- Houses of Parliament/Big Ben
- Westminster Abbey
- St. Paul's Cathedral
- Tried (and failed) to see the Temple of Mithras
- Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
- Harrod's
Westminster Abbey is right across the street from Parliament, and we were both really excited about going there. I wrote in my journal that the weight of history there is overwhelming, and it really is...I mean, you're walking where people have walked for centuries, and every place you turn is a tomb or monument to some fantastically famous person from the past. It was a little awkward...at first I tried to avoid walking on the tombs, but it's sort of impossible. So, sorry famous dead people buried in Westminster Abbey. I tried.
Anyway, Westminster Abbey was by far my favorite stop on this entire trip. It's totally Gothic and spectacularly beautiful, and I still sort of can't believe I saw where Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots and Henry VIII and all these other people I've read about in books are buried. We got the audio tour, and I'm so glad, because without it I don't think I would have known where to look or what I was looking at half the time. It's really too bad you can't take pictures inside, although of course I understand why. One of the sort of amusing things to see there was "the oldest door in Britain," which dates from 1050 (!). We also saw the room where they used to keep the country's gold standard, which I think was from around 1090. I just can't believe I was walking around someplace that's been around for almost 1,000 years. Whoa.
After the Abbey, we got on the Tube and made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral. We stopped for lunch at a pizza place across the street, and Brock gave me a hard time because I was teasing him for considering pizza for lunch yesterday (given that we're from one of the world's great pizza-eating regions). However, today pizza sounded good, so it wasn't silly anymore. :)
St. Paul's is also beautiful and amazing, with the added dimension of being really tiring. We climbed all 530 very tight, mostly spiraling steps to see the Whispering Gallery, the Stone Gallery and then the Golden Gallery all the way at the top. It was worth it, but if you had a vertigo problem you'd never make it! The views were awesome and again, Brock took some great pictures. Like the Abbey, you can't take pictures inside, so we just bought a bunch of post cards and a snow globe for Hannah.
After that, we attempted to find the Temple of Mithras, but we're pretty sure it was obscured in a construction area so we didn't get to see it. We walked all around, but didn't find anything that looked remotely like the ruins of an ancient Persian god. Just a lot of cranes and large construction equipment. Bummer.
Next up was a walk across the Thames to go to the Globe Theatre, which was a little touristy but worth the trip. We had a nice tour and learned that they built the theatre using Elizabethan materials and methods, which was one of the reasons it took so long to construct. I'm sure that builders in Elizabethan times knew just what to do with plaster that had cow's hair in it, but I imagine modern tradesmen had some trouble dealing with it. :)
Then we had to walk over to the London Bridge Tube station, and I got a little wiggy because we got out of the bustling tourist areas and into some quieter parts of town...Brock pointed out that I should probably be more nervous IN the busy tourist areas, but I generally feel more comfortable knowing I'm among bunches of other people who also "aren't from around here" and probably don't know where they're going any better than I do.
We took the Tube to Harrod's, mostly because I just wanted to see it since it's so famous. It is huge and overwhelming, and I don't see how people normally shop there. We didn't buy anything because it was already expensive, and the exchange rate is awful. We did, however, stumble across the Chocolate Bar, where I had the very best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life. It was "Italian hot chocolate" and was just dark chocolate and cream. It was very thick and very rich and very delicious. That perked me up, because I was getting pretty tired by that point and my feet had started tingling from all the walking. We did find Toy World on the fourth floor, and I took a picture of Brock with a giant crocodile hand puppet.
After that, it was back toward the hotel. We stopped for some "take away" dinner and then came back to the hotel to put our feet up. We ended up going out again for a short time to check out the London souvenir shop around the corner, but it was all pretty cheesy tourist stuff. I mean, if you know someone who collects teapots or something, it's fine, but otherwise there's not much reason to bother.
So...tomorrow we're heading home. It's been a wonderful trip, and I can't think of a single thing I want to do that we haven't done. If we had more time here I'm sure we could explore much more, but we managed to pack a whole bunch of really cool stuff into three days. And I miss Hannah, so I'm looking forward to seeing her tomorrow and giving her the souvenirs we bought for her. Hopefully she a) remembers who we are and b) isn't too mad that we left her.
More observations:
- I'm not sure why, but every time you order a Coke in a restaurant they put a slice of lemon in it. I like lemon in Coke, but it's different. As a side note, Coke in Europe is YUMMY because they put real sugar in it. But like Brock says, you definitely feel like you have to brush your teeth afterward.
- Brock's sense of direction and map-reading abilities are mind-boggling. I would literally have been lost without him, because I have no sense of direction whatsoever. He just walks around like he knows exactly where he's going. We never got lost once.
- I really wish I had a British accent. Everyone here sounds SO COOL. I was sort of thinking in a British accent after awhile, but I tried to make myself stop because it even sounded silly in my head. *chuckle*
- Avoid the Tube at rush hour. It is quite overwhelming.
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