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It was really nice to be able to do the whole trip without planes. It's so much less hassle, no delays, and the stations are all right in the city centers.
The Eurostar terminal in Brussels...
And arriving at the brand new St. Pancras station in London.
As I said before, I was extremely excited to be going to London. With a population somewhere in the neighbourhood of 8 million, this was by far the largest city I had ever been to. We spent a long time narrowing down our list of things to do and see; three days was not nearly enough time to take in all the attractions.
We exchanged our euros into pounds. It really sucks to give over a 50 euro note and get 30 pounds back. This wasn't going to be an inexpensive trip.
Our first task was to take the tube over to our hotel. The nearest station was King's Cross.
I remembered it as the place where on July 7, 2005, four suicide bombers had met up and gotten on various public transit lines. Within a half hour, three subway trains and a bus had been blown up, killing 52 people.
Kinda crazy to be standing there.
The tube system is pretty incredible and convenient. You can really get anywhere you need to go within minutes. Once again, it makes you realize how bad we are back home at public transit.
We got off at Finchley Road station and started walking up a busy road. Notice the fences; we later realized these are the only way to stop Londoners from just running across the street whenever they damn well feel like it. If by some miracle a pedestrian in London is actually crossing at a crosswalk, he really couldn't care less what colour the traffic lights are or whether a wall of traffic is bearing down on him.
As with bikers in Holland, pedestrians in London would be killed in Canada within minutes.
Our hotel in London was quite pleasant, situated on a pleasant street in a pleasant neighbourhood. I still like the one in Istanbul the best, but this one was nice.
We set our bags down and then took off to explore the city.
Our first stop will be no surprise to anyone who knows or has spent any amount of time with Lindsay: the Beatles Store and the Elvis Shop, right beside each other on Baker Street.
Inside the Elvis shop was a slightly overweight guy with slick, greased back hair and a half-open leather jacket revealing his chest hair. He was talking to an older police officer--wait, I mean a "bobby"--when we came in. After a minute the cop turned to us.
Cop: Hey, doesn't he look like Elvis? (pointing to the clerk)
Lindsay: Yeah, he does!
Cop: Isn't it striking? He looks just like him! He's Elvis, isn't he?
Lindsay: Yeah, I guess so!
Cop: Hey, do that thing!
Clerk: (impersonating) Thank you! Thank you very muuuuch!
Cop: Isn't that great?
Lindsay: It's pretty great!
Cop: Where're you from? America?
Lindsay: Nope, we're from Canada.
Clerk: Elvis was in Canada! (points to an Elvis "live in Canada" album)
Lindsay: That's funny!
Cop: Isn't he great? (pointing at the clerk again)
It went on like that for a while. It was our introduction to English cheekiness.
By the way, I can't tell you how strange it is to suddenly be in a country where everyone speaks English again. For the past four months I've been trying to avoid conversation in shops or having to ask if people speak my language; it was quite odd to realize that you could walk up to anyone here and just starting talking to them.
After that we went to scope out our venue for the evening. We booked tickets for two theatre shows in London: The Lion King and Les Miserables. We eventually found the Lyceum Theatre where the Lion King was playing.
Afterwards we walked down the street towards the Thames river. I grabbed a sandwich and Lindsay grabbed a humous salad (disgusting). We sat down in a nice park to eat amidst statues of great English poets.
I believe that one is Robert Burns.
Then we started walking along the river. I caught sight of a London landmark: the Millenium Eye.
It's the tallest ferris wheel in the world. We never went on it; it's 25 pounds a ticket.
Then, up ahead, I glimpsed an even more famous landmark:
Ah, Big Ben, you're probably saying.
WRONG, you fool. That's Victoria Tower. Big Ben is the bell inside.
(Oh, fine, we'll call it Big Ben for convenience sake, but don't accuse me of getting the facts wrong.)
Big Ben is part of the British parliament buildings. Across the street is another famous London sight: Westminster Abbey.
But more on the Abbey later.
Here's looking down the Thames from Big Ben:
We crossed the river. I took this picture on the bridge, looking back at the parliament buildings.
We started walking on the other side of the Thames, back towards the Eye.
It was very sunny out, as you can see, but it was really windy so the walking wasn't as nice as it could have been. Regardless, the city is absolutely beautiful. It's hard to get a sense of it from pictures.
This is looking way down the river towards the financial district, the skyscrapers of Fleet Street.
We kept walking....
We sat down for a cup of coffee and then decided to cross back over the river and head back to our hotel. We took the Millenium Footbridge, which eight years ago had to be closed immediately after it first opened because it was swaying so badly. It reopened after some reinforcements.
At the far end you can see the dome of the gargantuan St. Paul's Cathedral.
If you look in the distance here, you can spot London Tower Bridge.
At the foot of St. Paul's Cathedral.
I found a neat old momument: it's dedicated to the firefighters--the 'grimy heroes'--who died trying to put out the blazes during the Blitz (when Hitler bombed the city relentlessly during WW2).
Back down into the tube...
And then we went to the show.
The Lion King was pretty neat. The costumes for all the animals were really inventive and incredible to look at, and the music was great. Although, in my opinion, if Mustafa and Simba are really such noble animals they'd abolish the lion monarchy and allow the jungle inhabitants to elect their own representative government. I hardly think that the gazelles, for instance, rest assured that a Lion Royalty rules with their best interests at heart. The play never addresses these fundamental themes.
But more on such notions when we get to Buckingham Palace.
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