London On My Mind

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Sorry, had a bit of a Mel Brooks moment. As you may have seen from my many Facebook mobile uploads, I recently returned from London, England. After years and years of wanting to go to London (my senior year, my locker was decorated in pictures of ONLY British things. I think I was probably the only high school girl to have pictures of Dickens and Shakespeare pinned up) I finally made it! And it wasn't only the fact that I went to London...I also went completely and totally alone.

Sitting on Sherlock's couch

I took some wise advice from Pinterest, and did something I was afraid of. Traveling is something I love to do, but I've always been nervous of going alone. But like my girl Blanche, I've always depended on the kindness of strangers. And this time, in this particular country, it really paid off. I met a woman in the Barcelona airport on the way there that happened to be a London tour guide, and a Londoner for the past 10 years. She gave me the low down on what to hit, what to avoid, and even which bus to take to get to my hostel. (Thank you, by the way, if you ever stumble across this blog!) Because of the kindness of the people in London, my trip was a smashing success, and I'd love to share the highlights with you!

My first night in, I got to the hostel at about 1:30 in the morning. The cabby dropped me off and said, "This is a bit Harry Potter, isn't it?" Which I thought was kind of a creepy thing to say anyway, but I laughed and gave him his money. As I'm dragging my bag out behind me he yells, "Have fun at Hogwarts!!" Best introduction to London, ever. I got pretty much settled in, but I didn't really sleep very well. I woke up before my alarm at about 7 in the morning, and started to get ready for my first day. I had breakfast at the hostel, and the local chimney sweep sat down and talked with me. Not as cute as Dick Van Dyke, but entertaining nonetheless. Thus far, I hadn't really experienced London yet, but had met some wonderful people. 

Palmer's Lodge Swiss Cottage (I recommend it)

So on my first excursion, I walked down to Abbey Road, just a few blocks away. And I took a picture with the street sign since there was nobody to take my picture crossing the street. Oh well. Directly after that was my trip to 221B Baker Street. Which made me so excited I about peed myself. I bought a pipe! I sat in Sherlock's chair, saw Mrs. Hudson's room (much neater) and geeked out about the bulletin board (see picture A). If you haven't seen the new Sherlock BBC television series, stop reading this blog and go watch it now. I'll wait.

Picture A

Such a sad ending, right!? Goodness Steven Moffat, stop playing with my emotions. Anywho, whilst at the Sherlock museum, I asked a girl who worked there where her favorite place in London was. Her face lit up when she said Covent Garden. She gushed about how lovely it is with all the Christmas decorations. So I took the tube over there and wandered around until I found a little restaurant and an open window seat. I had the best hot chocolate with whipped cream, and watched a string quartet play while journaling. It was absolutely fantastic and gorgeous. I bopped around the shops for a while and continued on my journey.

Cafe Chutney is where I had the HoCho 

From that point on that day, I just wandered pretty much aimlessly around the city. I stumbled across Big Ben just as the bell was chiming (got a little teary eyed), saw Westminister Abbey, saw LOTS of red buses and phone booths. My favorite thing I stumbled past was this big iron gate. I saw the London eye from afar, and wanted to get closer, so I tried to go through a gate. The security guard asked me where I was trying to go. I replied that I didn't know, I just wanted to go that way. He chuckled and told me, "This is the back of Downing Street, love. If you want, you can go through that gate (over there) and see the front of Downing, but I can't let you through here." I accidentally tried to get into 10 Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives and works. I did almost the same thing with Buckingham Palace. Except I didn't try to go in, I just had no clue that it was Buckingham (it's not as pretty in real life).

The gate's nicer than the façade of the building

I walked as long and hard as I could, and saw all I could possibly see. I finally gave up when I was trying to find the Globe Theatre, and even the local people around didn't know what I was talking about. So I went back to the hostel, and met a friend! Tatia, (I think...) had the bed below mine, and was alone as well. So when she went out to meet with her Brazilian friends, I tagged along and met some cool people. Although, since most of them were speaking Portuguese I tried to speak Spanish back to them, until I found a few that spoke English really well. A plate of fish and chips and a Kopparberg later, I was ready for sleep.

The second day was planned to the T, and I have four maps with arrows on them to prove it. I got up at 7am to explore the city. I went down to Tower of London first, and saw the crown jewels and all the cool historical stuff. Audio guides still annoy me, and museums are awkward when you're by yourself, but it was still really interesting. The thing that I don't understand about the crown jewels is why there are so many plates. Nobody has ever eaten off of them, and they serve no purpose. At least make something interesting...like a gold chinchilla, or shoes.  Anyway, Tower of London was beautiful and I did enjoy it, even though it was crazy expensive. I continued along the south of the Thames to Tower Bridge, where I found a clue!

A clue!!

There were tracks of Blues Clues that led down a set of stairs. Unfortunately I did not follow them down, but I did have a couple run into me, because I stopped dead in my tracks to take this picture. Priorities, people!!   I was on my way to the Globe after that, but it took a while. If you ever travel to London, and plan on seeing the Globe, take the Millenium Bridge across the Thames, because that seems to be the most logical way to do it. Only by the grace of God did I actually make it to the Globe. There were sketchy places that I had to go through to get there. However, completely and totally worth it to go! I took the tour, with a guide who was very entertaining and informative. I learned more about the first Globe, and Shakespeare than I thought I would. (I really like Shakespeare) And if K. Marshall wants any of my awesome-sauce pictures, she's more than welcome to hit me up :-)

Globe 3.0

For a geeky girl like me, it was absolutely incredible to see the inside of the theatre. Although I didn't get to see a show (the season runs in the summer, since it's an outdoor theatre) I still felt closer to the bard, and was definitely inspired. But enough about my love affair, there's more to see!

I had way more time than I thought I would after seeing those two things, so I headed all the way over to the west side of the city to try to find a TARDIS, but to no avail. I found a Cinnabon (which, I know, doesn't sound important enough to put in the blog. But seriously, it's been a really long time since I'd had one, and it was delightful.) I meandered a while to kill some time before I went to see the show. I bought tickets for The Mousetrap, and it was some of the best money I spent in London. 60th Anniversary of the show, and I was 3 away from the 25,000th performance. It brought back great memories from doing the show at NCC, but at the same time, I had forgotten some of the back-stories of the characters, so it was still very interesting to watch. (Cast & Crew, if you're reading this: Don't worry, they weren't as good as you ;) )

It will probably close soon...

So that was my London trip! In a nutshell. I absolutely adored the city, and I fully intend to go back some day and spend more than 48 hours exploring and taking it all in.

In the next episode of "Apparently" Carlee goes to Africa.