Well, another trip deserves another picture thread, so I'll try and show some of the things here that we did during those 3.5 days of London. Note that some pictures may be of a somewhat poor quality, but they were all taken with my cell phone camera, not the best of camera's; still, the overall result was better than my former camera, which I used at Istanbul and which totally screwed almost all the pictures I took there, so I had to rely on other people's pictures then. This was much better. It's especially in dark pictures that the quality suffers.
MondayGot up at 6am, first picking up by car one of the guys I went with, whose name is Roderik. We drove to the Eindhoven Airport, where we met Frank, my other travel companion, and you may be surprised to hear that we also got on a plane there. We had a good flight with a nice view over the North Sea and the coastlines as we passed them. Seeing coastlines from up high is really great, especially with a lot of islands, it makes me feel like playing real-time Risk or something.
here is a picture of Roderik (left) and Frank boarding the plane.
Landing at Stansted Airport at about 9.25am we traveled by bus to London central. Arriving at our hostel, which was a really cheap place but with friendly people, a bar, many young people and much more, we checked in and went to explore London, but not after a free drink (actually two, but that was because the staff mistakingly gave us two free cards each. The scotch was good and we were thirsty so we didn't feel it was necessary to report this terrible mistake.
This picture shows the bar, with Roderik and Frank in the foreground.
Today we would try to see Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Southwark Cathedral, the H.M.S. Belfast, the London Dungeon and, if there was spare time (but there wasn't), the Britain at War Experience.
First was the
Globe Theatre. It was rebuilt, the real one (where Shakespeare performed much of his plays) was no longer standing. We got a tour, and our tour guide said little, but he spoke with a voice that was really perfectly English. When you watch Hollywood movies all the time, you almost forget that English can be a beautiful language.
He told us about the red light district that originally the theatre was centred in, about the Thames freezing over during the winter and fairs being held upon the ice, and about the richer theatre guests taking seats not where they had the best view, but where they could best escape the sun in order to preserve their pale skins. But he actually said very little, as he let us into the theatre where we had to be quiet and picture taking was not allowed, because there were actual rehersals going on by actors preparing a Shakespeare play. It was really cool to see one actress being tied to the theatre roof by a sort of bungee rope, so that she could actually be swung into all directions as if actually she were flying. We got to see how she was practicing in attacking from the air another actor, who tried to grab her and force her to the ground.
Southwark Cathedral was next. Again, picture taking wasn't free, but I tried my sleight of hand check and succeeded with, well, not a natural twenty, I must confess, since the quality of my pictures were a little vague because a very stern old lady was opposing me with her spot check. But that didn't bother me much, cause the cathedral's
exterior was far more beautiful than its
interior anyway.
H.M.S. Belfast was next. It is a big Brittish battleship that served during WWII (spearheading D-day) and the Korean War, as well as going on several arctic patrols and the like. Today it rests in the Thames open for visitors, and you can see (and crawl through, and bump your head into) all the little rooms, ladders, etc. where such a crew would spend many weeks: it was really nicely decorated with fake actor figures, as well as the original interior: sleeping quarters, kitchens,
strategic planning rooms,
surgery rooms,
the captain's viewing room, even the cannon operating rooms in which we started a little
"live action roleplaying", and more.
The day was fastly coming to an end, and after some hesitation (we were hungry) we went into the London Dungeon. It ain't cheap (20pounds), and we hardly knew what to expect, but perhaps that was for the best. I'm telling you, we were joking about silly ghosthouses meant only for children, but during our long tour through the dungeons we actually freaked out several times. There were real actors inside with beautiful acting, and we came past torture rooms, plague-infested villages, were immersed into the mystery of Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd and others, even entered the Big Fire of London in 1666. In the end though, we were executed by hanging. I won't say any more than this, cause you'll have to visit it yourself, but really, being hung isn't a pleasant thing... It was one of the best things during our stay here, perhaps only rivalled by the Natural History Museum. Sadly, the entire place was fittingly very dark, and only
one picture actually shows something discernible (not that we had the time to make many pictures): one of the guests being tortured in a chair...
We ate at a good Thai restaurant (though my chicken with honey was really much to sweet even for my tastes), but only very late, and went to bed to get some much needed rest.
TuesdayAnother busy day. Today we would try to visit the London Museum, Saint Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, then take a boat along the Thames toward Westminster, visit the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey there, eat at Piccadilly Circus and go to the Curzon Soho Cinema nearby during the evening. To our own surprise, we managed to do almost everything.
London Museum gave a good (pre)historical overview of the history of London. From its prehistoric foundations, its Roman period of growth, on to the Middle Ages, then slowly fading out until it reaches the Big Fire of 1666. It was interesting, and we saw prehistoric tools, Roman statues, Celtic religious symbols, medieval weaponry (though nothing like what we saw at Tower of London at that), and much more, such as this interesting
"gadget": it can drive around on the dining table and can contain wine or other drink.
Saint Paul's Cathedral was beautiful, and it was obvious that in every way it was modeled after Saint Peter's in Rome, though a
slightly smaller and less extravagant version. We attented a small mass in which there was a lot of handshaking for some reason, then went on to climb the, well, I didn't count them, but I would say almost a thousand stairs (not all of them equally stable at first glance) up until we came upon the dome of the cathedral, where we had a great 360 degrees view of London. Another one of the highlights of London; really, though the cathedral was smaller, the view was much better than from the dome of St. Peter's. Here's a
picture of me up there; of course it was a bit windy, as you can see. Finally, in the cathedral's catacombs, we visited tombs of people like Admiral Nelson, General Wellington (both fought Napoleon) and other national heroes.
A little walk from St. Paul's was the
Tower of London, the medieval castle that has been the stronghold of the royalty while residing in London. The castle was a small village on its own right. While there, in the courtyard
a small play was held: the classic idea of two knights in armor fighting in wits and muscle for the beautiful (in my opinion somewhat bossy) noblewoman. Then we entered the royal treasury, where all the greatest royal jewelry is kept: things like the biggest diamond on earth, big crowns, small crowns, more diamonds, more jewels. Sorry, no pictures were allowed. But unlike most I didn't really care much for the shiny jewels, I was more looking forward to the actual Tower Armory: halls with
walls full of guns,
armor,
polearms, and the occasional
figure in complete armor, including
Thièron u'Tabrièn on horseback. There were a japanese armor, claymores the size of myself or more, three-barreled cannons, a hideous polearm that was used by King Henry as a walking stick (the second one from the left on the polearm picture above, with the long spikes), a few torture devices and more than the eye could see.
The
tower bridge was beautiful, but sadly, we didn't find the time to actually enter it (you could climb it, I believe), but with the view from St. Paul's, I bet it could only have been a second-rate experience after that. We had to get on the boat to Westminster. Here, I should say that my phone batteries had run out, and Roderik made the other pictures using his super-flashy but kind of obsolete camera, and he has yet to develop the pictures, so I must dissapoint you for now. We visited Westminster, the Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, bought some cool little paintings there from someone who thought we were German, and when we walked away at this, he halved the price. That's bargaining a la Dutch - yeah, Dutch are greedy and cheap, is what they say. The Houses of Parliament and the Big Ben were amazing: the delicately cut walls are simply overwhelming when you see it applied on every inch of a huge building complex like this, and the yellow-brownish color of it all was really beautiful.
We went with the tub to Piccadilly Circus, kind of like the place where all the people with plenty of cash go out every night to visit the theatres or drink expensive cocktails. Though we had to look hard for an affordable place for us to get some food (which turned out to be, again, an Asian, this time Japanese, restaurant - very good, with five almost identical sisters serving the food and I guess it were the brothers that were working in the kitchen. We afterwards named the five girls the Five-Lings. Yeah, you can get rather dry after such a long day), still the atmosphere of crowded Piccadilly Circus just before the big shows in the grand theatres are opening is really great. After eating, we went to the Curzon Soho Cinema which was just around the corner, our own more affordable way of going out in Piccadilly Circus. We saw the Spanish movie "El Bano del Papa", translated as "The Pope's Toilet", about a visit of the Pope in the 80's in Uruguay and some poor guy trying to make money from the pelgrims by building a public toilet. Really good movie, with both humor while at the same time showing an almost ant-like hive of people crawling around during the pope's visit, all trying mostly in vein to escape the poverty of everyday life.
Wednesday (recharged my batteries)
If you reached this far, you're about as tired as we were on that day. Still we marched on, torturing our weary legs, to go see Wellington Arch, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Harrods, then on to Chelsea FC Stadium, to return to the hearth of London and visit the Natural History Museum, followed by a fuel stop at McDonald's and a visit to Trafalgar Square, and finally, we went bowling, only to end the day at a pub in Covent Garden in the evening.
I must confess that Wellington Arch and Buckingham Palace were somewhat dissapointing to me. We had tried to come there during the famous Change of the Guards, but due to a poor supply of information we couldn't help it that we didn't know that today there would be none. Still,
Buckingham Palace and
Wellington Arch were a sorry version of Versailles and the Arc de Triomph, and I didn't think it worth the big price to enter the palace either. The only thing that was appealing to my eyes was
a large statue on the square in front of the palace, which depicted the throned Queen Victoria in all her glory, and a few words referring to her Imperial greatness, with the goddess Nike on top. A classic display of Brittish imperial pride, second only perhaps to the tombs of all the national heroes below Saint Paul's. I especially liked it when the sun was almost breaking through the clouds, and its light was cast fabulously on the statue, as if the statue reached out to the gods themselves. I made a
picture of it.
Hyde Park was a good relief from the busy city, but nothing special. We crossed it to get to Harrod's, the old super-storehouse where supposedly you can buy everything you can think of. Well, I couldn't buy an elephant there, but I could buy a real mammoth's tusk for a mere 8-80.000pounds, depending on the thusk's size, or paintings worth double that amount, or dinosaur bones, or the best pianos and guitars I've ever seen (not that I can discern a good from a bad guitar, but their prices were convincing), etc. Not only the selection was
exclusive, but several of the rooms were even decorated in, for example, Egyptian style. I like
this picture I took cause it looks like an opening scene from a movie about some rich guy. Whether we bought stuff? Well, a few books, no mammoth tusks for me sadly.
Chelsea Stadium was next. Chelsea FC is one of the great soccer clubs of Europe. I'm no fan of the club, nor am I a greatful soccer fan, but it's always great to go where the big games are often played. We got a tour, so we could see the
stadium on the inside, including the press room, dressing rooms (with parfume-lockers among other things over which I can get pretty mad),
player shirts (of players like Terry, Ballack, Lampard), and so on. The stadium was pretty impressive, though it was very ugly from the outside, but that's not what matters I guess.
Then on to one of my favorites: the Natural History Museum, with: DINOSAURS! Yay! Once again I felt like a 6-year old child asking permission to the schoolteacher to give presentations about his favorite pets... They had them all, from the
diplodocus (with its
ultra-tiny tailbones) to the parasaurolophus and from the
stegosaurus to the
triceratops, and finally there was the
t-rex. And I love this
sea creature. In skeletal form, of course, though they did have a pretty realistic version of an
animated T-rex. Besides dinosaurs, there were pretty much skeletons and stuffed versions of any bloody mammal or fish or living organism in general that you can imagine: from the
sable-toothed tiger to the
blue whale (with its
absolutely amazing jawbones), from polar bears to giant deer with even bigger antlers, and the extinct
dodo bird. There was
one beast that stood out to me in particular, it is from now on my favorite (extinct) creature, and I want one of my DM's here to make it a monster that I encounter somewhere; he'd have the stats of a grey render or something. But all things considered, Jurassic Park was nothing compared to this, and I'm not even talking about the
amazing exterior yet, or this beautiful
artful collection of birds, or this equally atmospheric
entrance hall. Several times during my stay here, I had the feeling I was being
watched...
or worse.While my day was pretty much complete, and when the museum closed down they almost had to drag me out of the place, we tried to find some non-Asian, truly British food for a change, but in our desperate search, after finding absolutely nothing but superexpensive restaurants, we ended up at McDonald's. Well, it was cheap and fast of course, so we could instantly move on to
Trafalgar Square, named after the famous Sea Battle at Trafalgar, in which the British admiral Nelson defeated the French. Nelson's column was nice, but sadly we hadn't too much time to spend there and moved on after watching a circus act on the square. Trafalgar Square was nice, though Roderik and Frank didn't like it for some reason.
So we went on to go bowling! Yeah, that would normally not really be the first thing on my mind to do on a trip like this, but since it was offered on the all-inclusive London Card which we used to enter all the attractions, we couldn't resist. Sadly though, the bowling track that we got was absolutely worthless: the scoring board was cheating, sometimes we only got to throw once and sometimes thrice, at times the protecting board would not get up (forgive me I'm not really into bowling terminology), and the balls wouldn't get out of the gutter. So after causing a lot of impatience with the employees there (they were assholes, in sharp contrast with the usual, extremely friendly Londoner) we moved on to Covent Garden.
Covent Garden is a big market area, though during the evening we found out that it was also kind of the place where you find all the street musicians and performers, and a lot of very cheerful crowds. One of these performers, I think he was
a scotsman judging by his kilt and his accent, was climbing a ladder (balancing it only on its two feet) while juggling knives, and in one of his hilarious acts, he took a rubber glove and wrapped it around his head, blew it like a balloon until it popped. It's incredible how large such a glove can get before it actually pops, but it was hilarious to see the stupid bloke in his kilt and with the glove on his head sitting on his ladder and blowing furiously until he got a lot of pain from the popping glove. So we had a laugh and went
into a pub, took some beer named London's Pride (sounded sweet but it was actually really poor beer), had some fun and returned to our hostels.
ThursdayThursday was our last day, and we knew we had to be on the bus to Stansted at 14pm, so there wasn't too much we could do. Therefore, we decided to go to the British Museum that day, as it was surely a place that would consume a lot of time but was relatively close to our hostel and the bus station.
The British Museum is immense. You can see the world just be going there. Whether you like ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman artifacts or prefer the European Middle Ages, or whether you like Native American, African or Asian cultures, or prefer the Middle East, everything can be found right there. I have underestimated it: I think that, taking all morning, we have only seen a quarter of all there, and that only very hastily. I think that, given the time, I could spend a whole week there. After all, the museum aims at displaying 'the history of man kind': kind of a broad topic.
We saw
naturally preserved bodies,
Egyptian mummies,
sarcophaguses, statues, we saw Roman and Greek statues, weaponry, and more, we saw Medieval relics, we saw a big Enlightenment library with several relics, we saw prehistoric tools, we saw Native American holy symbols, totem poles, a
map of the Ohio river region made on a deerhide we saw an
Easter Isle Statue, we saw Aztec
masks, more freaky
masks, statues, and weapons, we saw African holy symbols, we saw Arabian compasses and weaponry (really cool ones, including
a katar and a blade that was attached to the gauntlet, or a mace with sort of a demon's face), ceramics, fantastic paintings of mythical heroes and monsters, we saw a
support pillar from Papoua New Guinea (one of my favorites) the only thing we never found was the entire bloody Asian part of the complex: we found a huge Chinese bell, but in the way too short time we spend there never did we find Asia, to my regret, but it serves to give an idea of the size of the museum: you can really get lost there. A few other interesting things were the
Crystal Skull (long believed to be of Aztec making but now known to be a German or Brazilian hoax. Also check the new Indiana movie!) and of course the
famous Rosetta Stone (showing three languages: greek, demotic and hieroglyphic, and as such it was the key to deciphering the latter script. You can see the three scripts on the pic, though you can only get the full effect by taking a really closer look).
So before I knew it time was up. We took the bus to Stansted, took the plane to the Netherlands and after less than an hour of
flying and another hour of driving, I was safely back home.
If you've made it this far, you deserve a medal. No, a column, an arch, or a tomb, the size of Nelson's. Whatever...
Luckily my two travel buddies were less hurried than me and did a good job at pulling my leash tight, while at the same time I managed to pull them along (from their lazy asses) so that we were able to do pretty much all the things we wanted, with a few exclusions, and still have a really good time: museums, pubs, cinema's and churches, a great balance all in all. I'll try to put up a summary with some pics here these days if you're interested, but I first have to get organized a little.