London

So on our flight out of Montpellier, Jess and I get up to the Ryan Air Desk, where the nice lady tells us that she is sorry, but the desk is now closed because check in ends 40 minutes before the flight.

I tried to look as desperate, pathetic, and frazzled as I could in order to get some sympathy and I asked if there was anything she could do seeing as 1) no one had informed us of this policy and 2) according to the clock behind her we were exactly 3 minutes late. So she radioed in, said something in rapid fire French, and then told us to hurry up and give her the bags.

Had it not been for the rush, she probably would have charged my bag for being 3 Kilos over the weight limit. Now mind you, each kilo you go over is 5 euros. I wasn’t trying to pay that, but like the kid who asks the teacher ‘What’s our homework?’ when she forgets to assign it, I knew it was better to keep my mouth shut so my wallet would stay fatter.

Being Ryan Air, the flight was pretty budget. I don’t think I had ever seen more people packed into one airplane. And when I say packed, I mean packed to the point where it was questionable if we were going to be too heavy to get off the ground. It was only an hour flight and for around 50 dollars, I could live with flying like I was on the Tokyo subway. Again for what was not the first time on this trip, I am reminded that more often than not, you do indeed get what you pay for.

We landed at London’s Stanstead station, about an hour out of the city and took a bus. The bus dumped us off at a station that apparently is one of the main hubs in the city. A nice little bus station, train station, and metro station mix. Finding out where the train station stopped and the metro station started, was a large enough task in itself. Working the little machine that charged me 4 pounds, or 8 US dollars for those of you not familiar with the exchange rate, was a bit confusing. However, when we finally made our way into the Metro Station, I was greeted with the most zig-zig and indecipherable subway maps I have ever seen. In DC, the metro has 5 lines, all of them made up with primary colors. In London there are so many lines, that they have not only primary colors, but also shades.

“OK, so were gonna take the lime green one?”
“I dunno, I think I would call that more of an off-grass color, wouldn’t you?”
Luckily, there were not only colors, but also letter and numbers to go along with said lines.

It was at this point, where it dawned on me that we were actually in an English speaking country, and unlike where I had spent the last month, I could turn to the person next to me and actually speak in a sentence which would not cause that person to develop a nervous tic from trying to understand what the hell I was saying.

“How do you get to Russel Square”
“Take the ------ line, its right over there”

Its nice to be able to communicate with the natives.

So we get on our subway, heading in the correct direction just chatting away and the sound signaling that the doors are about to close goes off. This causes a bustle of activity and I wasn’t really quite sure why. Take a chill pill London.

Then the reason for the hubbub reveals itself. The subway doors here SLAM shut. If they don’t chop your limb off when they close, which given their speed is totally possible, there is no way your getting back whatever you got stuck in that door. God help you if its your arm or leg that got caught in the door because your not gonna see that puppy again. You very well could be dragged along side the train to your death.

This is not the metro at home, where the nice robot lady tells you ‘doors closing’ and then the doors calmly close and will open again about 5 times before they even start to get irritated and buzz if the door detects something in their path. No. These doors are closing so you better make up your mind and either get on or get off, because being indecisive will only get you a trip to the hospital.

When we arrived at Russle Square, all fingers, toes, limbs, etc. present and accounted for, I realized that somewhere along the way, I had dropped the directions telling me how to get from the station to our final destination. Even though I had learned my lesson about how fun it is to have no idea how to get from the subway station to your final destination when I was in Barcelona, the gods still wanted to toy with me despite my planning. Oh and Tim’s phone number was on that paper so I could not call him and get directions. Great.

So I called Lauren, and her and Tim came down to rescue us and showed us the way to our home for the next five days. On our walk, Lauren told us about how around the second week into their trip, some chick had a mental break down (more on the benefits of that later) and had to go home. So the sleeping options were both of us could have our own beds in the girl’s flat since they had started out with an extra bed pre-break down. Or I could share a bed with Tim in the guy’s apartment. It wasn’t a tough choice since I made sure to get inoculated against cooties before going abroad.

So we got to their flat. I know, flat, how British. The Colgate apartments in London are pretty upscale. Good location, bed rooms off of a big common, area, totally modern bathrooms, and all new kitchens. This sharply contrasts to lonely concrete room I have in Geneva, with communal bathrooms, and a kitchen where I have to go to the kitchen on another floor and steal a grate for the toaster oven whenever I want pizza.

So what was the first thing I did when I got to London you ask? Rush over to Big Ben? Tea with her majesty? Hell no. I took a 4 hour nap. I still wasn’t recovered from Barcelona and that coupled with of my last week in Montpellier had made me quite snoozy.

The next morning, sitting on the couch and trying to decide what to do for that day, I did something I have never ever done before in my life. I actually tore a coupon out a newspaper. I had a ‘god damn it am becoming my father’ moment, but the coupons gave me two big macs and a big mac with medium fries both for two pounds.

Also, the Bristish, unlike the French or the Swiss, understand McDonalds. In France and Switzerland a burger is more expensive than actual food and there is nothing fast about getting your meal. When I say more expensive, take for instance, a big mac meal in Geneva is 11 Francs, about 10 bucks US. Depending on where you go, you can get a good sandwich, soda, and pastry for about the same price. There is no point in going to McDonalds if its more expensive than real food and takes just as long to be served. But thankfully, England’s McDonalds function like ours.

China town, on our way to Buckingham Palace (I think). Nothing notable happened but this looked cool.













Our first stop- Buckingham Palace. This was a lot like the white house with a fancier gate around it. You can’t really get that close to the actual building, there are lots of tourists taking pictures in front of it, and once your there you kind of expect something exciting to happen but its doesn’t. You just kinda stand there and you think ‘oh the queen of England lives there. Uh so now what?

Then we walked up to West Minister Abby. But because it was Sunday, it was closed to the public unless you were going to pray or attend services. Ha ha yea right.




Then we went to Big Ben which was really close. It was cool, but I don’t really have anything interesting or witty to say here. It was big, and looks exactly like it does in just about every picture/tv show/movie that references London.









So then we met up with Timmy underneath the London Eye. He was sick of sitting in archives doing research all day. I am thankful I am not on the London program. Lauren described it as every day they just go to archives, where your afraid to blink too loudly for fear of getting sushed, and it’s full of little old men in glasses sitting around writing the text book that you will be studying next year. And apparently it is also very easy to tear the 300-year-old original documents since they are so old and fragile so you need to be extra careful. No fun.

Anyways, we did not ride on the London Eye because it takes about half an hour and despite being the biggest of its kind in its world, its still a ferris wheel. I prefer bumper cars anyways.

From there, we walked down to St. Paul’s Cathedral, home of just about every important British Wedding and Funeral ever. It was really impressive, but I could not take pictures of the inside, and again, since it was Sunday, tours were not being offered but services were.

That night was the Super Bowl. I was still tuckered out so I was in bed around 9:30, half an hour before kick off. The first super bowl I haven’t watched in my entire life, and it turns out to be one of the best in a long long time. Solid. However, I did get 13 hours of sleep.
The next day, Jess and I hopped on the Tube, which was much less confusing this time around, and went down to the Tower of London.

Fun Fact: In most cities, pedestrians have the right of way. In London, this is not the case. If you dare to cross the street when the little man on the signal is red, you had better book it. Like the doors on the subway, the cars do not slow down and would have no problem laying your ass out.

The Tower of London houses such wonders as the crown jewels and really old jails and torture chambers. I think. I wouldn’t know though because to go inside was 16 Pounds or 32 dollars. I kinda regret not doing it, but 32 bones is a lot for an entry fee. Pictures were free though.








So then we crossed the Tower Bridge, which I assumed was London Bridge cause its way cooler than the London Bridge. London Bridge is just a straight up plain bridge. If it has a whole song devoted to it, I think there should be a little bit more to it. Who cares if some boring bridge is falling down? Not me.







Then we went over to the globe theater where Billy Shakespeare, used to enjoy putting on plays. We thought about getting tickets to a play, but shows were not going to be put on until the next month.

A tour of the globe would have run about 12 pounds. I coulda gotten 6 big macs for that price so we declined. However, Jess and I were sooo close to slipping inside though when the tour guides were changing, but we were too slow to realize that the door had been left unmanned and when we started making moves, they were back. That’s really living on the edge though right? Almost breaking into the globe theater? Its level of rebelliousness is right up there with not recycling.







After our almost break in at the globe theater, we went to the Tate Modern. We walked in to what seemed like a warehouse and there was a giant crack in the ground. Both of us stared at it for about five minutes, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Then we found an explanation about how it was supposed to represent underlying racism in our society. If you say so….

Upstairs though there the exhibits were was cool. Being a modern art museum there were something that were, at the risk of sounding uncultured, totally wack. I did realize though that I prefer art that has some sort of message over art that tries to evoke a ‘mood’. After about an hour and a half of looking at priceless works of art, your brain can start to feel mushy, your feet start to hurt, and everything kinda starts to run together.

Then, yea you better believe we did all of that in one day, we took the tube over to Harrods. This is the mecca of overpriced goods. Take the Wal-Mart idea of everything under one roof and the set up of a department store. Now make everything in there a designer good with the prices to match and you get the idea behind Harrods. Im surprised they can stay open, it’s the size of a city block, 5 (?) levels, and I didn’t see anyone actually making purchases except for in the food department.

Jess and I spent the majority of our time in the toy wing and said food department. I had heard that there is a killer gelato stand, but it was nowhere to be found. However there was a fudge counter. I wanted some, but wasn’t trying to make purchases. The answer?

Samples.

Jess taught me the right way to take a sample. When you eat it, make a face like you don’t like it and give a reason as to why your not a fan, “its too sweet, I don’t like strawberry, its not soft enough etc. This lets you 1) not feel obliged to buy and thing and 2) leaves the door open to try another one that you ‘would enjoy more.’ Clever girl. The fudge really was not that good anyways. The stuff from the beach is way better.





Fun Fact: The guy who owns Harrods is the father of Doti Al-Fayed, the dude who was in the car with Princess Diana when her car played Pong with tunnel walls. He is convinced that there was a conspiracy to kill Diana and has pissed off the royals enough that they refuse to grant him British citizenship.









Doti's Monument to himself inside the main stairway of Harrod's.

On Tuesday, we went to the Portrait Museum and the British Museum. They not kidding about it being a portrait museum. There were more portraits and busts than you can shake a stick at. They ranged from tons of long since dead kings and queens, to Warhols, to a 3-D one of JK Rowling that I can only describe as similar to a diorama. Towards the end though, it was a lot like the Tate, my mind was mushy and all I wanted to do was sit down. If we had been there a week later, we could have caught the 100 years of Vanity Fair exhibit, which would have been nice cause I could look at people I actually recognized as opposed to royals from the 18th century who all have the same look of “I have a stick up my ass” on their faces.

Then we went to the British Museum which touted itself as the home to “Ancient Treasures of the empire.” We saw the Rosetta stone, lots of Ancient Egyptian Artifacts and tons of statues taken off of the Partenon way back when.

The next day, our last in London town, we took a leisurely stroll through Hyde Park and saw Kensington Palace because we had seen everything we wanted to. It was a lot like Central Park.

That night, I got to see a play with their group for free because the girl who had a mental breakdown had paid for everything and Colgate had bought all of the tickets and such before she flipped out, so they always have an extra ticket for everything they go to. The play was called The History Boys. They had all read, or at least in Tim’s case were supposed to have read, the play before going, but I had no idea what it was about. Basically, it the story of British School boys in an all boys private school preparing for getting into Universities. Sounds kinda lame, but it was quite good and I guess the powers that be agree because it won six Tony’s in 2006. Which was either the most ever or a tie for the most ever. Can't remember.

London was awesome. It didn't feel that much like a foreign country, sorta like Manhattan meets Georgetown with accents.