Well, no more train blogging for me. Right now it’s just me in seat 15C on US AIR729 flying over the Atlantic Ocean. I’m done watching movies so now I have the GPS on my video screen, eerily enough, it has the Titanic wreck spot listed and we’re just about to fly over it, not sure why that was labeled on the map yet a dot for Washington DC didn’t make it. Only complaint about the plane ride so far is that it left about three hours after it was supposed to, of which about 90 minutes was spent sitting here on the runway. However, I want to divert any pity anyone would have for me to the people who were on the Middle East Airlines flight out of Heathrow here two days ago when they spent 8 hours waiting on the runway. That had to have been horrible. However, after a few people had too much to drink there was a ‘mutiny’ as the paper called it and they raided the meal carts and got in fistfights with stewards, look it up online, interesting for sure. I watched “Unstoppable”, the movie about the runaway train and then I just finished “A Special Relationship” which was an incredible movie about the unique relationship between Britain’s own Tony Blair and President Bill Clinton. Enough about the plane ride; you’ve all been there and done that.
So I spent the last 2 days in London, Thursday and Friday. We arrived via Eurostar, which to Adam’s dismay did
not have windows underwater to see the fish. We got in around 9am thanks to the time difference, giving us a 25 hour day to explore London. After dumping our bags at the hotel, which was conveniently (still have never been able to spell that word right all semester w/out autocorrects help) right next to King’s Cross where the train took us, we were off! First stop was St. James Park, better known for being the location of Buckingham Palace. Changing of the guard occurs daily at 11:30, so being a little early, we strolled around the park, checked out the many war monuments and got to the fringes of Hyde Park before turning back for the ceremony. It would have been more enjoyable without the rain but still a neat experience and something I felt we just had to do in London. Also, what’s London without a little (lot) of rain here and there? We escaped the storm at the end of the ceremony by grabbing a good lunch at a nearby café then continued down towards Westminster Abbey after taking a detour into a church.
Wow that was embarrassingly hard for me to open this damn bag of bad tasting airplane pretzels, I feel like the people across the aisle saw and were laughing at me (finally got it open by poking it with my headphones cable). Westminster Abbey was really cool, I loved it. SO many important people buried in one place. My new goal is to get at least some sort of memorial plaque in there, they did have some for Americans, including some Presidents which London in general had a lot of monuments for. Also, on the same note, I think every major city that we were in had a John F Kennedy named road in a major area of their city. The rest of the day included checking out the sites: Big Ben, Downing Street, Parliament, Harrod’s (where I bought the new Michael Jackson CD only 3 pounds!) then checking out the Museum of Natural History which was highly regarded in our city guide, not too spectacular, and finished off the day walking around Piccadilly Circus, which was a really awesome area and had dinner at my first Chinese place in months.
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| Friendly reminder to foreigners when crossing the streets |
Friday was a very productive day. I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot, but it’s true, we’ve done a good job at being productive. First was the Imperial War Museum, which probably was the most time we spent at any museum all trip and deservedly so. This museum, free, as were most of London’s, was fantastic. First was an exhibition room of past machines of war, tanks, artillery, etc from the past century or two. Then there was a real neat informative and interactive exhibit on naval submarines. Next was one of the most emotional parts in a special exhibit on World War II in Britain through the eyes of children. This was complete with letters of children to their parents who were separated from them during London evacuations amongst the Nazi bombings as well as posters and statements issued by the Ministry of Home Security about what to do for your children to protect them. Then, in one of the most memorable parts for me, there was a letter written by a 9 year old girl. She was off on a boat with hundreds of other children to a safer life in America. The letter was sent before she boarded, but the boat was sunk by a German U-boat and no child survived. It then had the letters that were sent to the parents of the children. Just terrible, reading those original letters, thinking about how this was just one case of so many similar stories from that tragic time made me just stand there in silence. There was also an exhibition on the Holocaust which was equally as moving, if not more. I’ve been to concentration camps, Anne Frank’s house, holocaust memorial sites and museums in many cities, but I still never get jaded to it. I know I brought it up in my blog after visiting Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam but god damn was that a terrible atrocity that never should have occurred. This exhibit put a different perspective on it that I hadn’t gotten at many other places and had a lot devoted to the history and roots of anti-Semitic feelings. There, in huge letters, was the great Edmund Burke quote that I love which reads “For evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing”. Too many people did nothing then, or at least in my opinion, after reading what the exhibit had to say about that. I haven’t even mentioned the whole floors of incredibly accurate, visitor-friendly, interactive and enjoyable exhibits they had on the wars of the 20th century. Such a great museum, anyone who is in London should make time to visit it. It’s right off the tube line, free, and was a bit out of the city so it wasn’t crowded with tourists.
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| British Museum Mummified Man, from 3000+ Years Ago |
Now that I spent so much time on that, I’ll try and be concise with the rest of the day. We checked out London Bridge and walked through some neat English markets by it leading up to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. Then after crossing the neat Millennium Bridge and passing St. Paul’s Cathedral we were at the Tower of London. We tagged along a tour with a pretty funny yeoman tour guide for a bit before breaking off to check out the royal jewels and white castle on our own. Real cool place, but we had to walk through kind of quick because we were short on time. Not as cool as the Ghent castle or other castles I’ve been to though, but perhaps I didn’t give it enough time. There were many interesting stories about people who had been held captive there or had been executed there. After that it was onto the infamous British Museum with all its great collections of things taken from the rest of the world. Highlights were a 3000+ year old man miraculously preserved by the African desert still with hair and skin and of course the Rosetta stone. Then, we went to Hamley’s 6 story toy store, walked around Regent Street and Oxford Circus then ended in Piccadilly Circus again like the previous night for dinner at Ed’s American Diner. Ha, yup, that’s right. I couldn’t hold off another day for a good burger, fries and retro themed diner. It was delicious. Don’t worry, Nautilus Diner, you’re still my one and only. Then some cider beer at a pub capped off the night.
So I spent the last 2 days in London, Thursday and Friday. We arrived via Eurostar, which to Adam’s dismay did not have windows underwater to see the fish. We got in around 9am thanks to the time difference, giving us a 25 hour day to explore London. After dumping our bags at the hotel, which was conveniently (still have never been able to spell that word right all semester w/out autocorrects help) right next to King’s Cross where the train took us, we were off! First stop was St. James Park, better known for being the location of Buckingham Palace. Changing of the guard occurs daily at 11:30, so being a little early, we strolled around the park, checked out the many war monuments and got to the fringes of Hyde Park before turning back for the ceremony. It would have been more enjoyable without the rain but still a neat experience and something I felt we just had to do in London. Also, what’s London without a little (lot) of rain here and there? We escaped the storm at the end of the ceremony by grabbing a good lunch at a nearby café then continued down towards Westminster Abbey after taking a detour into a church.
Wow that was embarrassingly hard for me to open this damn bag of bad tasting airplane pretzels, I feel like the people across the aisle saw and were laughing at me (finally got it open by poking it with my headphones cable). Westminster Abbey was really cool, I loved it. SO many important people buried in one place. My new goal is to get at least some sort of memorial plaque in there, they did have some for Americans, including some Presidents which London in general had a lot of monuments for. Also, on the same note, I think every major city that we were in had a John F Kennedy named road in a major area of their city. The rest of the day included checking out the sites: Big Ben, Downing Street, Parliament, Harrod’s (where I bought the new Michael Jackson CD only 3 pounds!) then checking out the Museum of Natural History which was highly regarded in our city guide, not too spectacular, and finished off the day walking around Piccadilly Circus, which was a really awesome area and had dinner at my first Chinese place in months.
Friday was a very productive day. I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot, but it’s true, we’ve done a good job at being productive. First was the Imperial War Museum, which probably was the most time we spent at any museum all trip and deservedly so. This museum, free, as were most of London’s, was fantastic. First was an exhibition room of past machines of war, tanks, artillery, etc from the past century or two. Then there was a real neat informative and interactive exhibit on naval submarines. Next was one of the most emotional parts in a special exhibit on World War II in Britain through the eyes of children. This was complete with letters of children to their parents who were separated from them during London evacuations amongst the Nazi bombings as well as posters and statements issued by the Ministry of Home Security about what to do for your children to protect them. Then, in one of the most memorable parts for me, there was a letter written by a 9 year old girl. She was off on a boat with hundreds of other children to a safer life in America. The letter was sent before she boarded, but the boat was sunk by a German U-boat and no child survived. It then had the letters that were sent to the parents of the children. Just terrible, reading those original letters, thinking about how this was just one case of so many similar stories from that tragic time made me just stand there in silence. There was also an exhibition on the Holocaust which was equally as moving, if not more. I’ve been to concentration camps, Anne Frank’s house, holocaust memorial sites and museums in many cities, but I still never get jaded to it. I know I brought it up in my blog after visiting Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam but god damn was that a terrible atrocity that never should have occurred. This exhibit put a different perspective on it that I hadn’t gotten at many other places and had a lot devoted to the history and roots of anti-Semitic feelings. There, in huge letters, was the great Edmund Burke quote that I love which reads “For evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing”. Too many people did nothing then, or at least in my opinion, after reading what the exhibit had to say about that. I haven’t even mentioned the whole floors of incredibly accurate, visitor-friendly, interactive and enjoyable exhibits they had on the wars of the 20th century. Such a great museum, anyone who is in London should make time to visit it. It’s right off the tube line, free, and was a bit out of the city so it wasn’t crowded with tourists.
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