Wondering Around London

Posted: January 19, 2011 | Author: kirchgrj | Filed under: London | Tags: abroad, England, London, studying abroad, UK | 1 Comment

From January 13 to 16th, I took a long weekend trip with Harlaxton College. The large school group left from Harlaxton on Thursday evening and arrived in London later that night.

We stayed in a hotel outside of Russell Square. This is the Underground station around the corner from where we were staying.

The first night, I went out with my roommate and some other people on the trip to a bar called Day and Night. Hungry from traveling, I promptly ordered a cheeseburger with a pint of Carlsberg. Carlsberg is a relatively inexpensive beer and doesn’t taste half bad either. We hung out in the bar till about 11:30pm and walked back to the hotel.

I woke up early the next day to eat a rather disappointing breakfast at the hotel.  They served both a continental and ‘English’ breakfast. To my surprise, the continental breakfast was 4.50 pounds. The free English breakfast consisted of cold cereal and toast. Where’s the eggs, bacon, or waffles? That is what the premium continental breakfast served. I ended up eating a few pieces of toast with a  bowl on cornflakes knowing that I could hold off until lunch.

The first thing on the agenda was to take the Underground to Green Park and walk to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. We made sure to be there at least 30 minutes to get a good view. We arrived at 10:30, right on schedule. No one was around the palace waiting to see the change. We got to the gate and read a sign saying that the change would actually happen at 11:30. That turned out to be perfect because within 15 minutes the place was packed and we were all still standing in the front row.

A shot of Buckingham Palace from Green Park. The Flag is raised to full mast indicating that he Queen is currently there.

Royal Guard ready to be leaved of service. The guards were wearing gray coats instead of the iconic red coats.

After the ceremony, we walked back to the Green Park station and headed over to Leicester Square for lunch. The group split up and went separate ways for lunch. Two other people and I ran into this small Greek deli where I had a chicken tikka pita. I had no idea what I was ordering (or what was even in it), but I was pleasantly surprised how tasty it was. The group met up after lunch and got back on the Underground to go to Russell Square where the British Museum was.

The British Museum is the most impressive single museum I have ever seen. The Smithsonian Museums in D.C. are great, but they do not have the same breadth and depth of artifacts from around the world as does the British Museum. The British Museum has exhibits from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

The Great Court of The British Museum that encloses the quadrangle of buildings.

The British Museum houses some of the most important artifacts in ancient  human history. My favorites are the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles.

This is the Rosetta Stone. It is much larger in person than I ever expected. The hieroglyphs are at the top of the stone and the translations below  are in two different scripts, Egyptian and ancient Greek.

These are a sample of the Elgin Marbles found on one side of the exhibit. The other half is on the other side, which is how they would be arranged if they were still at the Parthenon atop the Acropolis in Athens.

Even after spending about three hours in the museum, I still was not able to see all the exhibits. Not seeing everything only gives me more reason to go back and see it again. After the museum, the group walked around Russell Square back to the hotel to get some rest before dinner.

For dinner that night, I ate at another pub. I ordered a cornish pasty with chips. A cornish pasty is a pastry that is stuffed with steak and vegetables. It was also served with a side of gravy for dipping. It’s a very cultural dish in England and a good one at that. With my pasty, I had another Carlsberg. All together it was a very satisfying meal after a long day of walking.

After everyone had a few drinks we hit the Underground and went to the Embankment stop. We walked past Trafalgar Square and took a glance, but did not stay long because we were going to check out the Thames river at night. I led the group to this pedestrian only bridge that looks up the river showing the London Eye and House of Parliament.

The London to left and the House of Parliament and Big Ben to the right. One of my favorite views of the city.

After walking by parliament we headed back over to Leicester Square for another drink.

Our tab at the restaurant. Three beers and a few cheesecakes added up to be a lot. In typical college fashion, cash and lose change was used to pay the tab. The waitress didn’t seem to be happy about it.  After hanging out for a while it was time to call it a night and head back to the hotel.

I woke up at 9:00 the next morning to eat my bland English breakfast and got ready to meet up with some people at 11am in the hotel lobby. The goal in the morning was to see the Imperial War Museum. We all walked over to the Underground station around the corner.

Making to it the Imperial War Museum became quite an adventure because the Underground station nearest to the museum was closed for the day. It forced us to change lines and we ended up at the Kennington station. This station took us to a more residential area of London and did have many signs to indicated how to get the museum. Luckily I had grabbed a map of London from the Underground station back in Russell Square because the map the school provided us did not have this section of town on it. After about 20 minutes walking through neighborhoods we finally found it.

A German V2 rocket that was recovered from striking London in WWII. The V2 wasn’t the most efficient tool of destruction but definitely struck fear into the French and English.

The Imperial War Museum is another great free museum in London. Its most popular exhibit is of the holocaust. It was one of the larger ones there and gives historical accounts of holocaust survivors and historical insight of the how it arose within the Nazi party. Although it was a good exhibit, I still think that the Holocaust Museum in D.C is better.

My personal favorite exhibit was the secrete service agencies of MI5 and MI6. There was good explanation of how these agencies were formed and function within the government. It also showed off some of the gadgets that were recovered from Russian spies during the Cold War. Strangely they did not show much their own technology. One thing that struck me as interesting was the pro-intelligence message at the end of the exhibit. London and England in general is the most surveillant society in the world. I suppose it is some sort of political message to support the reasoning for all the cameras around the country.

After about 2 1/2 hours there, it was time to find a place to eat. We wondered around the place to try and find a cheap place to eat. Searching the surrounding streets, we came  across a restaurant called the China Bowl. This place looked like a hole in the wall and the building next to it was even boarded up. Luckily it had some relatively cheap food. I had fried noodles with roasted duck. It certainly tasted good, but the portion wasn’t as big as I thought it would be. I cleared my whole plate and still was a little hungry but it would do till dinner.

Our group split up after eating lunch. Some people wanted to see Churchill’s War Rooms while I and one other person wanted to see Westminster Abby and London Tower.

A shot of Westminster Abby. It is amazing to think that these large churches could be so elegantly crafted without the use of modern machinery. Westminster is a joy to look at, unfortunately the inside was closed this late in the afternoon.

The next thing on the list was to go see the Tower of London. So my friend and I jump onto the Underground and took the train all the way over to opposite side of town. By the time we got there it was already dark. The tower was closed for the day, so we walked around it and went to Tower Bridge across the road.

A picture of me standing on Tower Bridge at night. There are so many lights around the are that the sky doesn’t even get too dark.

Seeing all those sites again in one day had left me exhausted, but the day still wasn’t over. My friend and I got back onto the train to meet up with people at the hotel for dinner. We went to this Italian restaurant where the people working talked with a heavy accent. I knew it would have to be good. I looked over the menu and ordered a lasagna. This was the best meal I had all week! The lasagna was cooked with a red wine sauce that was absolutely delicious. Again, I ate my whole meal.

Everyone went back to the hotel to rest for awhile before we would head out to the bars at 9 p.m. That night we went to bars in Leicester Square and Camden Town. Camden was by far the most fun place to be at night. It is mainly Londoners there and very few tourist. I think we were the only group at the bar we were at! We stayed there till about 12:10 and then we realized that the Underground stops service at 12:30 a.m. We had only 20 minutes to make it home. It was a race against the clock but we managed to get onto the last train heading back to Russell Square. Whew, that was a close one.

On Sunday morning, I had to wake up a bit earlier because I had to check out of the hotel and make it onto the bus before 10 a.m. The school was going to Hampton Court outside of London which served as a royal palace.

This is a picture from the back of Hampton Court. The palace is surrounded by gardens. Unfortunately in January not much else grows besides grass and trees.

The school group only stayed for a few hours. I took an audio tour which guided me along the apartments of the palace and gave a lot of interesting facts. Coming from America, it is very interesting to learn about how Kings lived and ruled their country because it is never really covered in history classes. After I finished the audio tour, I took a quick stroll the gardens. Then I walked back into town to grab lunch before I got back on the bus. I slept most of the way back to the manor because I was exhausted from running around London the past few days.

The long weekend in London was a blast! It was the second time I have visited the city and still really enjoyed it. London is a great to see as a tourist because there is something for everyone. Whether it is museums, food, shopping, or an active night life. London will not disappoint.

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