London: Day 2

On our second day together in London, Mary and I visited Westminster Abbey, Winston Churchill's War Rooms, and we took a boat tour of the Thames River.  Despite being excessively crowded, Westminster Abbey is the most beautiful church I have been inside.  It contains the tombs of nearly all of Britain's monarchs and it is intricately decorated, each room representing a different era of British history, with different design schemes, colors, and materials that make up the ornate sarcophagi.  Guards banned cameras inside and unlike in St. Peter's Basilica, they meant it.  You really do have to pay 13 pounds and go to London to see the inside.  But I promise it is worth it.  The sheer amount of history inside and the beauty of the building and its contents- ranging from carvings of kings, queens, and knights to thousand year old tapestries to the tomb of the unknown soldier...to things as superficial as the exact spot where "William and Kate got married!".  It took a long time to get through the entire thing too see every room. What is remarkable to me is that Anglican priests still live there and they hold public services every Sunday.

Since we got a late start that day, we were not able to tour Parliament (pictured directly above).  Similar to the White House, you need a background check and since I'm on the no-fly list for trying to bring a fully stocked tool kit (razor blade, hammer, etc) and six pack of Izzy's through security in Buffalo two years ago, I knew mine would take a bit too long.  So instead, we went to Winston Churchill's War Rooms, an underground office building used by the British Government during the Blitz of London by Nazi Germany during WWII.

The War Rooms were the epicenter of the government during the Blitz because they were the only safe place Prime Minister Churchill could be while made war and defense plans.  They are my favorite historical monument yet, because they were well-maintained and contained an amazing amount of original furniture, equipment and papers.  As I walked through the labyrinth of underground rooms, I knew what it must have been like to live down there when all you could hear were bombs and air raid sirens.  Scary.  Cinder block walls, poor lighting, poor ventilation, small hallways, and generally very military style barrack conditions.  Churchill, his family, his staff and British generals and their staff lived here for weeks or even months at a time.  The entire war was planned from here- they had a secure communications room, a map room with precise world maps wrapped all around the room, bedrooms, a kitchen, and of course, THE War Room.  The famous conference room where Churchill spent met with his generals and staff daily remained just as it was left in 1945.  Mary's grandmother worked in the War Rooms during WWII so it was very cool to be down there seeing it all.  Everything was behind glass of course, so the pictures are a bit fuzzy below.

Our final activity that day was a great tour boat ride down the Thames River.  It's a great way to see the major sights of the city from a far before going to them.  As you'll see from the pictures, it was a beautiful evening in London.

The London Eye, a Giant Ferris wheel, as seen from the boat.

Passing under London Bridge

A crowded top deck of our river boat.  Westminster and Parliament in the background.

This is the foot bridge that gets destroyed in the 7th Harry Potter film!!!  We passed under it in the boat.

Boats cannot pass under Tower Bridge, it ended here.

Mary and I on Tower Bridge at the end of an excellent sightseeing day!

Day three will come soon.  Everything is still going well here- my classes are relatively easy and my host family still feeds me well!  I love most things about France, but I could do without the striking.  All part of the experience, of course.  On Oct. 26th, I'm going back to England for a six day trip to Scotland with Mary.  Barcelona, Paris, Dublin, and a week long trip TBD are coming up.  Study abroad is half over.

London Part 1

Sorry I have not posted in so long!  The past few weeks have been routine- go to class, spend time with my host family, hang out with friends and I didn't travel anywhere until September 30, so I didn't post.  My post about the food has been postponed as well.  In any case, classes are going well and I really enjoy most of them.  French civilization and grammar are both repetitive and not as useful, but my two french literature courses are excellent.  I'm reading medieval and 19th century literature ranging from the Songs of Roland to Victor Hugo classics.  My european history course taught in french is also very good- the professor screams "A LA PAUSE" (at the break) to any student who even attempts to sneak in late and he gives very high energy lectures.  Other than classes, until I went to London this past weekend, I've spent a lot of time with my family and we gained a new host student as well.  Jonas, from Zurich, Switzerland is staying with us for two weeks.  He speaks German and English and a little bit of French and he is here as part of a mandatory stay abroad for his high school degree.  We have trouble communicating because neither of us are allowed to speak english in front of our host family and his french is poor, but he is fun to have around for a couple weeks.

My plane from Nimes to London Luton

I'd been planning a trip to London to visit Mary for awhile, but last weekend ended up being the first time we were both available to do the trip.  So friday morning (Sept. 30), I got up at 5:30am and went to the train station where I met up with my friend Rowena- who goes to Northwestern and is also on the program.  We took a train to Nîmes (about 25 minutes) and then a shuttle bus to the airport there which was very small.  It was my first time flying Ryanair and it was quite the experience.  The ticket might have been cheap but you get what you pay for!  Boarding was cattle-call style and the plane was dirty.  Luckily I got an exit row seat so I could stretch out my legs- otherwise I would have been crammed in like everyone else.  It's an Irish airline and known for being very pushy, rude, and low-cost.  The last one was all I cared about and I made it to London's Luton airport safely without any problems.  The next struggle was getting through customs and getting to Brunel University, about 45 miles away.  Two buses, four hours, and $15 later, I made it Uxbridge, a suburb of London where Mary is staying.  Along the way, the bus drove through St. Alban's (famous private schools) and other little towns that distinctly reminded me of Hogsmeade from Harry Potter.

Me in front of Big Ben at night

A very imposing looking Westminister Abbey at night

His Majesty's Theatre in London's West End

Soon after getting to Mary's, we went into the city just to walk around because all the major attractions were closed after 5pm.  London at night is beautiful however and I'm glad we did.  The "tube" ride into the city takes almost 90 minutes because of construction and upgrades for the 2012 Olympics.  The tube train is very confined- short ceilings and rounded walls, so it gets very warm very crowded very quickly.  This was not the highlight of the trip!

That evening, we went to the West End to try to get last minute tickets to a show with no luck so we walked around Picadilly Circus (like Time Square), Oxford Circus, Trafalgar Square and walked down to Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Parliament as well.  We finished off the evening by witnessing a very strange nighttime bike race which began at Trafalgar Square with the cyclists circling around the Trafalgar fountain.  They all wore crazy colored neon clothes and had eccentric lights on their bikes and the bikes were rented from the London bike share program.  It was odd, but also oddly interesting...

Next post I will talk about all the places I visited in London including the Tower of London, the War Rooms, Kensington Palace, Westminister Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral.  My overall impression of London is that there is altogether too much to do in one weekend, but it was an excellent weekend nonetheless, and I got to see all the highlights of the city and experience some British culture too.  More to come in the next few days.