Churchill, Queen Vic and Quirky Britishness

Each arrival was like skidding onto the tarmac on a Hippity Hop.
"Thanks for choosing Magic Carpet Lines for all your travel needs. SLAM. SLAM...swivelswivelswivel. Eeeeerrrrrrch. Erch. Please refrain from using your mobile phone at this time. Even to discern whether you have whiplash. Or stress palpitations." There's an app for that.

That bus-ferry nonsense getting from Islay to London was a long day. A long day of sleeping on buses and watching The Newsroom, but about eight hours of travel none the less that left us waiting in the dark outside Gatwick very ready for bed. Now I'm not going to name the hotel, which is taking restraint, but we proceeded to check in to the hotel and spend the next four hours trying figure out how we could get out. On Expedia, the hotel looked like an adorable English manor where people wear lacy collars and speak in iambic tetrameter. In reality, it was a mildew and paint chipping mcflurry. Which we had paid a four star price for. Not impressed. And when we had been lead to believe that it was 'right by the airport', I guess 'right by' is a relative term. It was going to take an hour and a half and thirty dollars each day just to travel IN to London. That doesn't even get you BACK! Now. Now I maybe sounding high maintenance right now but as a budget traveller, an unexpected $60 A DAY just in travel expenses makes me nervous. And frustrated. But thank you to Expedia. Here they do deserve props. They worked with us to cool us down and get our money back. And now we're staying at an awesome brand new hotel concept right ON the train line where we have our needs met with a full kitchen and LAUNDRY. With a tiny food market on the ground floor. And free wi-fi!

But to return to that, which I know you are all stoked for. Stank is one thing I was not ready for. I smell y'all. I smell bad. I did not ration my clean clothes very well. And I have poked holes through all my socks. Thank god it's been overcast in the UK so that I can just zip up my rain jacket and seal it all inside. Like a Kryo-vac. This is why you backpack through Europe with your HUSBAND because then he is obligated to refrain from abandoning you in a train station when you look like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown. The bonus is that European airports are set up so that you have to walk through the duty free shop to get to your departure gate after security. So I try a new perfume I can't afford every time. Running to our gate for Brussels all I could think was, "I look ridiculous. But I smell really good." Then I told Moozh about my method and he said, "Babe you need to chill out. Because if you think you smell bad right now, you're going to soon realize that it's only going to get worse."

The first day after our rebooking experience, we headed into London (with our packs) and just got started. The Underground spit us out right in front of Buckingham Palace so we started there.

Victoria Memorial

Buckingham Palace

For the Queen's Jubliee, this floral sculpture was put together with 13, 500 different plants all meant to represent a different gem on her coronation crown. It's 4m high!

 We had to get a picture with the famous red telephone booths!

I promptly stepped inside and DEMOLISHED the phone with my bag simply because my bag is dense like concrete and I have no spatial awareness. So we crossed the street and went to Westminster Abbey.

Big Ben!

St. Margaret's Church is attached to Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey was PACKED and they were searching people's bags. I'm not smuggling drugs but I just don't want anyone to open it up, realize there's nothing in their but underwear and computer cables and then I have to get the spring loaded thing closed again. So we went to St. Margaret's. Outside, there were two different gold statues, probably six feet in heigh each, and then some smaller ones inside. I don't know if they were designed specifically for the Olympics but they definitely do suit the aura that is buzzing around the city like one of those bumper robot vacuums. They are by Eleanor Cardozo. I took numerous photos because they have such phenomenal movement.

George V

London has been madness just like people said it would be. But it's not the NUMBER of people. I think London in the summertime is probably always an exercise in people walking in a different direction than they are looking en masse. But the Olympics have 'colored outside the lines', if you will, when it comes to traffic patterns and the utilization of public spaces. Moozh and I were walking through St. James' park today, just trying to walk through it and three or four times we were faced with either army personnel, replete with fatigues and jaunty berets that make them look "oh so British", London police with those hilarious tall helmets or 'olympic ambassadors' who had the misfortune of having to wear neon yellow 'safety pants' and neon pink safety vests. Walking twenty blocks was an exercise in 'count the people who are looking in confusion at the pylon in front of them, which usually blocked a crosswalk or the rest of the sidewalk, with outstretched arms, "what the faaaaaaaaaaaa".' I counted at least ten between Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey.

There's a rad statue of Churchill in Parliament Square. All of the other statues in the square are of fluttering capes and swords (or fists) thrust into the air. Churchill is just leaning hard on his cane, looking like one of those grumpy goldfish with the underbite, "I don't do capes. But I did beat the nazis. Ain't no thing." Moozh thinks it's ridiculous when I do ghetto impressions of historical figures. But it's really what's made London thrilling. Like doing my best effort of what Queen E (the first) would sound like covering Jay-Z's Run This Town. Comin to you in Hi-Def.

I'm really good at entertaining myself. 

Walking out of St. James' park, we saw this huge tower. "What's this thing? Oh this is Westminster Abbey. Oh....ooooookay." And the House of Parliament. And Churchill's War Rooms and Big Ben. It feels sometimes like you don't know where to look and you soon realize that everything in London is old. Just like Scotland, we were walking in Piccadilly Circus and thinking, "how does H&M qualify for storefront from the early Georgian-period?" But not everything can remain an apothecary's office or an empty building just because something interesting happened their once, a long time ago.

 Along the Thames is the coolest area. Buskers, break dancers, impressionists, the LONDON EYE. It's all there. I could walk it for hours. With the breeze coming off the river, music floating in the air. We really lucked out with the weather because since the Olympics started, it has pissed rain all day. Both days we were in London we had bright blue skies, with huge white clouds that provided just enough breeze for a perfect day. We sang the song on London Bridge. We got pictures of Tower Bridge doing our best David Beckham from that romp through "quirky Britishness" known as the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

And look at that! That's called 'sun' to people from the West Coast. It doesn't come out much in London either. But it came out for us. 

The Olympic mascots are hilarious. They look somewhat like Kenny from Southpark mixed with one of the aliens from Lilo and Stitch. Apparently, there are two and their names are Wenlock and Mandeville.

 There is so much art along the Thames, both sponsored and not. But a rad graffiti park that managed to house both skaters and boarders doing tricks and then unsupervised kids running around waiting for a concussion.

Outside Shakespeare's Globe

One thing that is noticeable throughout London is that at least, if they haven't already made it into a mall or food court or deemed it worthy of a ticket desk and attached a £15 a person admission fee to it, at least they keep it around. This small courtyard held nothing. It was just a bunch of crumbling rock stairs without a roof and what remained of a cut-out window. In a place as busy as London, as global as London, there are still small places that exist that are reminiscent of a time when it was still that, because I think it's always been that but at least reminiscent of a time before now.

We took pictures from London Bridge where we sang the song -well, I did. Moozh definitely did not -with Tower Bridge in the background. They lowered the Olympic rings the next day so it looked just like it did during the Olympics.

 Here I am obviously doing my best David Beckham doing his best James Bond from the Olympic ceremony.

The second day we started at the British Museum. It is quite simply the hugest museum. Have ever seen. I just goes on and on. To go back, I would need the whole day. Museums are kind of my guilty pleasure. I want the camera all to myself, I want the entire day and I don't want to talk. That was not that day. The Parthenon statues are there. The Rosetta Stone is there. They have mummies! Real mummies!

The Rosetta Stone!

There was a large Assyrian exhibit, something I had absolutely no frame of reference for. But they had such ornately intricate carvings and statues.

There was an entire exhibit just dedicated to the lion hunts that the nobles used to go on. So that 'going on a lion hunt' song that you used to sing in preschool? That was based on a real thing. They were just trying to make you globally and historically aware at a young age.

 One of the MANY statues of Aphrodite in the museum. There are many different representations of her but most of them have to do with her looking sensually over her shoulder as she bathes or pulls her clothes back on.

Then there are the Parthenon statues. They have the battle sequences, mainly regarding hand to hand battles between a centaur and a lapith, or a race of people from Greek mythology. Apparently as the story goes, because Greek myths get derailed quite easily, Lapithe and Centaurus were sons of Apollo and someone else. Centaurus was deformed and mated with a mare, begetting what we know as a 'centaur'. Their descendants had this bitterness thing going on after that. It's classic brotherly rivalry obviously. Don't know why they made it on to the Parthenon but it was obviously a big deal.

The Ancient Egypt exhibit is just one glass box after another that keeps you asking "Is that a real…"
And they are. Real mummies. Mummies with 'skin' that dates back thousands of years. They have the implements that they would use to pull out the brains, and the salts that they would pack the skin with to dehydrate it so it would preserve. There is one exhibit where they show you that pre-dating the practice of mummification, some of the Egyptians buried their dead in the sand which functioned very much the same way. The sand drew the moisture away from the body and preserved it. But then some would fold the body up and put it in a basket woven box after which the body would decompose normally. But the fact that they have discovered things OLDER than Ancient Egypt blows my mind.

 They had a really cool exhibit just on time, clocks, and watches. From the elaborate to the simple, large to pocket-sized, it was amazing to see how telling time has evolved into something so sophisticated.

This was a ceremonial sword that was ceremonially awarded to a ruler at coronation. I couldn't conceptualize that someone would actually be able to 'wield' that. But it's just for show. Can you imagine becoming king at 14 and having to stare that thing down? I not only have to make sure that my voice doesn't crack in front of everyone but now I have to throw that at someone?! He be stressin'.

Then you have Japanese swords. The larger, heavier swords, as Moozh put it, were more for just breaking things than actually slicing through things. Not a katana. That is meant to do some fairly delicate damage. 

Trafalgar Square

Tower of London

Roman Emperor Trajan

The Gate to Kensington Palace

Queen Vic

We wandered through Trafalgar Square and saw the Tower of London. One our way home we stopped at Kensington Gardens in Hyde Park and saw Kensington Palace and the Lady Diana Memorial. By then we were barely putting one foot in front of the other so we headed home. Even feeling beat off our feet, we were naming things we wanted to see but couldn't. Oxford, Abbey Road, Sherlock's Baker Street, Warwick Avenue. You can't see everything on two days. Even if you're trying.

The London Underground really is a slick operation. Five hundred trains are operated on twelve different lines. There are numerous connections within the city to National rail lines. You could get from Oxford to Abbey Road and never need a car, never need to even walk down the street. In a twisted way, once we had taken the trains Moozh and I were fascinated to learn more about the Underground bombings, or 7/7. You get a grip on how many people use it, on how compacted it all is.  The day after two of the trains were bombed, people were on the trains again, riding without any issue, no increased security. There's an interesting documentary put out on it called The Tube Under Attack that you can watch on YouTube. The attitude towards it, from people who were there, and who were in charge of dealing with it, is so different. Not a lot of tears, just really reflective. 

The Underground symbol, so easily recognizable. 

This is truly a girly aside: there are GREAT clothes in London. And really well dressed people. Really cool and distinctive. Which only made me, in my four-day rotation rotation of stinky clothes, really covetous. But I had great clothes once upon a time and then I got rid of them to do this. And I have never experienced anything so cathartic. This trip has shown me that it's all just stuff. Everybody has stuff, stuff that they don't need or that they haven't really thought about. People are aesthetic beings and so liking stuff, liking clothes, is not a bad thing. But it needs the balance of knowing it's just stuff. I will have stuff I like again one day. Just after I have the trip of a lifetime and learn to get along without them.

Things I learned in London:
A good subway makes all the difference.
If you pay and you aren't happy, talk to someone (nicely) about it. They might be able to do something for you. It might even be money!
Cornish pasties are the next cupcakes. Trust.

Quote from London:

"What if a bomb went off right now?" 

"We are ON the Underground."