Having finally arrived, Brandon, Nicole and I began walking along the train towards the beautiful exit/entrance to St. Pancras station. After several cars we luckily met up with Lizzi who had just descended the train herself, and the four of us made our way out onto the busy London streets.
We attempted to wander through King's Cross station and find Platform 9 3/4, to no avail. Apparently, you need a ticket to get through that barrier. Being magic isn't enough.
We then set off to find our hostel, taking a slightly wrong turn down one of the streets and finding Café Plaka instead, where we had a lovely lunch before correcting our path. It was an odd mix of people inside, and we couldn't quite tell if they were locals or foreigners or both. London's like that. I suppose most major cities are.
Having dropped our stuff off in lockers at the Clink Hostel--a former courthouse and site of The Clash's famous trial--we mapped out where we would go for the day, beginning with a tube ride directly down to Oxford Circus. We came up from the station and were face to face with the true UK TopShop. Anyone who knows TopShop, I applaud you. Now be jealous that I just wandered through those four levels of expensive entertainment.
We moseyed on down through Regent Street toward Picadilly Circus (a main sightseeing location that I didn't see the last time I was here), which is basically the Times Square of London. I bet if I had stayed in the area longer I could have found a bunch of quirky London-things to do, but we only had 2 days of sightseeing and there's so much more to see! So Picadilly remains a snapshot of a few buildings for me until I come back.
From here we made our way towards Green Park and Buckingham Palace. Just past Picadilly Circus, however, we saw thousands of people marching through the middle of the street holding up signs and shouting. Turns out it was a political demonstration in support of the Sri Lankan Tamils who are being held in concentration camps. It called for their release and British action on their behalf. The line literally stretched for miles and, according to newspapers the next day, was comprised of over 10,000 people. We stopped inside Picadilly Market to just look around and when we came back, they were still marching! Crazy.
The last time I was at the Palace, the gates were crowded with people as we watched the Changing of the Guard, which, by the way, is completely overrated. It would probably be more interesting if it were a less-popular thing to do. I did enjoy seeing the palace itself for a change and the Victoria Monument without dozens of people clambering all over it.
But England is relatively calm when you haven't quite reached peak tourism, you're not traveling in a group of 25, and you're only visiting major sites for short periods of time. We're in what I observe to be a student-tour period. Lots of groups of high school and college aged kids seem to be coming and going in significant-sized groups and most of them from places like Spain, Portugal, Germany, etc. There aren't as many families with kids traveling around London. It makes it rather interesting to have so many people our age walking around because Belgium seems to lack that. At least in the areas where we live and take classes.
Off along St. James Park toward Westminster and the Thames River. Parliament Square was pretty cool. Not only did we see the massive Sri Lanka demonstration walk by again, we were literally in the middle of all the Parliament buildings staring straight up at Big Ben. Very cool feeling.
We walked across the Thames towards the British Museum and the London Eye. Never been in/up either but of the two, only the British Museum interests me. The Eye is way overpriced for a single ferris wheel ride. I'd rather take a helicopter.
From there, we made our way along the Queen's Path toward the Tate Modern, Millennium Bridge, and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. A lovely walk filled with various street performers and artists, a book sale, and tourists as well as locals.
Nicole really wanted to see Romeo and Juliet at the Globe at 7:30, so we tried to get tickets and found them, not surprisingly, to be sold out. But we waited around for returns after 6pm and at around 6:50 we finally got four standing tickets for £5 apiece! Steal! So we stood during the entire 3-hour performance in the cheapest 'seats' available--the floor. Apparently 700 standing tickets are sold every night, so it was quite cramped, but it was pretty neat to see the show from the poor man's position. Goodness knows Nerinx girls (and their teachers) wouldn't have stood throughout that performance. Glad I can say I did!
It was late by European standards at this point, about 11pm, and we had to get back to our hostel and check in still (we couldn't do it earlier when we dropped our stuff off in the lockers because they don't allow check-in until after 2:30 on the day of). Navigating our way to the tube, we made it back safe and sound, checked in without a hitch, and trudged up to bed. I took a shower that night before bed, didn't quite know what to do with all my stuff, and fell asleep to the sound of rumbling London taxis and my 15 other roommates' heavy breathing.
I woke up the next morning and my hair was still wet. Curse body heat for creating so much humidity on the 5th floor. Although, it was just as bad in the basement when I went down for breakfast.
No comments:
Post a Comment