England: Day II (London)

Tuesday, July 12^th:

Tower Bridge Over the Thames:

            London is a really fun city by day filled with tons of beautiful sights. Today we slept in a little bit and then made our way over to the Tower of London by way of the London Underground after eating some pastries from Starbucks (yay…). The best way to travel this mode of transport is to pick up an Oyster Card, which is a rechargeable card that scans you in and out of the subway stations and automatically calculates the fees. It is unbelievably efficient. We rode it over to the Tower of London to see our first real tourist site of London. The Tower of London is a giant fortress which was the seat of the British crown for centuries, and now is the location of, most importantly, the British Crown Jewels. We toured the area, seeing old prisons, palaces, and the old chapel royal (which is closed unless you have a guided tour) before we waited in the rather long line to view the crown jewels. It is definitely worth it, and this collection is the most powerful and impressive I have seen yet. And what’s more, these jewels are still in use! There are tons of scepters, orbs, trumpets, crowns, jewels, robes, ceremonial plates, and beautiful decorations on display in each room, and the wait was a mere fifteen minutes.

The Tower of London and the Gherkin Building:

            Following the Tower of London, we walked over to the iconic Tower Bridge which stands tall over the Thames River. We rode the elevator up to the top to check out the views and see the exhibit about bridges around the world before making our way back down for lunch. On our way, we got to see the Tower Bridge road actually rise up to allow a tall sailboat through, so that was pretty cool. We stopped at a local brew-pub called The Draft House for lunch and enjoyed some of their home-brewed ale and some beer-battered fish and chips. From here we walked to the nearest underground station to make our way over to Westminster to check out Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. When you exit the underground station at Westminster, you are literally greeted by the massive bell tower that you have seen so many times on the media, but (for me anyway) nothing compares to seeing it in person.

Big Ben and the Palaces of Westminster:

            We walked around the area taking pictures of the Houses of Parliament inside the Palaces of Westminster before making our way over to the Abbey. Unfortunately, tourists are not allowed inside the Palaces unless they are with a guided tour (only on Saturdays) or unless they go in to watch the debates in Parliament, which carried a two hour wait. Instead, we walked inside the world famous Westminster Abbey, the center of the Church of England for over a millennia. No pictures are allowed inside, but this church has one of the most impressive interiors that are to be found in the entire world. The original church dates back to the 8^th century, and nearly all the kings, queens, and important figures of British history are buried here. It is covered with lavish gothic decorations, coats of arms of knights passed, and just beautiful tombs. We spent over two hours here, checking out the graves of the kings and queens of old as well as the Shakespeare monument and the graves of Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, to name a few.

Westminster Abbey:

            Next we walked over towards Buckingham palace again, walking by the government buildings of London where the Prime Minister resides. We discovered this by asking a police officer who he was guarding as he stood outside a building with a submachine gun. He asked us to guess, and then told us jokingly it was Simon Cowell before telling us the truth. He then offered the best quote of the trip, saying “If Simon Cowell was inside that building I would go in there and shoot him myself.” Classic. When we got to Buckingham Palace we discovered that the Palace was closed to tourists while the Queen was living there, and that she would not again leave until the middle of August until October. Bummer, but it was also funny because the Queen was hosting a private garden party for select guests, who came pouring in and out of the palace wearing the fanciest hats and penguin-tail tuxedos I had ever seen. We grabbed a beer at a really cool and old bar called Westminster Arms near Buckingham. We both tried Spitfire Ale of of the cask, and decided that it was not cold enough to support the bitter taste it offered, but it had potential. We decided to walk back to the Thames and Westminster to check out the London Eye Ferris Wheel. We decided that it was way too expensive and not worth the wait, so we went home to get some rest before we planned on having dinner with another friend of ours from Cornell, Joe Salameh, who also works in London.

Buckingham Palace:

            Joe met us at our hotel and we rode the subway to find a place to dinner in the Notting Hill Gate area. We found a place called the Kensington Wine Rooms where we sat down for a nice dinner. I had some cold pea and watercress soup, as well as a duck-strip salad, and we drank down some New Zealand Pinot Noir with dinner. After dinner we walked over to another really awesome pub called Churchill Arms. I literally think we stumbled upon the oldest pubs in the city, and I could not be happier about that. Here we tried some more British beers, such as London Pride, Fullers ESP, and Fullers Honey Dew, before we moved on. We tried to ride the bus back into the city center, however found ourselves on the wrong bus and ended up deep in the suburbs of London. Here we realized that we had to wait twenty-five minutes for the next bus, and by the time we got back to the City Center, the pubs had closed. We walked around looking for clubs with low covers, but this is my qualm with London night life. All of the fun pubs close at midnight, and nearly everything open later has a membership requirement, a big cover charge, or is a strip club—none of which I am particularly interested in at this point.

The London Horse Guards Building:

            We did have a funny run-in while walking around. Joe was looking for a certain club before he suddenly stopped, knocked on a random black wall, and randomly a light came on and a door opened. Turns out that he had found “Milk and Honey,” one of the most exclusive member bars in the city. Unfortunately, however, we needed to be members to go inside. Joe went home after this because he had work the next day, but Max and I found our way back to Oneill’s before realizing that it is just about impossible to get inside after 1am. We also found out that the bar called “O-Bar” that we had gotten denied entry into last night due to us wearing shorts was actually a gay bar, so that’s kind of lucky…We decided to take a cab back home and to call it a night. While our night was fun, we wished that the pubs we enjoyed so much were open later.