London, Baby

The reason Ryanair flights are so cheap is not only because they nickel-and-dime you ($15 mandatory online check-in, plus they charge you for any extras), but also because they fly at off-peak hours to smaller airports away from the big cities. This actually worked out perfectly for us. Not only did we love our afternoon in Bologna, which we only did because we had an evening flight out of this lesser-used airport, but we fly into London-Stansted airport, which is about an hour outside London. We arrived late at night, so it gave us a perfect excuse to stay in our first real hotel room of our journey! Steph was pumped. The Hilton Stansted Airport cost us about $90, but we milked it for all it was worth. Took nice, long hot showers, watched some TV (in English!), went to the on-site gym in the morning, and raided the maid's cart for as much shower gel as we could get our hands on. Check-out was at noon and we weren't about to walk out that door until 11:55. Then, it was back to reality... Not surprisingly, London is expensive. We thought we were going to have to pay $30 for a dorm bed - each! That's no good, so we tried to Priceline a cheap hotel room. No dice. It would've been at least $75 each night for one way outside the city. Finally we found a hostel that had just opened for $20 each. It just opened. How bad could it be? Ha. Kinda bad, actually, since they weren't nearly finished. They were painting the bathroom doors when we showed up. Truthfully it wasn't so bad. The dorm rooms were all finished and new and it was a good location right near all the main sites. Plus, there was hardly anyone there so we had a whole room to ourselves the first night and just one other couple the second. We hardly spent any time there either, as we were out and about exploring all that London has to offer, which is a LOT.

Despite the enormous network that is the London Underground (the "Tube"), we never used it, or the red double-decker buses for that matter, as we walked all over the city. Our first stop was Buckingham Palace. Pretty cool, but nothing to write home about (wait a second...). We went back the next morning to see the famous changing of the guard, and it seemed like everyone in London was there. Just an incredible amount of people. We watched a couple groups come down the street and into the gates and just gave up and got out of there. I'll never understand what the big fuss is with some of these tourist attractions.

Buckingham Palace

Flowers outside Buckingham Palace

All the tourists watching the British in their silly hats

Actually the parks around the palace were better than the palace itself. The flowers outside were nice, then we made our way into St. James Park to see all the ducks and geese in the lake and the tourists gawking and frantically photographing the squirrels. I couldn't help but laugh and think how stupid the British are when I saw the sign saying "Don't feed the pelicans" thinking that they were mistaking a bunch of geese and waterfowl for pelicans. They live on an island for goodness sake. Then I saw some huge white pelicans sitting on a rock. Oops.

St. James Park

Not a pelican

I must say that I did really enjoy seeing Big Ben. We discovered that Rick Steeves has free audio walking tours you can download to your iPod, so we listened along as we toured around the Westminster area of London. Did you know Big Ben isn't the clock or the tower, but actually the giant bell inside? We heard it chime the famous dong-dong-ding-dong tune at the hour, which was pretty cool but surprisingly short. Thought maybe there'd be a second verse. I couldn't help but think of Peter Pan when I saw Big Ben, especially when we passed it at night, but Steph didn't get the reference.

We walked by Westminster Abbey, but only saw the outside since it was closed. We saw the Parliament building and made a note to come back the next day to see the British government in action (never did). We were glad we had the audio guide because we would've walked right by Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister, if we hadn't. It's not much to see, actually. Just a square brick building painted black. It was originally yellow but slowly became black because it was, basically, just that dirty (it was neglected for a while). Once they realized that the residence of the Prime Minister was covered in a thick layer of soot, they cleaned it and painted it black because that was it's well-known appearance. There is a lot of cool history in London with their kings and queens and struggle for power, and much of it took place in the relatively small area between Parliament and Trafalgar Square.

Parliament building

Westminster Abbey

These poor guys take a lot of abuse

Trafalgar Square was definitely my favorite spot in London. Just a whole lot going on and a cool mix of old and new. Nelson's Column is in the center, surrounded by four huge bronze lions, which is a very popular photo spot. There are numerous fountains and statues all around the square, even one of George Washington which I found rather ironic. According to Wikipedia, it is erected on soil brought over from the U.S., to honor Washington's declaration that he would never again set foot on British soil. In the center of the square there were about 15 big robots, similar to the one's you'd see on automotive factory lines. They had a strip of light on the end of each "arm", which they would wave around and flash seemingly randomly. Turns out it is some sort of modern art display, and there were cameras all around that would photograph the robots lights in such a way that they would spell out messages that anyone can go and submit online. Pretty cool. You'd never be able to tell what it's spelling while there, though, so I guess they send you a movie clip afterwards. We've submitted one but so far no luck.

Trafalgar Square, don't expect a postcard

Sitting above Trafalgar Square is the National Gallery, probably Britain's best art museum. Here we go again... Actually this one is free, so we had no problem giving it a shot. If we don't like it, we just leave. Well lo and behold we actually liked it. There was a broad range of paintings from the mid-13th century to early-20th century. We breezed through the Renaissance-period rooms that were similar to what we'd seen in Florence, but gradually slowed as the time period progressed. I particularly liked the landscape paintings, especially some from Dutch painters in the 17th century. Steph really liked some of the impressionist works, though thought Van Gogh's Sunflowers was very overrated. Here are a few of our favorites:

Akseli Gallen-Kallela's Lake Keitele - my favorite

Théo van Rysselberghe's A Coastal Scene - Steph's favorite

Quinten Massys' An Old Woman - what is this?!?!

We also made a brief stop at the British Museum, which houses all sorts of old-world antiquities, mainly from ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman. Since we were just about to leave for Egypt, we felt like we should see what they have, but also wanted to save some of it for the real place. So, we basically just saw the Rosetta Stone and then strolled through some of the other rooms. We were tired. It was right after the National Gallery and museums have a way of taking it out of me. Kinda like shopping does. From there we stumbled on a bit of luck, though we weren't so sure at first. We'd heard that London was different from most of Europe in that "the museums are free, but you pay to enter the churches." It's true. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral thinking we'd just admire it from the outside. The time was about 4:45 in the afternoon and we surprised that we were able to just walk right in without anyone asking for a ticket. Turns out they were about to hold a 5 o'clock service, which we happily joined. Sure, we were under-dressed and the lady gave us a double-glance when we asked for a program, but they were inviting anybody and when else do you get to sit in on a service in a 17th-century church? We know nothing about the Anglican denomination, and Steph was a little weirded out by the formality of it, but it was primarily a worship service and the program told you exactly when to stand up and sit down and what to say. It didn't, however, explain that the little pads hanging from each seat are for kneeling in prayer and not, as I had assumed, for back support. Don't you love how I started the trip thinking how dumb the British are and am then continuously reminded that I am just a dumb American. Anyways, the sounds of the choir echoing off the beautifully painted and gold-trimmed walls and ceilings of the huge cathedral was truly a memorable moment. 

The Rosetta Stone - seen it.

St. Paul's Cathedral - sorry, no pics inside

On our last night we made sure to trek all the way across town to Tower Bridge and Tower of London. Okay, so this is a little confusing. Tower of London isn't really a tower at all, but an old fortress on the bank of the Thames River. Not terribly interesting, but it used to be surrounded by a moat and there was a special entrance straight from the river into the fortress which I found pretty cool. Tower Bridge is the famous suspension bridge over the Thames that you've seen in pictures and movies. It's awesome, but I was disspointed that it wasn't the "London Bridge" that I sang songs about as a kid. The London Bridge is actually one bridge upriver from the Tower Bridge and is notably not interesting. I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but there have been many London Bridge's over the years, including one that fell down in such a way that apparently inspired a nursery rhyme, but one from the 1960's was sold and is now in Arizona. Weird. Either way, the London Bridge as it stands is boring. Tower Bridge is not.

Tower Bridge and reflection on River Thames

Tower of London and the old moat entrance

Our last day the famous London weather finally showed up and it turned cold and rainy. So, we missed out on a few things we wanted to see such as Picadilly Circus (not a circus like the Ringling Brothers), Abbey Road, Sherlock Holmes museum, and some of the more famous neighborhoods of London such as Notting Hill. It's turning into a tradition to leave some things left to see, to keep us wanting more and give us a reason to come back. We will come back to London at some point, as we really enjoyed it much more than expected. I'm sure the fantastic weather we had for most of our visit played a big part in that, but there is just so many facets of history to explore in London there's always something to do. We'll have to save up more money for the next trip though, since it is bloody expensive. We actually managed to spend relatively little since we stayed in a dorm, didn't pay for any attractions or transportation, and ate mostly prepackaged food from the grocery store. Now we are in Egypt and are loving the hot, chaotic, (inexpensive) mess that is Cairo. We're going to have to post a blog about our stay here soon, since tomorrow we are leaving for a two-day tour to an oasis and the surrounding desert. Sweet!

Does anyone else not think of Peter Pan and all the little kids in pajamas when they see this?