Our Trip to London

Pictures from the trip are at the URL below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliapaulmann/sets/72157627487935144/show/


Yesterday we went to London with our Cambridge Program. Finals are this Thursday, so it was the last London trip group that we could go with. It was nice that they had one on a Saturday so that we could still go to church today. Here is a list of the things we did and places we visited, all for free!:
1. Trafalgar Square
2. Buckingham Palace
3. Hyde Park
4. A fashion district (not quite sure what it was called...included Harrods and a bunch of high end shopping)
5. The Victoria and Albert Museum
6. St. James' Park
7. Big Ben/Parliament (didn't actually go in)
8. Westminster Abbey (for Evensong)
9. Shakespeare's Globe Theater
10. London Bridge
11. Tower Bridge
12. The Tower of London (just photographed it from across the river).

1. Trafalgar Square: This was pretty cool. It basically has a cool pillar in the middle with Napoleon on top and some really big lion sculptures. Just walked by it on our way to Buckingham Palace and took lots of pictures...not much else to do there.
2. Buckingham Palace was pretty. The massive statue out front was cool (even though it was covered with scaffolding). We went to go see the changing of the guards, but unfortunately they had canceled the ceremony for the day, lame. The palace was pretty, but to be honest the architecture on the outside was not as astounding as most of the other buildings we have seen in England. I am sure if we had been willing to shell out the money to go inside we would have been much more impressed. After getting lots of pictures we decided to leave for Hyde Park. Luckily, as we left, the Royal Calvary rode by in their awesome hats and red coats. That was worth it.
3. Hyde Park was cool. We were pretty hungry and tired by the time we got there, so we just found and bench and ate our sack lunch. I was surprised by how clean and safe it was. London definitely has its own unique feel, as does every city. We didn't really see much of the park itself because we took so long eating and talking! Being 7 months pregnant I needed to stop and rest more than other people, so I guess next time we visit London we can spend more time strolling through the park. I visited the public bathroom when we were there and was actually surprised at how decent it was for a public park toilet, apparently it got the "public loo of the year award" in 2010 and 2011...thought that was funny.
4. The fashion district was a nice bonus. We were on our way from Hyde Park to the Victoria and Albert Museum and our foot path took us by a lot of the high end stores.
5. The Victoria and Albert Museum was AMAZING. There were a lot of artifacts there from different parts of the world. We saw the China, Japan, and Southeast Asia exhibits. Some really old and beautiful stuff. I also went and saw a show called "Raphael's Cartoons." The exhibit had a bunch of drawings/paintings that Raphael did for massive tapestries based on the lives and Peter and Paul. They looked like big murals. I guess it is amazing that these artworks have survived because they were needle punched so that the weavers could copy them as patterns. Awesome. There was also a beautiful Chihuly piece hanging in the main entrance that was so breathtaking.
6. St. James' Park was a nice little surprise. We went to see the Churchill War Rooms, but the entry price was a bit steep, so we decided against going in (though I hear it is a wonderful experience to go in, especially for guys interested in war stuff). Just across the way was a pretty little garden. We went into it and found that there was a beautiful lake with exotic birds. There were pelicans, heron, black swans, and other birds I don't know the names for. There was a sweet cottage with a garden and the rest of the park was filled with all sorts of beautiful flowers. The lake was dug and the park built as a royal retreat for Henry VIII and later revamped by Charles II. We spent a good hour, at least, drying in the sun (it had been pouring for a couple hours just before) and resting our feet. Our friends were nice and shared a bunch of snacks with us. It was very enjoyable.
7. Big Ben really isn't that big. It is cool looking, but isn't much taller than the surrounding buildings. Parliament was neat from the outside. Again, admission prices were outrageous so we didn't go in, but one of these days we will. I learned all about its construction and interior decoration in my Gothic Architecture class during my first month here at Cambridge, so it is at the top of my list to go in one day. The whole structure is quite impressive.
8. Westminster Abbey was beautiful. I was very rewarding visiting after studying about this chapel in class as well. Some of the architecture was completed during the same period as was King's College Chapel, so I was pretty excited to see some of the similarities. We didn't get to go into the Henry VII Chapel, to my great disappointment (they wanted to charge an arm and a leg for admission). We got in for free in order to listen to evensong (an Anglican worship service at eventide). It was lovely. At this point I was so exhausted that I couldn't stand for all the musical numbers, so I remained sitting. Hope that people weren't too offended. The grave of the Unknown Warrior was at the entrance of the chapel and is quite famous (pretty much the British equivalent of the American Unknown Soldier Monument).
9. Shakespeare's Globe Theater was one that I personally missed out on, but that Paul got to experience. We got tickets through our program, however they were standing room only. At this point the thought of standing for even a couple minutes at a time was a bit overwhelming for me, so Paul went with the other people in our program to watch "Ann Boleyn." I went with my friend Emily Elliott to eat dinner at the Baltic Restaurant, a Polish place. It was extremely good cuisine. We stayed there for about an hour and a half just resting and refueling. I didn't get pictures of the Globe Theater, since I didn't get to go to the play, but if you visit their website you get the mail idea of how awesome it was (www.shakespearesglobe.com).
10. London Bridge was so super disappointing. It was basically a very boring cement bridge with pink florescent lights illuminating it. Blah.
11. Tower Bridge was just down the river from London Bridge and looked much cooler, so Emily and I went down there to take a picture of it.
12. The Tower of London was more like a fortress than I imagined it, which makes sense given its purpose. It pretty much looks like an awesome medieval/royal prison. We decided to stay on the south bank of the river and take pictures of it from there, since it was closed anyways and we had a great view of it from where we were.

That's basically it. After Emily and I finished looking at the Tower of London and enjoying the awesome aura of nightlife on the river, we made out way back to the Globe (where we had dropped off Paul earlier). The play got out and Paul was thoroughly tired after standing for 3 hours after a long day of walking. I crashed hard core on the bus. It was about an hour and a half before the bus dropped us off at the back gate of Pembroke College. I navigated through the throngs of silly, drunk college kids to the taxi station and went home. The babysitter took a few minutes to wake up to us rapping on the door. Anson was asleep, but woke up when we got home. He gave me a hug and then made sure that Daddy was home too. Then he went back to sleep. Bed has never felt so good.