London Day 1

Friday, March 18

I woke up obscenely early (4:45) in the morning to catch the first metro to the train station for my train from Paris to London. Despite some confusion on where the Eurostar platform actually was and a long line for customs and border patrol, my friend and I both made it on time for the train. The ride was surprisingly good with comfortable seats. Surprisingly enough, the part of ride under the English Channel only took 20 minutes out of the 2 hour 15 minute trip, a fact that I happily embraced because the thought of being in a tube under the water was not something I was extremely fond of thinking about. Something else I found helpful was that I got to watch part of a movie the people diagonal to me had on their laptop with French subtitles, except they turned it off halfway through so now I have to watch it all over again to find out what happens.

When we finally got the St. Pancras International Train station near Kings Cross in London, we proceeded to get some British pounds out of the ATM, buy some metro passes, and make our way to our hotel near Hyde Park. Once we verified our reservation and dropped off our bags, we got some much needed traditional English breakfasts. I got toast with tomatoes, onions, and cheese, while my friend got the traditional egg, toast, bacon, sausage, beans, and hashbrowns. 

English Breakfast

After breakfast we went back to the metro, which we took to Tower Hill to visit the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. When we got out of the metro however, it was pouring rain, putting a damper on our plans, especially since I was unable to use my camera. Nevertheless we managed to use newspapers as shields against the rain to make it to a tourist shop where we purchased an umbrella and continued on to the Tower complex. After purchasing our tickets we made our way across the moat and inside the fortress, which we toured a little on our own before going back to the entrance for a guided tour with a Yeoman Warder or Beefeater. Our guide was hilarious given the topics he discussed during his presentation inside the Chapel, including medieval waste management, war, torture, and execution. Since it was raining heavily, the rest of the usually one hour tour was canceled, but we used our newly acquired historical background to explore on our own instead. First, we visited the Crown Jewels, which were amazingly beautiful. All the objects were so intricately decorated and there were interesting videos interspersed throughout the exhibition showing the objects being used in ceremonies. One scepter had the largest diamond in the world, and many of the crowns had more precious jewels embedded in them than I have seen in my entire life, however my favorite was an exess constructed out of gold and jewels and made to resemble a medieval castle. It reminded me a lot of my 7^th grade social studies project.

After the jewels we wandered through White Tower, the part of the complex first constructed by the Norman King William I, or William the Conqueror in 1078. Inside there was a lot of armory and weaponry, but the part I found most interesting were miniature models of the evolution of the Tower complex from the middle ages to the present. Finally, the last part of the tour took us to the dungeons, which oddly enough now house the gift shop. Next, we went to a café within the complex where I got espresso and a cupcake before leaving to visit Tower Bridge. 

Photo ofTower Bridge Courtesy of My Friend

 

After taking photos at the bridge, we walked across and went in search of the Leathermarket, which we had seen labeled as such on our tourist map. After walking for quite a while, we found the leather market, however we soon realized that it was no longer a market for leather goods, but rather converted office spaces. A little fatigued and increasingly frustrated with the pouring rain, we decided to make our way over to the Modern Tate, the modern art museum. Along the way we stopped to take photos of a modern art display under an overpass, and noticed a fish and chips diner, which we decided to stop in.  After my first meal of fish and chips in London, we continued on to the museum, which was amazingly cool, from the actual structure itself (although the layout was a little too post-modern for my taste at first) to the artworks and exhibitions. 

Fish & Chips

Since we had been walking all day, we soon became tired, however we managed to see everything we wanted to before walking over Millennium Bridge toward the metro at St. Paul at sunset and taking some amazing photographs. For dinner we went to a Thai restaurant, where due to a long line we decided to eat outside and enjoy the good weather. We got both got Pad Thai, which I successfully ate only using chopsticks. After dinner, we were really tired so we called it a night. 

Millennium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral

View from Millennium Bridge

View of London Skyline including Tower Bridge

Pad Thai