features and far better hygiene, the modern day Globe is almost exactly as it was in the sixteenth century, including prices. Sam Wanamaker, the mastermind behind the project, wanted people of all economic classes to be able to experience Shakespearean theater the way it is meant to be experienced: live. So groundling tickets, which we bought, are the extremely reasonable price of only five pounds apiece. You have to stand for the whole show, just like the peasants did back in the day, but come on. How cool is that? And Much Ado About Nothing is easily my favorite Shakespeare play. Even Lisa said she enjoyed it more than she thought she would.
Thursday we’d intended to do Sherlock Holmes and Madame Tussaud’s, but by that point we were getting a bit tired, truth be told, so we decided to put that off for a day. Thursday, instead, was dedicated to wandering Hyde Park and, after being given the leftover bread from breakfast at the hostel, feeding the ducks. They were a little aggressive, truth be told, but it made for a good laugh trying to throw the bread far enough to distract them away from us without throwing it too far that they didn’t notice, all the while debating between trying to get out a camera and just running away before they tried to bite our fingers. We survived, at any rate, all fingers in tact.
We spent a good amount of time at the park, just soaking in the nature and enjoying the unusual sun. After the first day or two, the weather actually turned out very nice. Once we’d gotten our fill of park things though, we ambled down to Harrod’s for a spot of overpriced afternoon tea. It was delicious, at least, and as fancy as you would expect. Even the tea cakes Lee ordered were called ‘fancies.’ I, on the other hand, got a pair of perfectly baked scones.
In the end, it was a good thing we chose to rest all day in the park, because that night we had tickets to a pub crawl in Camden, and its not the kind of thing for which you want to be tuckered out. To be fair, though we both like dancing, neither of us are huge drinkers, and I don’t think we were very excited about our expectations for the night. Our fellow ‘crawlers’ were mostly made up of barely legal American students looking to get trashed as quickly as possible and a few foreign men who wanted to hang out with drunk girls. Still, nightlife is supposed to be a major draw for London, and we felt like we should at least tag along once for the ride. Of the five pubs we went to, the first two were a major disappointment. We got checked-in at the meeting pub just before the group was about to leave, and the horrendous open mic night at the second didn’t put us in the mood to sip at anything other than water. By the time we got to the third (because the crawl started at the indecently early hour of 7:30pm), at least other people had started to come out, and though the pub was packed, the music was good. It was a blues bar, more or less, with a live band on in the back. So we got a pint a piece and sat to listen and make small talk with a few people. It was nice enough, but nothing to write home about. And then we got to the fourth stop.
Perhaps they were just pacing it so the shy crawlers would have drunk enough to come out of their shells, but whatever the reason, the fourth pub finally had dance music. Like… real dance music. Like things you can actually dance too. I realize this sounds like it would be obvious, but after three crapshoots I was starting to wonder if such a place could even exist. Anyway, it did, and we danced, and we made friends with a couple gay men from Brazil, and it was a blast, and we were even thinking about coming back the next night, and then we moved to the final bar.
Considering the places they’d taken us thus far, we’d already made plans to skip out on the last stop and head back to bar number four if it sucked. To our pleasant surprise, however, it most decidedly did not. The bar, more like a club, was located in an old horse hospital. The main barn had been converted into a giant techno dance floor, which was not our style, but then the back stalls where I assume the horses lived had been turned into themed rooms with more of the good music we’d heard at the other bar interspersed with epic old standbys like Michael Jackson et. al. After exploring a bit and getting the lay of the land (there was also a back patio with a hot tub, in which we were also not interested), we hung out for a bit with a couple Australian friends we’d made on the walk from bar four to bar five, flitting from room to room, dancing and chatting. They were also Harry Potter fans, and absolutely lovely people. Before long though, they decided to head home, so Lee and I ducked in to yet another room that was mostly empty to dance while avoiding the drunken crowds.
You would think this might be hard, and indeed it would, except Lee seems to have this talent for making instant friends with some of the most useful people. In this case, one of the club bouncers. So, we were dancing, and a couple guys started bothering us, and this big intimidating bouncer she’d met earlier comes over and asks if she wants them there, she says no, he kicks them out. Not of the club, just of the room. But from that point on he stationed himself at our door and no one got in without Lee’s say so. It was a very VIP feeling that just put the cherry on top of an already lovely night.
So while the night was lovely, we were also out late - as in walk home at three in the morning because the underground is closed late - meaning we got a bit of a late start the next morning. It is fortunate, then, that we had put off Sherlock Holmes and Madame Tussaud’s, which were both just next door. It only took ten or fifteen minutes to walk to the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street. It’s nothing too spectacular, a recreation of Sherlock and Watson’s apartment with various mementos from their cases with the obligatory gift shop attached. It was nice to see, as fans, but not as nice as what we found outside.
No sooner had we arrived at the museum, standing outside for a moment so Lee could take pictures, than I caught a flash of red out of the corner of my eye and glanced over to see a familiar woman rearranging things in her bag. Turns out it was Cassandra Clare, one of the mutually beloved authors that brought Lee and I together. How’s that for coincidence? Anyway, we said hi and asked for a picture, a little bit starstruck and flabbergasted at the coincidence. For those of you who don’t know, Cassie lives in New York, not London, though since one of her series’ is set in London its not unheard of that she spends time there for research. Just goes to show what a funny place the universe can be.
Sherlock Holmes was followed by Madame Tussaud’s House of Wax, which was actually a lot more fun than I expected it would be. It was mostly an excuse to take a ridiculous number of pictures with celebrities, but hey, even camera battery draining fun is still fun. We finished up there with an It’s-a-Small-World-esque ride through a wax laden history of London and 4D Marvel superhero movie, then headed back to the park. Or at least a park.
This time it was Regent’s Park, home of the London Zoo. We didn’t go to the zoo, but we did nap in the sun for a bit before heading back to the hostel to hang out for the evening. I actually think hanging out at the hostel was a favorite past time for both of us. The guests were fun enough, but most of them came and went every couple days. The real fun was to be had with the hostel staff. They’re all lovely, sarcastic people who are the absolute best for a chat and a joke. There was John, the Irish manager who liked to wear green and play Motown at breakfast, Paul, the Scottish assistant manager with strong, belligerent opinions on every political subject known to man, Mathilde, the young French girl who would break out dancing just because why not, Aaron, the Australian stand up comedian who ran most night shifts, Billy, the elder gentleman who ran the other night shifts and loved to hear himself talk, and a couple new hires like Joel who had moved from Spain to learn English and Anna who apparently used to work for another hostel and is very good friends with Paul.
Anyway, the more tired we got the more time we started spend with them, and we never did have any less fun. It was sad to say goodbye this morning, but again, I digress. Point being we had a quiet night in that night and the next few considering how much we were going going going during the days.
Saturday was spent an hour north of London at Warwick Castle, easily the most touristified castle in England complete with a theatrical, haunted-house-like dungeon tour and interactive show based on BBC’s Merlin. We wandered through the exhibits on the castle’s past inhabitants, important battles, saw an archery demonstration, saw them fire a trebuchet. Towards the end of the day we attempted to climb the ramparts, but the steep steps threw out Lee’s knee. That caused some further troubles over the rest of the week, but we took it pretty slow and she was an absolute trooper.
Sunday we were signed up for a guided group tour called Mysterious Britain, but as it turns out, apparently most people aren’t that interested. There were five people on the tour, including us, so we piled into more of a minivan than a coach and proceeded to get a day of what felt far more like a private tour than anything else. Our fellow tourers were all Brits from the London area just looking for a fun weekend activity, and they were all positively lovely. We went first to Avebury, a much older, larger but less well preserved stone circle than Stonehenge. That was proceeded by the West Kennet Long Barrow, a five thousand year old burial tomb, and Lacock, the medieval town used as a the inspiration for Godric’s Hollow in the Harry Potter movies. Lacock wasn’t actually part of the tour originally, but you can imagine how excited we were to have it added at the last minute.
And then the day ended with the obligatory trip to Stonehenge. It was gorgeous, of course, and moving in its own unique way. It was also, however, distractingly crowded, and the surrounding area was undergoing a bit of construction to try to preserve the mystique of the area - by which I mean they were taking out the visitor center that was recently replaced by a new, bigger, fancier one something like a mile away. Guests are now getting shuttled into the actual sight.
Our last two days were reserved mostly for finishing up the sights we hadn’t gotten to see yet. Monday was all about the Tower of London, which took most of the day and we still didn’t see everything. It’s a lot of fun if you’re into history though, and both of us are. Lot’s of things about wars and invasions and executions. And the crown jewels!
After the tower, we stopped by the Twinings store and museum. I’m not sure anyone other than my mother will recognize how epic that was for us, but… Twinings tea is like Heaven in a cup. Lee introduced me to Twinings Lady Grey when I went to visit her last August and it’s kind of one of our things now. The same family has been selling this tea from the same shop on the Strand in London since 1706. They even sell direct to the royal family! Anyway… needless to say we bought a bunch of tea. They were selling 15 self-selected assorted bags for three pounds… which is entirely affordable. So we stocked up on new flavors to try. Not that we can get our hands on them in the states, but… I’ve enjoyed testing out the herbals relaxing in the hostel the last couple nights.
That evening for dinner we made a reprisal of Nando’s, and then had a notoriously late night. I blame the hostel staff for being too much fun to talk to.
For Lisa’s final full day, we started at the London Dungeons, a favorite attraction of our friend Katy. It was oddly similar to the dungeons at Warwick Castle, often right down to the script, but had some spectacular editions such as Sweeney Todd a drop ride meant to simulate hanging. I got picked for the audience participation bit about executions and had to pretend to get hanged with winks and waves and funny faces, which was quite a bit of fun. After the Dungeons, we still had a ticket for the London Aquarium, but Lee isn’t big on seeing animals in a cage, so instead we fell back on what had quickly become our favorite excursion - relaxing in the park.
Now, to preface this particular trip to the park, I should explain that we had spent the last two days trying to find and affordable place for another meal of fish & chips. I had screwed up the day before thinking the restaurant we’d seen by the hostel would be open until eight. We got there at seven fifteen and it was locked up tight. That was how we ended up at Nando’s. The problem isn’t finding fish & chips. It’s London. They’re everywhere. But most of the plates are twice as much as we’ve heard they should be, and we’re cheap. So for our last meal out in London, we decided we’d go back to the cafe on the lake in the park where we’d been surprised to find reasonably priced fish & chips despite the picturesque view that should be worth a fortune on its own. Apparently we’d been looking at the wrong item on the menu, because once we arrived it turns out they were actually more expensive than any other plate we’d seen.
Regardless, we were hungry, and the view couldn’t be beat, so we sat down to by far the most expensive meal we’d had in London, complete with the very very English drink Pimm’s. I am happy to report they were the best fish & chips either of us had ever tasted and worth every penny. The evening was spent at the hostel pub with warm friends and cold pints.
Lisa left the next morning. I took her back to the airport too, partly because she’s taking my giant suitcase back and it felt like a jerk move to make her carry it, but mostly because when we see each other so rarely every moment counts. Even half asleep series’ of moments where we both keep nodding off on the train. Thank goodness neither of us are super soppy goodbyers, but it was sad to see her go.
The flight was early enough that by the time I made it back to the city it was just about time for a late breakfast - I’d already missed the buffet at the hostel. All I really wanted was coffee, and I was thinking I would use one of the two free Aquarium tickets I still had, so I headed down to the McDonald’s next to the London Aquarium on the Thames, had a breakfast of coffee and a muffin while reading across the river from Big Ben, and then I went to the Aquarium.
The Aquarium was nice enough. I particularly liked the giant sea turtles, the penguins, and the jellyfish, no surprise there. After the Aquarium, however, I headed back to the hostel for a nap. We had gotten up early, and now that I was all alone the stand up comedian working at the hostel had promised to take me to one of his gigs that night and I didn’t want to be exhausted. The show was good, particularly the act making fun of Americans while pretending to be a tour guide, though I might be biased to laugh at jokes about obnoxious American tourists.
My final morning in London was spent doing laundry, because I’m never a fan of traveling with mostly dirty clothes, and then I headed back to reprise the British Library. Because I’d only stopped in on the way to pick up Lee, I hadn’t gotten a glance at much more than the Magna Carta, and their collection is spectacular. They have original works by everyone from Michelangelo to the Beatles, and it’s all gorgeous and booky and perfect. Just up my alley. I stayed at the rare books exhibit until just before it closed, then headed home to see if I could catch Aaron before he headed out to Windsor for another show. I got distracted on the way though.
Did I mention the hostel is in Little Arabia? Most of the local signs are in Arabic, with a few Persian and Indian restaurants thrown in for fun. In fact, there was an Egyptian restaurant only a block and a half away that I had kept seeing but at which I’d never stopped. For some reason, because I was hungry or missing ful or because it was my last day, I stopped and ordered a ful sandwich for old times’ sake. It took far longer for them to make than it probably should have and I missed Aaron leaving, but it was delicious, and I got to watch Egyptian movies while I waited, and it gave me a chance to meet some of the other hostel guests.
So my last night, in true hostel fashion, was spent chatting with people from Spain, Poland, Chicago, Vancouver, and Southern California - making plans with Katy in between for my trip today. Then this morning I woke up, had breakfast, packed up and said my goodbyes. I’m very excited to be headed up to Glasgow and Edinburgh. (I’m actually writing this on the bus now.) I can’t wait to see my friends. Nevertheless, leaving London is always bittersweet. Maybe it’s expensive, and maybe it’s big, but it definitely feels like somewhere I could belong. Alas, I suppose in the future we’ll see.
