March 31, 2010
The last day of March and our last day in London. I can't believe we've already been here for a week. Time is going to go by so fast, I'm already a little sad about it. Hilary and I didn't coordinate our wake-up times since I was asleep by the time she came to bed, but we had been getting up around 8/8:30 everyday and I knew she wanted to get an early start so I set my alarm clock for 8. I have been sleeping with an eye mask and ear plugs since I have such a problem sleeping with other people, noise and light i knew I needed something to help with this. Turns out they help a lot, which is great. The one problem is the earplugs work so well I can barely hear my alarm clock go off. It took until 8:20 until I finally woke up to the noise. When I looked over I heard Hilary's alarm clock also go off and she was sound asleep with her earplugs in. I decided to get more sleep and set my clock for 10am after I woke her up and she seemed like she had no intention of waking up. At 10 I was still tired so I reset it for 11. Finally 11 came around and I decided we needed to get our lazy asses out of bed so I woke her up and told her it was probably time to get moving.
By the time we were ready to go, it was almost 1pm. We were moving exceptionally slow, I think the sleep was really needed. Our plan for the day was to go to the British Library then the British Gallery for touring and getting High Tea. Hilary did High Tea once in Victoria, Canada and really wanted to do it in London. However, because of the late start we weren't sure we'd be able to do all of those things. We decided to go to the library first since a friend of mine had told me it was his favorite attraction in London. SO glad we went. It was really cool and housed a lot of amazing documents such as: the Magna Carta, Some of Shakespeare original works, a letter written by Charles Darwin explaining the controversial nature of his Origin of Species book, original manuscripts from Beowolf, Jane Austin, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Wolfe, and Sylvia Plath, it had Beatles original song lyrics writeen down for Help!, Yesterday, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Ticket to Ride, A Hard Days Night, and Michele, there was also a whole display on the origins of Alica in Wonderland and sacred texts from Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Daosim, Islam, Judiasm, Christianity, and Sikhism. It took us over an hour to get through just this one room. It was amazing and I wrote down so much more detail but I don't want to bore you with the lessons learned so I'll let you wiki it if you really want to know. :)
It was time to head to the National Gallery for High Tea. Only once we got there we realized it was going to be 14.50 each for tea, little sandwiches, scones, and/or cakes. This wasn't worth it to us so we did a poor man's version of tea where we just got a dessert each and Hilary got some tea. It worked out great for me but I think sh was a little disappointed she didn't get to do actually tea. :/ The good news was we had enough time to see the National Gallery itself since tea didn't take as long as we thought it would. Hilary had heard this gallery was a top place to visit in London but I was a little disappointed. Turns out it is just a big building full of paintings, which if you are really in to art would be amazing, but I'm not and Hilary is even less into it than me so we just chose a couple rooms with people that we actually knew and looked through those. The rooms we saw (Monet, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo) we're cool to see. Money and Van Gogh are definitely my favorite, and I saw a couple other artists I liked as well - none that I previously knew though.
The museum closed at 6 so we decided to head back to Rob's neighborhood and walk around there for a bit. He had told me about a Brick Lane that was pretty famous and that there weren't many tourists in his area so we wanted to check it out and see what 'un-touristy' London was like. After wandering around aimlessly for awhile we somehow found Brick Lane which had a market on it, lots of little shops and live music. By the time we got there everything was pretty much closed, but it was pretty easy to imagine what the place would look like when it was active. Rob had mentioned there was a middle eastern area of the place that was pretty cool to experience and we knew right when we entered it. All of the sudden the streets were lined with Indian people trying to talk us in to going to their restaurant. They were offering special deals "just for us" and trying to entice us with free bottles of wine. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. They were all literally lined up outside of their respected restaurants trying to push us in, it was on the verge of comical.
It was starting to get later and really cold so we headed back to Rob's. He was generous enough to give us a key so we let ourselves in -- not without a bit of key trouble though. We did some CouchSurfing research for the upcoming countries, showered, uploaded pictures and blogged while waiting for rob to come home from work to take us to dinner. He didn't end up getting back until 10:30 (the man's life is on hyper-drive) so we were really hungry by the time he got there. On our way out he got a call that his CEO was out for drinks nearby and wanted him to stop by, so he showed us to a restaurant and said he was gonna grab a quick drink and would be back to meet us after dinner and take us to a pub. He was true to his word and took us to the Red Church after dinner. It was a pretty cool place but we didn't get there until midnight and it closed at 1 so we just had time for 2 beers... well I had time for two beers. Neither Rob nor Hilary finished there's, ha.
It was really fun to be able to sit and talk with Rob over a couple of beers. He is a financial banker for a company of around 5,000 people at the London branch. originally from Alabama, he is a huge traveler and wanted to live somewhere else which is why he ended up in London. The stories he had about traveling and the adventure sports he has done were amazing. I'm slightly in love with him and probably could have listened to his stories about the countries he's visited and things he has done all night. Yay for crushing on your CS host. Hilary already made it clear I'm not allowed to participate in any extra-curricular activities with our hosts, although I'm told their friends are fair game, haha. Don't worry, I have no intention of that, talk about making things super awkward with people who are opening their homes to you. I'd like to think I hae a little more common sense than that. She was just joking around with me - I hope...:). Rob himself is super busy and I can't believe he found time to host us. He just got back from a trip to Austin, TX and was leaving to Switzerland for a week right after we were gone. The only two nights he was home were the two nights he let us stay with him. He was working until 10pm both nights and yet still found time to take us out. Like I said, his life is on hyper-drive. I have no idea how he did it all, but I was extremely impressed.
Hilary and Rob went to bed around 2am but I stayed up talking to people from back home via facebook and uploading more pictures. I also did some Brussels research which is where we are headed next. I think it was 3:45am by the time I actually got to bed and at least a half hour after that before I fell asleep. So much for catching up on sleep.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Dreamboats & Petticoats
March 30, 2010
Time to meet our next CouchSurfer, Rob! Tuesday morning we got up early to leave when Jit went to work since we wouldn't be staying with him anymore. We made him eggs in the morning to thank him for his generosity. Somehow he had gotten through 26 years of life without having homemade scrambled eggs, crazy. It was a small gesture but all we could really do with the time limit.
The weather was awful, raining and cold so Hilary and I found a cafe to have breakfast in. We went up to the second floor, ordered some toast and water and ended up sitting there starring out the window for almost 2 hours people watching. We weren't meeting our next host until 12:30 so we had some time to kill. At 10:30 we decided it was time to move and went to the bus station to get our Brussels tickets figured out. Once we did that we went to meet up with Rob. He was kind enough to meet us during his lunch break so we wouldn't have to carry our bags around with us all day. If I every have to have that on my back for more than a couple of hours I'm in trouble...
Once we dropped off our stuff we said goodbye to Rob and made our way back to Covent Gardens where we had gotten dinner with Emmanuelle the night before. She said it was worth checking out during the daytime. There was a market going on and a bunch of street performers. Hilary was looking for a T-Shirt that says "Mind the Gap" which is what the announcer says every time the tube comes to a station. "Mind the gap to the platform." Hilary never knew what that meant before and was pretty excited when she figured it out. I was looking for a shot glass. I figured those are small enough that I can hopefully get one from each country without them weighing me down to much. Neither of us had luck finding what we wanted so we decided to take a break from the rain and head back to the Porterhouse. Great decision. We got there, ordered some beers and talked for over an hour. As much time as we have spend together it has mostly been with other people, sightseeing, or sleeping on the transportation systems. It was fun to just sit down the two of us and have a real conversation.
Next we headed to Westminster Abbey. It was a cool building but we didn't want to pay to go in so we really just walked around in the rain for awhile and took some pictures. Then we headed to Buckingham Palace. We sort of ended up doing the same thing here, took some pictures, read some plaques and then were on our way. We were able to find a tourist shop outside of the Palace though where Hilary found her shirt and I found my shot glass, yay! Hilary left her debit card at home so she had her parents ship it to our original hostel. It had arrived that day so we went to go get it since we had some down time. Coincidentally I don't have my debit card either because I realized it was expired 2 days before my flight from the states. I'm hoping to get that by the time we hit Switzerland. We will be in Western enough countries until then that only a credit card shouldn't be a problem.
From the Hostel we headed down to the PlayHouse Theater to see "Dreamboats and Petticoats." Our 12.50 pound tickets got us front row seats on the third balcony -- were way better than I was expecting. The show itself was pretty good. It was smaller and not as well known so it is hard to compare when the only other shows I've seen have been huge ones like Chicago, The Lion King and Wicked. But it was definitely entertaining and the female singers had amazing voices. The first half I nodded off a couple times and then both Hilary and I took a quick nap during intermission but by the second half we were fully rested and away the whole time, ha.
We somehow made it back to Rob's place. I'm still impressed with this since we had only quickly gone there once before and it was on the other side of town; Hilary and I have had a habit of walking in circles a lot here but by this point in the week we were getting pretty good at knowing where we're going. Back at Rob's we had a glass of wine, some conversation and then headed to bed.
Time to meet our next CouchSurfer, Rob! Tuesday morning we got up early to leave when Jit went to work since we wouldn't be staying with him anymore. We made him eggs in the morning to thank him for his generosity. Somehow he had gotten through 26 years of life without having homemade scrambled eggs, crazy. It was a small gesture but all we could really do with the time limit.
The weather was awful, raining and cold so Hilary and I found a cafe to have breakfast in. We went up to the second floor, ordered some toast and water and ended up sitting there starring out the window for almost 2 hours people watching. We weren't meeting our next host until 12:30 so we had some time to kill. At 10:30 we decided it was time to move and went to the bus station to get our Brussels tickets figured out. Once we did that we went to meet up with Rob. He was kind enough to meet us during his lunch break so we wouldn't have to carry our bags around with us all day. If I every have to have that on my back for more than a couple of hours I'm in trouble...
Once we dropped off our stuff we said goodbye to Rob and made our way back to Covent Gardens where we had gotten dinner with Emmanuelle the night before. She said it was worth checking out during the daytime. There was a market going on and a bunch of street performers. Hilary was looking for a T-Shirt that says "Mind the Gap" which is what the announcer says every time the tube comes to a station. "Mind the gap to the platform." Hilary never knew what that meant before and was pretty excited when she figured it out. I was looking for a shot glass. I figured those are small enough that I can hopefully get one from each country without them weighing me down to much. Neither of us had luck finding what we wanted so we decided to take a break from the rain and head back to the Porterhouse. Great decision. We got there, ordered some beers and talked for over an hour. As much time as we have spend together it has mostly been with other people, sightseeing, or sleeping on the transportation systems. It was fun to just sit down the two of us and have a real conversation.
Next we headed to Westminster Abbey. It was a cool building but we didn't want to pay to go in so we really just walked around in the rain for awhile and took some pictures. Then we headed to Buckingham Palace. We sort of ended up doing the same thing here, took some pictures, read some plaques and then were on our way. We were able to find a tourist shop outside of the Palace though where Hilary found her shirt and I found my shot glass, yay! Hilary left her debit card at home so she had her parents ship it to our original hostel. It had arrived that day so we went to go get it since we had some down time. Coincidentally I don't have my debit card either because I realized it was expired 2 days before my flight from the states. I'm hoping to get that by the time we hit Switzerland. We will be in Western enough countries until then that only a credit card shouldn't be a problem.
From the Hostel we headed down to the PlayHouse Theater to see "Dreamboats and Petticoats." Our 12.50 pound tickets got us front row seats on the third balcony -- were way better than I was expecting. The show itself was pretty good. It was smaller and not as well known so it is hard to compare when the only other shows I've seen have been huge ones like Chicago, The Lion King and Wicked. But it was definitely entertaining and the female singers had amazing voices. The first half I nodded off a couple times and then both Hilary and I took a quick nap during intermission but by the second half we were fully rested and away the whole time, ha.
We somehow made it back to Rob's place. I'm still impressed with this since we had only quickly gone there once before and it was on the other side of town; Hilary and I have had a habit of walking in circles a lot here but by this point in the week we were getting pretty good at knowing where we're going. Back at Rob's we had a glass of wine, some conversation and then headed to bed.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Porterhouse Deliciousness
March 29, 2010 Cont.
Once we got back from Windsor we went back to Jit's place and booked our tickets to Brussels. Our plan was to take the EuroStar train but found out the prices were around 140 pounds. Way too much for poor man's traveling, so we decided to take the bus over for 40 pounds instead. When Hilary booked the tickets she thought she sent them to the Liverpool Street Station, but as it turns out, she sent them to Liverpool the city instead. We had a slight freak out moment but resolved it pretty easily the next day by going to the station and explaining our situation. First potential crisis averted!
Hilary has a friend, Emmanuelle, who stayed with her family in the states for 6 months back in 2001 that was now living in London. We met up with her at 5:30 (we were of course late for and actually ended up there at 6). She took us to Covent Gardens -- which in fact is not a Garden but a pretty sweet market center. We grabbed dinner at a place called Punch & Judy Pub then went over to an amazing Irish Bar called the Porterhouse to get some beers. I'm not going to lie, the beers here in England are not very good (neither is there food but that's an entirely different topic), so Hilary and I were really excited to have some tasty brew. I've never had a fruit beer before and Emmanuelle suggested the Fruli Strawberry on draught (draft) so I got it. Oh my god, it was absolutely to die for delicious. I'm pretty sure I drank a pint in about 20 minutes and had to consciously pace myself even for that. If I wasn't paying attention I could get mighty drunk in the place seriously fast. Luckily I have no money so that wasn't an option. Although Emmanuelle was super sweet and paid for everything for all of us that night. I think she is close to 30 and actually has a legit job and paycheck so she took pity on us. I've actually been really surprised how many people we've met so far that have picked up our tabs. Completely unexpected and completely appreciated!
Emmanuelle is originally from France and in London teaching french and german at a school a little outside of the city. She's probably one of the sweetest people I've met in a long time and was really fun to talk to. I got a little confused when we were first talking about her living situation cause she said she was living with her partner in a flat outside of the city. Being from America, when I hear the word 'partner' I think of same-sex relationships. Turns out in Europe it pretty much just means someone you are seriously with but not married to. Marriage isn't as big of a deal over here so partner is a lot more common of a word for someone who is more than just a boyfriend or girlfriend.
We left the bar around 10pm so Emmanuelle could catch her train home and we headed back to Jit's. We felt like we should treat him to a beer since we had been pretty lame the couple nights before and hadn't gone out with him yet. Unfortunately, we chose a Monday night to finally want to go out and everything was closed by the time we got there. So we resorted to having some beer and wine at his place. It worked out for the better though probably since it was a little quieter and we could have better conversation. He showed us an email he got from a girl in India who he didn't know but wanted to meet him for the purpose of marrying. This brought up a whole conversation on arranged marriages in India. Essentially Jit said if you can and want to marry for love in India that's fine, but if not by a certain age the parents will usually set up an arranged marriage. He said arranged marriages usually work out and that they are a good thing. Girls usually get married between 24-26 in India and guys between 28-30. The ages are actually older than I thought they would be. It was really interesting getting his perspective on the issue since it is something I can never imagine being okay with, but I guess that's where cultural differences come into play.
Once we got back from Windsor we went back to Jit's place and booked our tickets to Brussels. Our plan was to take the EuroStar train but found out the prices were around 140 pounds. Way too much for poor man's traveling, so we decided to take the bus over for 40 pounds instead. When Hilary booked the tickets she thought she sent them to the Liverpool Street Station, but as it turns out, she sent them to Liverpool the city instead. We had a slight freak out moment but resolved it pretty easily the next day by going to the station and explaining our situation. First potential crisis averted!
Hilary has a friend, Emmanuelle, who stayed with her family in the states for 6 months back in 2001 that was now living in London. We met up with her at 5:30 (we were of course late for and actually ended up there at 6). She took us to Covent Gardens -- which in fact is not a Garden but a pretty sweet market center. We grabbed dinner at a place called Punch & Judy Pub then went over to an amazing Irish Bar called the Porterhouse to get some beers. I'm not going to lie, the beers here in England are not very good (neither is there food but that's an entirely different topic), so Hilary and I were really excited to have some tasty brew. I've never had a fruit beer before and Emmanuelle suggested the Fruli Strawberry on draught (draft) so I got it. Oh my god, it was absolutely to die for delicious. I'm pretty sure I drank a pint in about 20 minutes and had to consciously pace myself even for that. If I wasn't paying attention I could get mighty drunk in the place seriously fast. Luckily I have no money so that wasn't an option. Although Emmanuelle was super sweet and paid for everything for all of us that night. I think she is close to 30 and actually has a legit job and paycheck so she took pity on us. I've actually been really surprised how many people we've met so far that have picked up our tabs. Completely unexpected and completely appreciated!
Emmanuelle is originally from France and in London teaching french and german at a school a little outside of the city. She's probably one of the sweetest people I've met in a long time and was really fun to talk to. I got a little confused when we were first talking about her living situation cause she said she was living with her partner in a flat outside of the city. Being from America, when I hear the word 'partner' I think of same-sex relationships. Turns out in Europe it pretty much just means someone you are seriously with but not married to. Marriage isn't as big of a deal over here so partner is a lot more common of a word for someone who is more than just a boyfriend or girlfriend.
We left the bar around 10pm so Emmanuelle could catch her train home and we headed back to Jit's. We felt like we should treat him to a beer since we had been pretty lame the couple nights before and hadn't gone out with him yet. Unfortunately, we chose a Monday night to finally want to go out and everything was closed by the time we got there. So we resorted to having some beer and wine at his place. It worked out for the better though probably since it was a little quieter and we could have better conversation. He showed us an email he got from a girl in India who he didn't know but wanted to meet him for the purpose of marrying. This brought up a whole conversation on arranged marriages in India. Essentially Jit said if you can and want to marry for love in India that's fine, but if not by a certain age the parents will usually set up an arranged marriage. He said arranged marriages usually work out and that they are a good thing. Girls usually get married between 24-26 in India and guys between 28-30. The ages are actually older than I thought they would be. It was really interesting getting his perspective on the issue since it is something I can never imagine being okay with, but I guess that's where cultural differences come into play.
Windsor Castle
March 29, 2010
We got up this morning around 8:30 to head out for Windsor Castle. I got up early to shower and then couldn't figure out how to make the water warm so I gave up and got online instead. One of my friends was on facebook so it was great to get to talk to him for a few minutes. Once Hilary and I were finally ready We were running a little behind per usual and ended up pretty much running to the station and then to find the right platform. At some point Hilary lost her shoe so she literally just picked it up and kept running without it, I was behind her trying not to laugh so hard I'd have to stop running. We found our platform but missed our train. The next one came pretty soon after that though and it turned out our transfer would have been the same time no matter which original train we took so it all worked out in the end.
The train ride was really easy. when we got off it was a quick walk to the Castle. Windsor is magnificent. I've never seen a building so enormous and elegant. It completely blows my mind that people actually live at this place. I knew castles were big but I had no idea how much this place could swallow an individual person. It cost 14.5 pounds to get in for students and somehow Hilary and I managed to make this the first attraction we have paid for so far which I think is pretty impressive. We walked around outside for awhile and then made our way to the inside state rooms. I love traveling in the off season because there were absolutely no lines and a usually really packed place. They had ropes lined up with wait times up to an hour listed on signs. But when we got there the lines were completely empty and we just walked right in.
The rooms we went in to were all huge. The entry ways were enormous, the ceilings were double the height of normal ceilings, the paintings were big enough to cover the walls completely and the ceilings were covered in intricate designs of gold. The odd part of these rooms were the size of the chairs. They were really tiny in comparison to the rest of the room. If I didn't know better I'd say they were designed for little children. If I had sat in any of them I'm pretty sure they chairs would have either broken or my hips would not have fit between the arm rests. History tells us that people were shorter and smaller in the past, but it is so odd to actually see the size of furniture they used. The beds were shorter and smaller than any full size bed I've seen and this was for the King and Queen so I'm assuming it was the biggest bed available at the time. The tables were at least a foot or two shorter than normal tables. And there was armor made for Henry Prince of Wales in 1607 that could not have been more than 5 feet tall.
All of the rooms were amazing in the artwork, furniture and other really expensive trinkets that were housed in them. But they all sort of looked alike. There were a lot of rooms with a lot of different names that in the end all blended together and I would never have been able to tell you what each room was used for if it weren't for the signs. Here's a list of all the rooms I was able to tour: Queen Mary's Dollhouse, Drawing Room, Waterloo Chamber, King's Drawing Room, King's Bed Chamber, King's Dressing Room, King's Closet, Queen's Dressing Room, King's Dining Room, Queen's Ballroom, Queen's Audience Chamber, Queen's Presence Room, Queen's Guard Room, St. George Hall, Lantern Lobby, Grand Reception Room, Garter Throne Room. The Ballroom wasn't a ballroom at all but just a long hallway, the dressing room and closet looked exactly the same except the closet was a little deeper to walk in to, I have no idea what the difference between the audience and presence room is, and the lantern lobby is literally a room full of lanterns, gilts and cups made of gold. There is absolutely no justification for anyone needing as many rooms as this castle had and it seems even harder to grasp that people hundreds of years ago built this place to live in. Entire towns and cities probably could have easily fit into this castle. It was amazingly spectacular though, I'll give them that.
Hilary and I got separated in the Castle - as we do in most places we've visited. I thought she was ahead of me and she thought I was ahead of her, so I'm not sure which one of us was correct but when we exited the castle we couldn't find each other. I sat outside the exit for about 20 - 30 minutes and pulled out my computer to start writing up my blog. After a while I got bored and cold so I decided that she must have kept on walking and thought we'd end up meeting up with each other eventually. I walked around the castle some more and went in to the chapel and saw a few royal guards marching. I sort of just walked around aimlessly for awhile until I got restless and decided that Hilary must have left and started exploring the town so I did the same. We were in Windsor but there was also another town connected to it called Eton. I saw some signs for Eton Cottage and decided to walk that way to explore the city and see if I could find the cottage. Well I walked and walked around Eton and eventually made it over a bridge across Thames River. The city was really tiny and cute. It was pretty much dead for the most part. Some of the shops were open, but not many. The people walking about were residents, not tourists. It was really fun to get to see a small London town on a weekday afternoon. At one point I came upon a small lunchtime place that was packed with people where as the rest of the restaurants and cafe's were pretty much empty. I thought this was sort of weird but figured it mush be a local favorite or really cheap, good food.
It started to get later and I started to get hungry so I gave up on trying to find the cottage and turned around the walk back. I walked past a bridal shop that had the most gorgeous wedding dress I had ever seen in the window. I stood for a little bit just staring at it (excuse my girl moment). Then I walked past over the bridge and checked out the signs to see if I had missed the cottage or not. Well, when I reread the sign I realised there was no cottage. The sign had said "Eton College" -- hello blond moment. I'm not sure if I'm blind or just read it to fast or what, but I had pretty much sent myself on a wild goose chase. Oh well, I really enjoyed the town so that was good. At this point it was around 1pm and I hadn't found Hilary yet so I decided to go back and get some food and see if I could find her. I went back to a sandwich shop we had seen on our way from the train station and decided to grab some food and sit outside to wait for her. I figured she'd have to walk past this place on her way back to the station if nothing else. The town was so small and we both knew where we were and how to get back to Jit's place so I wasn't really worried about either of us getting lost permanently. I got a sandwich and waited for her while finished my blog. It took about another hour or so before she found me at the sandwich place, but it worked out great cause I got time to type up my extremely long blog post.
We just got back to Jit's place and stopped in the local STA shop to book our ticket from London to Brussels. After we do that we are off to meet up with a friend of Hilary's in the city and then out for the night!
We got up this morning around 8:30 to head out for Windsor Castle. I got up early to shower and then couldn't figure out how to make the water warm so I gave up and got online instead. One of my friends was on facebook so it was great to get to talk to him for a few minutes. Once Hilary and I were finally ready We were running a little behind per usual and ended up pretty much running to the station and then to find the right platform. At some point Hilary lost her shoe so she literally just picked it up and kept running without it, I was behind her trying not to laugh so hard I'd have to stop running. We found our platform but missed our train. The next one came pretty soon after that though and it turned out our transfer would have been the same time no matter which original train we took so it all worked out in the end.
The train ride was really easy. when we got off it was a quick walk to the Castle. Windsor is magnificent. I've never seen a building so enormous and elegant. It completely blows my mind that people actually live at this place. I knew castles were big but I had no idea how much this place could swallow an individual person. It cost 14.5 pounds to get in for students and somehow Hilary and I managed to make this the first attraction we have paid for so far which I think is pretty impressive. We walked around outside for awhile and then made our way to the inside state rooms. I love traveling in the off season because there were absolutely no lines and a usually really packed place. They had ropes lined up with wait times up to an hour listed on signs. But when we got there the lines were completely empty and we just walked right in.
The rooms we went in to were all huge. The entry ways were enormous, the ceilings were double the height of normal ceilings, the paintings were big enough to cover the walls completely and the ceilings were covered in intricate designs of gold. The odd part of these rooms were the size of the chairs. They were really tiny in comparison to the rest of the room. If I didn't know better I'd say they were designed for little children. If I had sat in any of them I'm pretty sure they chairs would have either broken or my hips would not have fit between the arm rests. History tells us that people were shorter and smaller in the past, but it is so odd to actually see the size of furniture they used. The beds were shorter and smaller than any full size bed I've seen and this was for the King and Queen so I'm assuming it was the biggest bed available at the time. The tables were at least a foot or two shorter than normal tables. And there was armor made for Henry Prince of Wales in 1607 that could not have been more than 5 feet tall.
All of the rooms were amazing in the artwork, furniture and other really expensive trinkets that were housed in them. But they all sort of looked alike. There were a lot of rooms with a lot of different names that in the end all blended together and I would never have been able to tell you what each room was used for if it weren't for the signs. Here's a list of all the rooms I was able to tour: Queen Mary's Dollhouse, Drawing Room, Waterloo Chamber, King's Drawing Room, King's Bed Chamber, King's Dressing Room, King's Closet, Queen's Dressing Room, King's Dining Room, Queen's Ballroom, Queen's Audience Chamber, Queen's Presence Room, Queen's Guard Room, St. George Hall, Lantern Lobby, Grand Reception Room, Garter Throne Room. The Ballroom wasn't a ballroom at all but just a long hallway, the dressing room and closet looked exactly the same except the closet was a little deeper to walk in to, I have no idea what the difference between the audience and presence room is, and the lantern lobby is literally a room full of lanterns, gilts and cups made of gold. There is absolutely no justification for anyone needing as many rooms as this castle had and it seems even harder to grasp that people hundreds of years ago built this place to live in. Entire towns and cities probably could have easily fit into this castle. It was amazingly spectacular though, I'll give them that.
Hilary and I got separated in the Castle - as we do in most places we've visited. I thought she was ahead of me and she thought I was ahead of her, so I'm not sure which one of us was correct but when we exited the castle we couldn't find each other. I sat outside the exit for about 20 - 30 minutes and pulled out my computer to start writing up my blog. After a while I got bored and cold so I decided that she must have kept on walking and thought we'd end up meeting up with each other eventually. I walked around the castle some more and went in to the chapel and saw a few royal guards marching. I sort of just walked around aimlessly for awhile until I got restless and decided that Hilary must have left and started exploring the town so I did the same. We were in Windsor but there was also another town connected to it called Eton. I saw some signs for Eton Cottage and decided to walk that way to explore the city and see if I could find the cottage. Well I walked and walked around Eton and eventually made it over a bridge across Thames River. The city was really tiny and cute. It was pretty much dead for the most part. Some of the shops were open, but not many. The people walking about were residents, not tourists. It was really fun to get to see a small London town on a weekday afternoon. At one point I came upon a small lunchtime place that was packed with people where as the rest of the restaurants and cafe's were pretty much empty. I thought this was sort of weird but figured it mush be a local favorite or really cheap, good food.
It started to get later and I started to get hungry so I gave up on trying to find the cottage and turned around the walk back. I walked past a bridal shop that had the most gorgeous wedding dress I had ever seen in the window. I stood for a little bit just staring at it (excuse my girl moment). Then I walked past over the bridge and checked out the signs to see if I had missed the cottage or not. Well, when I reread the sign I realised there was no cottage. The sign had said "Eton College" -- hello blond moment. I'm not sure if I'm blind or just read it to fast or what, but I had pretty much sent myself on a wild goose chase. Oh well, I really enjoyed the town so that was good. At this point it was around 1pm and I hadn't found Hilary yet so I decided to go back and get some food and see if I could find her. I went back to a sandwich shop we had seen on our way from the train station and decided to grab some food and sit outside to wait for her. I figured she'd have to walk past this place on her way back to the station if nothing else. The town was so small and we both knew where we were and how to get back to Jit's place so I wasn't really worried about either of us getting lost permanently. I got a sandwich and waited for her while finished my blog. It took about another hour or so before she found me at the sandwich place, but it worked out great cause I got time to type up my extremely long blog post.
We just got back to Jit's place and stopped in the local STA shop to book our ticket from London to Brussels. After we do that we are off to meet up with a friend of Hilary's in the city and then out for the night!
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Greenwich
March 28, 2010
Our plan for today was to get up and catch the 10:30 commuter ferry boat to Greenwich on Sunday. We ended up sleeping in a little to long and then taking our time with showering and eating so we got out of the house about an hour or so late. We figured we could catch the 11:15 ferry. When we got to the ferry dock, which was right by Big Ben, we noticed that Big Ben had just struck noon. Noon? We thought it was 11. Turns out Saturday to Sunday was daylight savings in London which we had all forgotten about. Well now we were about 2 hours behind our imaginary schedule which really doesn't mean anything at all, haha. We found the boat with ease and we're on our way. It was a fairly nice day out, a little sun and no rain so we got some really good views of the city from the Thames River -- which is apparently pronounced 'Tehms'.
Once we got to Greenwich we headed to the Royal Observatory which is the place Hilary was most looking forward to visiting. It was free so I was down. The Royal Observatory is located at the highest point in Greenwich park so we had a little bit of a climb. The sad thing is it really wasn't that bad, I'm just so out of shape that my legs and lungs were not feeling good during the climb. I recover really quickly but during the actually activity I usually feel awful. Hopefully that will change as this trip advances. I've never had very good endurance though, so maybe it's just in my genes to be awful at aerobic exercise. Jit, Hilary and I finally made it up to the Observatory without anyone passing out so that was a success. Once inside the observatory itself was okay. I really like astronomy and the depths of the universe is extremely fascinating. But I took an astronomy 101 class in college so I pretty much already knew everything the observatory had to teach. Hilary really enjoyed it though and I found ways to keep myself entertained. Mainly by watching all the little kids play with the interactive displays. Little kids are super cute when they are happy and intrigued.
The second half of the observatory was information on the Meridian Line. Greenwich is the official place to find 0 degrees Longitude. It is also the official clock for GMT. Which makes sense since GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time, definitely didn't know that before. I learned a lot more on this half as it talked about the struggle for sailors to navigate the seas before they could accurately figure out their latitude and longitude. Turns out it was establishing the GMT that was able to help sailors eventually figure this out. I'll spare the details on this but I was surprised how much I learned. At the very end we were able to take a picture straddling the official Meridian Line. This was pretty cool knowing the exact longitude on earth I was currently standing at. The weather was amazing at this time with some sunshine so we got really good pictures.
After the Observatory the weather was so nice we decided to just walk around Greenwich instead of going inside any more museums. We found an herb garden which Hilary loved and ran around picking all the herbs and smelling them. It was really cute. Then we continued walking through the huge park that seemed to go on and on. There were a ton of people out and it seemed most of them have dogs. I want a puppy so bad! I love and hate parks because of dogs. They are so freakin cute I love watching them play but it makes me want one even more and I know it's going to be years and years before my life is stable enough to get a dog.
We finally found our way out of the park and decided it was time to grab a beer and cheap food. Jit had a friend from CouchSurfing in the area, Eritta who ended up meeting up with us and the four of us landed in a pub. Hilary and I had our first real English beer and great conversation with Jit and Eritta. It was the first time we were really able to just sit and enjoy the company we were with it seemed. Eritta is originally from east Africa but had been in London for 19 years. Her views on life and London we're great to listen to. I'm not sure exactly how long we were at the pub for, but I hope to have a lot more conversations like those along our trip.
Once we were finished with our beers we hit a small Kebab shop which Eritta said is popular in the early AM hours. This was perfect for a couple of girls used to eating on the Ave in Seattle. Eritta had a friend Daniel who met up with us there. He was from Hungary and was a really outgoing guy. Unfortunately we were so hungry at this point that not much conversation materialized but it was still fun having a group of CouchSurfers together. While we were at the kebab place, there were two English gentlemen sitting behind us playing with Tarrah cards. I got interested while everyone else was paying and started ease dropping. The one doing the cards told the other to think of his question. The other clarified that it was a question about his love life and wanting a girlfriend, then I think he got a little self conscious cause he all the sudden noticed I was paying attention. He laughed and said never mind I've already got a prospect as he was looking at me and gave me a wink. I was taken a little aback but went with it and started talking to the guys. We had our introductions and then Hilary and Jit came back so I started to get up a leave. The one guy comically tried to convince me to stay with them but I told him good luck finding a girlfriend and went on my way. That was probably the friendliest interaction with a random local I've had so far.
Side note along those lines. The waiters and people working in shops are actually not very nice here. They all seem pretty rushed and don't really pay attention to you. I'm not sure if it's because tips are less here or what the deal is, but for the most part service is almost borderline rude. This is not something I was expecting and I'm not sure if this is the what most people experience or if I have just had a string of bad luck. Most of the tourists and locals here on the streets have all been really nice and helpful though, so I'm not really sure what the deal with service is.
After the Kebab shop we went back to Jit's to hang out, have a beer and take in the day. Jit had to get up early for work and we were getting up early to head to Windsor Castle so we ended up just watching a movie while we did more CouchSurfing, facebooking, emailing and blogging. With all of these different venues of communication through the internet it doesn't really seem like we are all that far away. Realistically I could still be back in Woodinville, WA and I'd be having the same amount of communication with my family and friends. I'm really glad I decided to bring my netbook, it has come in really handy and most of the CSers we'll be staying with have internet so I will constantly be able to be connected. It was a great decision. I got to talk to a couple of friends online which was nice getting caught up on life back home a bit. It's funny to realize that life doesn't stop when you go away. I headed to bed around 1am again and I think Hilary fell in to bed around 4am, crazy girl. I have no idea how she is surviving on such little sleep. She makes up for it by sleeping on most of our Tube rides though.
Our plan for today was to get up and catch the 10:30 commuter ferry boat to Greenwich on Sunday. We ended up sleeping in a little to long and then taking our time with showering and eating so we got out of the house about an hour or so late. We figured we could catch the 11:15 ferry. When we got to the ferry dock, which was right by Big Ben, we noticed that Big Ben had just struck noon. Noon? We thought it was 11. Turns out Saturday to Sunday was daylight savings in London which we had all forgotten about. Well now we were about 2 hours behind our imaginary schedule which really doesn't mean anything at all, haha. We found the boat with ease and we're on our way. It was a fairly nice day out, a little sun and no rain so we got some really good views of the city from the Thames River -- which is apparently pronounced 'Tehms'.
Once we got to Greenwich we headed to the Royal Observatory which is the place Hilary was most looking forward to visiting. It was free so I was down. The Royal Observatory is located at the highest point in Greenwich park so we had a little bit of a climb. The sad thing is it really wasn't that bad, I'm just so out of shape that my legs and lungs were not feeling good during the climb. I recover really quickly but during the actually activity I usually feel awful. Hopefully that will change as this trip advances. I've never had very good endurance though, so maybe it's just in my genes to be awful at aerobic exercise. Jit, Hilary and I finally made it up to the Observatory without anyone passing out so that was a success. Once inside the observatory itself was okay. I really like astronomy and the depths of the universe is extremely fascinating. But I took an astronomy 101 class in college so I pretty much already knew everything the observatory had to teach. Hilary really enjoyed it though and I found ways to keep myself entertained. Mainly by watching all the little kids play with the interactive displays. Little kids are super cute when they are happy and intrigued.
The second half of the observatory was information on the Meridian Line. Greenwich is the official place to find 0 degrees Longitude. It is also the official clock for GMT. Which makes sense since GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time, definitely didn't know that before. I learned a lot more on this half as it talked about the struggle for sailors to navigate the seas before they could accurately figure out their latitude and longitude. Turns out it was establishing the GMT that was able to help sailors eventually figure this out. I'll spare the details on this but I was surprised how much I learned. At the very end we were able to take a picture straddling the official Meridian Line. This was pretty cool knowing the exact longitude on earth I was currently standing at. The weather was amazing at this time with some sunshine so we got really good pictures.
After the Observatory the weather was so nice we decided to just walk around Greenwich instead of going inside any more museums. We found an herb garden which Hilary loved and ran around picking all the herbs and smelling them. It was really cute. Then we continued walking through the huge park that seemed to go on and on. There were a ton of people out and it seemed most of them have dogs. I want a puppy so bad! I love and hate parks because of dogs. They are so freakin cute I love watching them play but it makes me want one even more and I know it's going to be years and years before my life is stable enough to get a dog.
We finally found our way out of the park and decided it was time to grab a beer and cheap food. Jit had a friend from CouchSurfing in the area, Eritta who ended up meeting up with us and the four of us landed in a pub. Hilary and I had our first real English beer and great conversation with Jit and Eritta. It was the first time we were really able to just sit and enjoy the company we were with it seemed. Eritta is originally from east Africa but had been in London for 19 years. Her views on life and London we're great to listen to. I'm not sure exactly how long we were at the pub for, but I hope to have a lot more conversations like those along our trip.
Once we were finished with our beers we hit a small Kebab shop which Eritta said is popular in the early AM hours. This was perfect for a couple of girls used to eating on the Ave in Seattle. Eritta had a friend Daniel who met up with us there. He was from Hungary and was a really outgoing guy. Unfortunately we were so hungry at this point that not much conversation materialized but it was still fun having a group of CouchSurfers together. While we were at the kebab place, there were two English gentlemen sitting behind us playing with Tarrah cards. I got interested while everyone else was paying and started ease dropping. The one doing the cards told the other to think of his question. The other clarified that it was a question about his love life and wanting a girlfriend, then I think he got a little self conscious cause he all the sudden noticed I was paying attention. He laughed and said never mind I've already got a prospect as he was looking at me and gave me a wink. I was taken a little aback but went with it and started talking to the guys. We had our introductions and then Hilary and Jit came back so I started to get up a leave. The one guy comically tried to convince me to stay with them but I told him good luck finding a girlfriend and went on my way. That was probably the friendliest interaction with a random local I've had so far.
Side note along those lines. The waiters and people working in shops are actually not very nice here. They all seem pretty rushed and don't really pay attention to you. I'm not sure if it's because tips are less here or what the deal is, but for the most part service is almost borderline rude. This is not something I was expecting and I'm not sure if this is the what most people experience or if I have just had a string of bad luck. Most of the tourists and locals here on the streets have all been really nice and helpful though, so I'm not really sure what the deal with service is.
After the Kebab shop we went back to Jit's to hang out, have a beer and take in the day. Jit had to get up early for work and we were getting up early to head to Windsor Castle so we ended up just watching a movie while we did more CouchSurfing, facebooking, emailing and blogging. With all of these different venues of communication through the internet it doesn't really seem like we are all that far away. Realistically I could still be back in Woodinville, WA and I'd be having the same amount of communication with my family and friends. I'm really glad I decided to bring my netbook, it has come in really handy and most of the CSers we'll be staying with have internet so I will constantly be able to be connected. It was a great decision. I got to talk to a couple of friends online which was nice getting caught up on life back home a bit. It's funny to realize that life doesn't stop when you go away. I headed to bed around 1am again and I think Hilary fell in to bed around 4am, crazy girl. I have no idea how she is surviving on such little sleep. She makes up for it by sleeping on most of our Tube rides though.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Ealing Broadway
March 27, 2010
Saturday was our last day in the hostel. We had to checkout at 10am and then we were meeting up with our CS host, Jit, at 11am. He lives about 30 minutes outside the heart of the city by tram. Before we left we went to the ticket office at our hostel to see if we could find any cheap theater tickets while we were in London. We got really lucky and found some tickets for 12.50 (I don't know how to make the Pound symbol) for Tuesday night. The show is called Petticoats and Dreamboats. It is supposed to be a Grease-like production that is fairly new, I'm really excited.
After we checked out we headed to Jit's place. However, once we got to the station it was absolutely packed so it took us forever to get a ticket and get on the Tube. Then we had to make a transfer and we waited about 20min for the next train to come. By the time we got to Jit's it was 12:30pm, we were only an hour and a half late. At this point we figured Jit wasn't at the station anymore but we didn't have anyway of getting a hold of him. We tried by phone but it went to his voice mail. Finally we got fed up with waiting at the station and decided to try to find an internet cafe. There was one right around the corner in a Kebab shop (random) and the owner was really nice and let us use the internet for free. Through a series of failed and successful attempts we finally were able to meet up with Jit.
Jit has been in England for a year and lived in Holland for a few years before that. He works as an engineer for Shell and does some amazing projects for them. He is an amazingly generous host who has been making us food, showing us around the city and letting us invade his household without the slightest hesitation. The town he lives in is called Ealing Broadway and it is really really pretty. I'm really glad we have been able to stay at a place that is more like the suburbs of London rather than just being in the city center the whole time. Getting to see how normal people live in London has been really fun. There are pubs all around and little boutiques that neither Hilary nor I have the money or the space to buy things from, but there are great to look at. The city has a main street that is pretty active and then a bunch of tiny streets that are dead quite where all the people live. The houses here are absolutely beautiful. I love walking past them and trying to peer in without seeming to creepy.
Alright, back to our day... Jit took us back to his place, let us put our stuff down and then offered to make us lunch. It was early afternoon by this point and we had eaten pretty early so we were all for it. About an hour later I was eating the best chicken curry of my life. It was absolutely amazing. In case anyone didn't put up on it, Jit is Indian and had his mother's homemade recipe so the food was authentic and delicious. This is another huge plus about CSing, we get to eat food made from a kitchen instead of having to eat out constantly. I love it!
Once we had our fill of deliciousness, the three of us set out back in to London. Hilary really wanted to check out the Victoria and Albert Museum so we headed down there. It is a unique museum that a lot of people recommended. We got there pretty easily -- the transportation system here is so easily, I really wish more of the states had subway systems. We spent a couple hours in the museum, I spent about 15 minutes of those completely lost trying to figure out where the hell I was supposed to meet Hilary and Jit at. So far at the museums we've been to we tend to go at different paces and are interested in different things which means we usually end up getting split up. We were at the V&A until it closed and when I tried to get back to our meeting place everything was roped off and the people there were telling me I couldn't get back to where I wanted to go. After wandering aimlessly around playing the lost tourist card very well, I eventually got someone who worked there to let me past and get to our meeting point. Hilary was there thank goodness.
After the museum we went to see the Kensington Palace and Gardens. These were outside and it was a really nice night. We've actually had great weather while we were hear. It's rained a little bit here and there but since we are from Seattle it hasn't bothered us at all. There has been a lot more sunshine and warmer weather than I was expecting. The Kensington Gardens are located in a huge park in the city which is pretty comparable to central park. It was huge and beautiful and really fun to walk through. There was a really random gazebo in one of the sections which made me think of my Nana and Grandpa's place. They passed away when I was in middle school but they used to have a gazebo that I'd play in when I was over at their place. It was my favorite place as a child. It was in the center of their housing complex and there was never anyone around. It became sort of my own secret garden. It's been awhile since I've thought about them, never thought London would bring up their memory.
After walking around for awhile we stopped to eat at a place called the Stock Pot. Hilary has done quite a bit a research on London and this was supposed to be one of the better priced places that actually has decent food. It wasn't too bad. I had fish and chips, figured I needed to have that at some point while I'm in London. It was good. Except fish and chips traditionally comes with mashed peas which looks like disgusting baby food that babies wouldn't even eat. So of course I didn't. :) This picky eating thing is going to become an issue later in the trip I have a feeling.
On our way back from eating we passed through a major square in London which was filled with people. Since it was a Saturday night the city was alive and buzzing at around 11pm. There were limos everywhere. I've never seen so many in one night. Black, white, pink, stretch, hummer, you name it and there was a limo like it on the streets on London. I'm not sure if this is normal for it local citizens or if it is just all of the tourists traveling in style. At one point we saw a party bus -- apparently they have those in London too! It was essentially a double-decker red bus full of drunk college aged kids all dressed up. I had a huge urge to jump on the bus and join, or at least take a picture, but before I could move it was driving down the road far far away from me. Oh well, London party bus will have to be checked off my to-do list at a later date.
At this point it was pretty late and Hilary and I were still pretty tired so we headed back to Jit's city, grabbed a couple of beers and started planning to rest of our stay in London and finding more CouchSurfers in our upcoming countries.
Saturday was our last day in the hostel. We had to checkout at 10am and then we were meeting up with our CS host, Jit, at 11am. He lives about 30 minutes outside the heart of the city by tram. Before we left we went to the ticket office at our hostel to see if we could find any cheap theater tickets while we were in London. We got really lucky and found some tickets for 12.50 (I don't know how to make the Pound symbol) for Tuesday night. The show is called Petticoats and Dreamboats. It is supposed to be a Grease-like production that is fairly new, I'm really excited.
After we checked out we headed to Jit's place. However, once we got to the station it was absolutely packed so it took us forever to get a ticket and get on the Tube. Then we had to make a transfer and we waited about 20min for the next train to come. By the time we got to Jit's it was 12:30pm, we were only an hour and a half late. At this point we figured Jit wasn't at the station anymore but we didn't have anyway of getting a hold of him. We tried by phone but it went to his voice mail. Finally we got fed up with waiting at the station and decided to try to find an internet cafe. There was one right around the corner in a Kebab shop (random) and the owner was really nice and let us use the internet for free. Through a series of failed and successful attempts we finally were able to meet up with Jit.
Jit has been in England for a year and lived in Holland for a few years before that. He works as an engineer for Shell and does some amazing projects for them. He is an amazingly generous host who has been making us food, showing us around the city and letting us invade his household without the slightest hesitation. The town he lives in is called Ealing Broadway and it is really really pretty. I'm really glad we have been able to stay at a place that is more like the suburbs of London rather than just being in the city center the whole time. Getting to see how normal people live in London has been really fun. There are pubs all around and little boutiques that neither Hilary nor I have the money or the space to buy things from, but there are great to look at. The city has a main street that is pretty active and then a bunch of tiny streets that are dead quite where all the people live. The houses here are absolutely beautiful. I love walking past them and trying to peer in without seeming to creepy.
Alright, back to our day... Jit took us back to his place, let us put our stuff down and then offered to make us lunch. It was early afternoon by this point and we had eaten pretty early so we were all for it. About an hour later I was eating the best chicken curry of my life. It was absolutely amazing. In case anyone didn't put up on it, Jit is Indian and had his mother's homemade recipe so the food was authentic and delicious. This is another huge plus about CSing, we get to eat food made from a kitchen instead of having to eat out constantly. I love it!
Once we had our fill of deliciousness, the three of us set out back in to London. Hilary really wanted to check out the Victoria and Albert Museum so we headed down there. It is a unique museum that a lot of people recommended. We got there pretty easily -- the transportation system here is so easily, I really wish more of the states had subway systems. We spent a couple hours in the museum, I spent about 15 minutes of those completely lost trying to figure out where the hell I was supposed to meet Hilary and Jit at. So far at the museums we've been to we tend to go at different paces and are interested in different things which means we usually end up getting split up. We were at the V&A until it closed and when I tried to get back to our meeting place everything was roped off and the people there were telling me I couldn't get back to where I wanted to go. After wandering aimlessly around playing the lost tourist card very well, I eventually got someone who worked there to let me past and get to our meeting point. Hilary was there thank goodness.
After the museum we went to see the Kensington Palace and Gardens. These were outside and it was a really nice night. We've actually had great weather while we were hear. It's rained a little bit here and there but since we are from Seattle it hasn't bothered us at all. There has been a lot more sunshine and warmer weather than I was expecting. The Kensington Gardens are located in a huge park in the city which is pretty comparable to central park. It was huge and beautiful and really fun to walk through. There was a really random gazebo in one of the sections which made me think of my Nana and Grandpa's place. They passed away when I was in middle school but they used to have a gazebo that I'd play in when I was over at their place. It was my favorite place as a child. It was in the center of their housing complex and there was never anyone around. It became sort of my own secret garden. It's been awhile since I've thought about them, never thought London would bring up their memory.
After walking around for awhile we stopped to eat at a place called the Stock Pot. Hilary has done quite a bit a research on London and this was supposed to be one of the better priced places that actually has decent food. It wasn't too bad. I had fish and chips, figured I needed to have that at some point while I'm in London. It was good. Except fish and chips traditionally comes with mashed peas which looks like disgusting baby food that babies wouldn't even eat. So of course I didn't. :) This picky eating thing is going to become an issue later in the trip I have a feeling.
On our way back from eating we passed through a major square in London which was filled with people. Since it was a Saturday night the city was alive and buzzing at around 11pm. There were limos everywhere. I've never seen so many in one night. Black, white, pink, stretch, hummer, you name it and there was a limo like it on the streets on London. I'm not sure if this is normal for it local citizens or if it is just all of the tourists traveling in style. At one point we saw a party bus -- apparently they have those in London too! It was essentially a double-decker red bus full of drunk college aged kids all dressed up. I had a huge urge to jump on the bus and join, or at least take a picture, but before I could move it was driving down the road far far away from me. Oh well, London party bus will have to be checked off my to-do list at a later date.
At this point it was pretty late and Hilary and I were still pretty tired so we headed back to Jit's city, grabbed a couple of beers and started planning to rest of our stay in London and finding more CouchSurfers in our upcoming countries.
CouchSurfing
I wrote up a huge blog post today so I've decided to split it up into miniature blog posts. Here's the first one.
When Hilary and I started planning this trip we had gotten really in to CouchSurfing. For those of you who don't know what that it, it's a website (couchsurfing.org) which is worldwide and dedicated to travelers who need a place to stay and would rather stay with locals than in a hotel or hostel. The idea of it is to spread hospitality worldwide and to get a better understanding of other cultures through human interaction. It's trying to take the 'tourist' out of traveling in a way. This is something Hilary and I both can relate to since a big part of this trip for us is more about understanding the different people and cultures around the world rather than just going to see all of the typical country sights.
Back in Seattle, Hilary hosted a few CouchSurfers and I met up with some who were traveling through for dinner and a drink in the city. I couldn't really do any hosting since I was pretty homeless at the time... We had really good experiences with our CSers and were excited to try it out in Europe. Well, we are now in Europe and we are currently staying with our first CouchSurfer, Jit. He has been amazing. Super generous and an overall great guy. I have found most people are in CouchSurfing. We also have the next month set up with CouchSurfers in Belgium, Netherlands and Switzerland. All of them seem like really amazing people and I'm really excited to meet and explore with them.
I talked to a few friends about how Hilary and I were planning on doing CS and most looked at me like I was insane. They didn't understand how that could be safe. For this reason, I didn't even tell my family (sorry mom & dad) about this. I knew they would be overly concerned and I wasn't close enough to them to talk them through it and help them understand the community. Hilary on the other hand was able to actually host CSers at her parents' place and had time to get then used to the idea. They are now really excited for us. As long as we are smart about how we use CS it is a really safe and great community. There are references and reviews that people leave their hosts and surfers so we are able to read through those and make sure everyone we stay with is legit. The best way to understand what CouchSurfing is all about is to log on to the website and explore. There's a link to my profile on my facebook account. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to travel a little differently than the norm. This could be in the states or out. Surprisingly, a lot of people use it for traveling between states in the US as well which I think is a great idea.
When Hilary and I started planning this trip we had gotten really in to CouchSurfing. For those of you who don't know what that it, it's a website (couchsurfing.org) which is worldwide and dedicated to travelers who need a place to stay and would rather stay with locals than in a hotel or hostel. The idea of it is to spread hospitality worldwide and to get a better understanding of other cultures through human interaction. It's trying to take the 'tourist' out of traveling in a way. This is something Hilary and I both can relate to since a big part of this trip for us is more about understanding the different people and cultures around the world rather than just going to see all of the typical country sights.
Back in Seattle, Hilary hosted a few CouchSurfers and I met up with some who were traveling through for dinner and a drink in the city. I couldn't really do any hosting since I was pretty homeless at the time... We had really good experiences with our CSers and were excited to try it out in Europe. Well, we are now in Europe and we are currently staying with our first CouchSurfer, Jit. He has been amazing. Super generous and an overall great guy. I have found most people are in CouchSurfing. We also have the next month set up with CouchSurfers in Belgium, Netherlands and Switzerland. All of them seem like really amazing people and I'm really excited to meet and explore with them.
I talked to a few friends about how Hilary and I were planning on doing CS and most looked at me like I was insane. They didn't understand how that could be safe. For this reason, I didn't even tell my family (sorry mom & dad) about this. I knew they would be overly concerned and I wasn't close enough to them to talk them through it and help them understand the community. Hilary on the other hand was able to actually host CSers at her parents' place and had time to get then used to the idea. They are now really excited for us. As long as we are smart about how we use CS it is a really safe and great community. There are references and reviews that people leave their hosts and surfers so we are able to read through those and make sure everyone we stay with is legit. The best way to understand what CouchSurfing is all about is to log on to the website and explore. There's a link to my profile on my facebook account. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to travel a little differently than the norm. This could be in the states or out. Surprisingly, a lot of people use it for traveling between states in the US as well which I think is a great idea.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
March 26, 2010
Today was a lot of walking. We found a farmer's market-esque place in the Southwark neighborhood which is in southeast London. We found a lady who was selling a huge variety of olives, which Hilary loves, so we got a small container of those. Other than that we just did a lot of sampling which included some delicious cheese, brownies and salami.
After the market we walked around to try and find some cheap traditional fish and chips in an English pub. It turns out food here is a lot more expensive than I had thought so we had to do some walking to find a pub that was semi-decent. We finally found a place called O'Neills, When we walked in to it we discovered it was completely filled with business men. We were in the business district and it definitely showed. We awkwardly found a seat and decided to pretend like we fit in even though it was pretty obvious we didn't. Within ten to twenty minutes though we started to see some women trail in and eventually there was even a couple who weren't wearing suits. The food was good though so it was totally worth it.
Our goal today was to see the Tate Modern which we've heard from several people was a must see. It is free and open until 10pm on Fridays so we headed over there after dinner thinking it would be a little less packed at night. We were right, it wasn't very crowded at all, Now I've been to a few art museums in my time and none of them have really made much of an impact on me. I just don't really have the artistic eye to see what all the rage is about. Sometimes I look at a painting and think my nephew could draw this or I could have put a purple line over orange paint and called it art as well. Especially when I see things like a mirror being called art because the artist said there was some deeper meaning to it. Alright, I get that there is a 'message' to it and all that, but there are mirrors everywhere. I don't get how putting one in a museum makes it art. I don't meant to sound completely cynical, I just think when it comes down to it most artists are probably clinically insane and we as a society decide that we want to excuse it by calling their creations art, ha, maybe that is pretty cynical.
Anyways, I was going through all the different rooms and looking at the pieces of art and once in a while I would see something that was pretty or enjoyable but for the most part my thoughts were focused on the cynicism of the above paragraph. Then about halfway through I entered a room which had 4 gigantic paintings on it all done by the same man and for some reason I was hooked. There was something about these paintings that made sense to me. They are pretty abstract but I really, really liked them. I stood staring at the first one for probably about 5 minutes which is 4 minutes and 30 seconds longer than I looked at most. Then a tour guide came in with a group and started talking about all the different layers of the painting and what they stood for. It was really interesting to hear the interpretations of the artist. Finally I went over to the informational board each room has that explains the artist and the paintings. well the more I read about the painter the more I understood why I was drawn to his paintings.
His name is Gerhard Richter for those of you that want to look up some of his stuff. There were two quotes listed in the excerpt about him that I absolutely loved. The first one was "I have nothing to say and I'm saying it." There was a similar quote I heard the other day which said "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it well." Both of these seem to sum up a good amount of my existence at the moment. The second quote was "I don't know what I want. I am inconsistent, non-committal, passive, I like the infinite, the boundless. I like continual uncertainty." I ended up reading this quote probably 5 times total, over and over again. I've never found a quote that seemed more like me than this before. Granted no one can be summed up in a short quote, but if it was possible, Gerhard Richter and I should have been soulmates (except for the fact that I don't believe in those...). It just made so much sense. I fell in love with Richter right then. I'm excited to get a chance to see more of his work and learn about him.
A few other works I really enjoyed were Pablo Picasso's "The Three Dancers." The description explained it as love, sex and death are linked in an ecstatic dance resulting in a loss of self. Picasso's paintings are always colorful enough and different enough to strike anyone's interest but for some reason this was my favorite of his. The third painting I was drawn to was a Pablo-esque painting by Juan Grls. It was called "Bottle of Rum and Newspaper" I thought that was fitting enough. Then there was Niki de Saint's Phalle artwork "Shooting Picture" She had a line of pieces where she put packets of paint on a canvas and had people shoot the canvas. When the bullets hit the canvas paint would randomly splatter and drip. It was described as a 'moment of action and emphasis on chance.' It was a really cool concept. Next, Alighiero Boetti's "Map of the World" was awesome and the one piece of artwork I would take home if I could. It had the world on a canvas and each country was made up of it's flag. I recommend googling it if you are into that at all. Lastly, ther was Keith Arnatt's "Self Burial (Television Interference Project)." This one was very unique. It had 9 progressive pictures of a man being buried in the ground. The unique thing about this was in October of 1969 these pictures were broadcasted on TV in Germany one day at a time. Each day one of the pictures would interrupt a TV show for about 2 seconds then just go away. There was no explanation for the photos so the people watching at the time had to make their own assumptions. I'm really surprised this sort of thing was possible in Germany in 1969. How Arnatt got TV stations to agree is beyond me. Arnatt described commented on the piece saying "disappearance of the art object suggested to me the eventful disappearance of the artist himself."
After the museum Hilary and I walked across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was about 10pm at this time so the church wasn't open but we took a couple pictures of it. It was huge and I'm sure it was really nice inside but my trip to Italy a few years ago pretty much churched me out for life. Once you see the Vatican it's hard to top. Plus when I walk in to churches I tend to focus on all of the money, time, labor and in some cases human lives that were lost. While it looks beautiful and all that, these resources could have been put toward a lot better things in my mind. This brings up a whole realm of religious debates that I'd probably get in to right about now if I wasn't have a one-sided conversation with a computer. Becca where are you when I need you!!
The first pic is the Millennium Bridge and the second is St. Paul's Cathedral.
We headed back to our hostel at this point and are hopefully headed to bed soon. It's Friday night in London but we are both exhausted and still trying to catch up from jet lag and getting over being sick. I'm trying to be good for once in my life and take semi-good care of myself so I'm not sick for the next 3 months of the trip. Plus it's super expensive to go out in London. I'm thinking we'll save that for the cheaper countries.
Today was a lot of walking. We found a farmer's market-esque place in the Southwark neighborhood which is in southeast London. We found a lady who was selling a huge variety of olives, which Hilary loves, so we got a small container of those. Other than that we just did a lot of sampling which included some delicious cheese, brownies and salami.
After the market we walked around to try and find some cheap traditional fish and chips in an English pub. It turns out food here is a lot more expensive than I had thought so we had to do some walking to find a pub that was semi-decent. We finally found a place called O'Neills, When we walked in to it we discovered it was completely filled with business men. We were in the business district and it definitely showed. We awkwardly found a seat and decided to pretend like we fit in even though it was pretty obvious we didn't. Within ten to twenty minutes though we started to see some women trail in and eventually there was even a couple who weren't wearing suits. The food was good though so it was totally worth it.
Our goal today was to see the Tate Modern which we've heard from several people was a must see. It is free and open until 10pm on Fridays so we headed over there after dinner thinking it would be a little less packed at night. We were right, it wasn't very crowded at all, Now I've been to a few art museums in my time and none of them have really made much of an impact on me. I just don't really have the artistic eye to see what all the rage is about. Sometimes I look at a painting and think my nephew could draw this or I could have put a purple line over orange paint and called it art as well. Especially when I see things like a mirror being called art because the artist said there was some deeper meaning to it. Alright, I get that there is a 'message' to it and all that, but there are mirrors everywhere. I don't get how putting one in a museum makes it art. I don't meant to sound completely cynical, I just think when it comes down to it most artists are probably clinically insane and we as a society decide that we want to excuse it by calling their creations art, ha, maybe that is pretty cynical.
Anyways, I was going through all the different rooms and looking at the pieces of art and once in a while I would see something that was pretty or enjoyable but for the most part my thoughts were focused on the cynicism of the above paragraph. Then about halfway through I entered a room which had 4 gigantic paintings on it all done by the same man and for some reason I was hooked. There was something about these paintings that made sense to me. They are pretty abstract but I really, really liked them. I stood staring at the first one for probably about 5 minutes which is 4 minutes and 30 seconds longer than I looked at most. Then a tour guide came in with a group and started talking about all the different layers of the painting and what they stood for. It was really interesting to hear the interpretations of the artist. Finally I went over to the informational board each room has that explains the artist and the paintings. well the more I read about the painter the more I understood why I was drawn to his paintings.
His name is Gerhard Richter for those of you that want to look up some of his stuff. There were two quotes listed in the excerpt about him that I absolutely loved. The first one was "I have nothing to say and I'm saying it." There was a similar quote I heard the other day which said "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it well." Both of these seem to sum up a good amount of my existence at the moment. The second quote was "I don't know what I want. I am inconsistent, non-committal, passive, I like the infinite, the boundless. I like continual uncertainty." I ended up reading this quote probably 5 times total, over and over again. I've never found a quote that seemed more like me than this before. Granted no one can be summed up in a short quote, but if it was possible, Gerhard Richter and I should have been soulmates (except for the fact that I don't believe in those...). It just made so much sense. I fell in love with Richter right then. I'm excited to get a chance to see more of his work and learn about him.
A few other works I really enjoyed were Pablo Picasso's "The Three Dancers." The description explained it as love, sex and death are linked in an ecstatic dance resulting in a loss of self. Picasso's paintings are always colorful enough and different enough to strike anyone's interest but for some reason this was my favorite of his. The third painting I was drawn to was a Pablo-esque painting by Juan Grls. It was called "Bottle of Rum and Newspaper" I thought that was fitting enough. Then there was Niki de Saint's Phalle artwork "Shooting Picture" She had a line of pieces where she put packets of paint on a canvas and had people shoot the canvas. When the bullets hit the canvas paint would randomly splatter and drip. It was described as a 'moment of action and emphasis on chance.' It was a really cool concept. Next, Alighiero Boetti's "Map of the World" was awesome and the one piece of artwork I would take home if I could. It had the world on a canvas and each country was made up of it's flag. I recommend googling it if you are into that at all. Lastly, ther was Keith Arnatt's "Self Burial (Television Interference Project)." This one was very unique. It had 9 progressive pictures of a man being buried in the ground. The unique thing about this was in October of 1969 these pictures were broadcasted on TV in Germany one day at a time. Each day one of the pictures would interrupt a TV show for about 2 seconds then just go away. There was no explanation for the photos so the people watching at the time had to make their own assumptions. I'm really surprised this sort of thing was possible in Germany in 1969. How Arnatt got TV stations to agree is beyond me. Arnatt described commented on the piece saying "disappearance of the art object suggested to me the eventful disappearance of the artist himself."
After the museum Hilary and I walked across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was about 10pm at this time so the church wasn't open but we took a couple pictures of it. It was huge and I'm sure it was really nice inside but my trip to Italy a few years ago pretty much churched me out for life. Once you see the Vatican it's hard to top. Plus when I walk in to churches I tend to focus on all of the money, time, labor and in some cases human lives that were lost. While it looks beautiful and all that, these resources could have been put toward a lot better things in my mind. This brings up a whole realm of religious debates that I'd probably get in to right about now if I wasn't have a one-sided conversation with a computer. Becca where are you when I need you!!
The first pic is the Millennium Bridge and the second is St. Paul's Cathedral.
We headed back to our hostel at this point and are hopefully headed to bed soon. It's Friday night in London but we are both exhausted and still trying to catch up from jet lag and getting over being sick. I'm trying to be good for once in my life and take semi-good care of myself so I'm not sick for the next 3 months of the trip. Plus it's super expensive to go out in London. I'm thinking we'll save that for the cheaper countries.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
We Have Arrived
March 25, 2010
We're in London!
The plane rides were pretty uneventful from Seattle to London. We had a lay over in Chicago in between and everything was on time and running smoothly. I somehow ended up in an exit row seat the first flight which was great cause I like to pretend that my legs are long and I need more room than the average person to stretch out. The longer, international flight I got an isle seat in the front. Hilary on the other hand ended up in the back of the plane in the middle of 5 seats. It looked miserable when I went back to visit her. The guy I was sitting next to was in the military along with his 2 friends who were in front of us. One of the flight attendants found this out and upgraded my seatmate to first class - his friends had the bulkhead of the plane so they already had a good amount of leg room. Hilary was then able to move up next to me. I didn't realize airlines dotted on those in the military so much. They were also given free alcohol and the flight attendant checked on them a lot more than anyone else it seemed. I guess it could have helped that they weren't particularly unattractive either. :)
Once we got in to London it was pretty easy to get on the Tube and get to the stop our hostel was located on. Once we got off the Tube it was a different story though. We walked in a complete circle looking for Kings Cross Road (because of course we didn't look up how to get to our Hostel before hand, that would have been too easy), which you think would be somehow attached to Kings Cross Station. But surprisingly, it's not. And of course it was raining, not bad though, and it was actually kind of nice since we had been stuck on a plane for over 10 hours Plus it reminded us of Seattle, which was comforting in a way. It took us a while to figure out where to go but we eventually made it. The upcoming weeks should be interesting once we have to start finding our way around in foreign languages.
It's around 9am Seattle time (+7 hours London time) and I am definitely lacking in rest. Between not getting much sleep my last night in Seattle plus not really sleeping on the plane I think I'm running on probably 4 to 5 hours of sleep in the past 2 and a half days. I am also in a desperate need of a shower... which are coed in this hostel so that should be interesting. I haven't seen them yet so who knows what they actually look like, but I'm up for the adventure. I figure if I can run a naked lap (yes, for everyone who knows what that is I really did run one, I don't have enough money to keep cooking meals) then I can take a shower with some foreign dudes, haha. Hopefully it isn't that drastic though.
Our plan for the rest of the day is to get some pub food, shower and sleep with the intention of waking up tomorrow with lots of energy and officially on London time -- we'll see how well that game plan pans out. As far as plans for tomorrow, we've got none. Or I should say I don't have any. For all I know Hilary has the whole thing planned out, which would totally work for me. I enjoy not having to plan.
All in all, the first day and a half could not have gone much better. No luggage problems, no hostel problems, no major transportation problems, I'm a happy girl. Now on to the food, shower, sleep, and maybe a little English beer...
We're in London!
The plane rides were pretty uneventful from Seattle to London. We had a lay over in Chicago in between and everything was on time and running smoothly. I somehow ended up in an exit row seat the first flight which was great cause I like to pretend that my legs are long and I need more room than the average person to stretch out. The longer, international flight I got an isle seat in the front. Hilary on the other hand ended up in the back of the plane in the middle of 5 seats. It looked miserable when I went back to visit her. The guy I was sitting next to was in the military along with his 2 friends who were in front of us. One of the flight attendants found this out and upgraded my seatmate to first class - his friends had the bulkhead of the plane so they already had a good amount of leg room. Hilary was then able to move up next to me. I didn't realize airlines dotted on those in the military so much. They were also given free alcohol and the flight attendant checked on them a lot more than anyone else it seemed. I guess it could have helped that they weren't particularly unattractive either. :)
Once we got in to London it was pretty easy to get on the Tube and get to the stop our hostel was located on. Once we got off the Tube it was a different story though. We walked in a complete circle looking for Kings Cross Road (because of course we didn't look up how to get to our Hostel before hand, that would have been too easy), which you think would be somehow attached to Kings Cross Station. But surprisingly, it's not. And of course it was raining, not bad though, and it was actually kind of nice since we had been stuck on a plane for over 10 hours Plus it reminded us of Seattle, which was comforting in a way. It took us a while to figure out where to go but we eventually made it. The upcoming weeks should be interesting once we have to start finding our way around in foreign languages.
It's around 9am Seattle time (+7 hours London time) and I am definitely lacking in rest. Between not getting much sleep my last night in Seattle plus not really sleeping on the plane I think I'm running on probably 4 to 5 hours of sleep in the past 2 and a half days. I am also in a desperate need of a shower... which are coed in this hostel so that should be interesting. I haven't seen them yet so who knows what they actually look like, but I'm up for the adventure. I figure if I can run a naked lap (yes, for everyone who knows what that is I really did run one, I don't have enough money to keep cooking meals) then I can take a shower with some foreign dudes, haha. Hopefully it isn't that drastic though.
Our plan for the rest of the day is to get some pub food, shower and sleep with the intention of waking up tomorrow with lots of energy and officially on London time -- we'll see how well that game plan pans out. As far as plans for tomorrow, we've got none. Or I should say I don't have any. For all I know Hilary has the whole thing planned out, which would totally work for me. I enjoy not having to plan.
All in all, the first day and a half could not have gone much better. No luggage problems, no hostel problems, no major transportation problems, I'm a happy girl. Now on to the food, shower, sleep, and maybe a little English beer...
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