london is big

hey

lisa and i have been busy tourists in london, trying to see all that there is to see in 4 days. 4 days later, we are pretty wiped out and tired. wow. this place is big! the other cities that we have been have had city centres that we could walk all around and get to know, but the city centre here is so vast that we quickly figured out that its impossible to learn it all. we are a long way from ghent!

we met the first mean person of our trip in london: the customs agent that yelled at us for 10 minutes for... well, we're not exactly sure why. but he was pissed! in any case, he got distracted by something else and let us in. phew.

on tuesday we met the first person that would not give lisa a student price, at westminister abbey, because she forgot her card in canada. oh well, i guess the gravy train had to end sometime.

on monday we went to the tower of london. we thought that the other castles that we had seen were big and imposing, but this thing was ridiculous. its not so much a tower as it is 20 towers, connected by walls and dungeons and fortress and jewels. the crown jewels are so garish and crazy that its pretty funny. and there was no lineup so that was nice. lisa wants me to mention that there is a 530 carat diamond on one of the royal sceptres. crazy!

we went to the british museum in the afternoon and saw the rosetta stone (the thing they used to translate egyptian heiroglyphics into actual language) and some other nice old art. they had a preserved man that was like 5000 years old or something. wild! we went out afterwards for some london curry and ate too much and then couldnt move anymore. oops!

on tuesday we went to westminister abbey, which is a glorious church but also a weird graveyard building full of tombs of famous people and kings and queens and stuff. we tapped our iron rings on the gravestone of one rudyard kipling! woo!! (the guy who wrote the iron ring ceremony) next we went by trafalgar square and picadilly circus and buckingham palace. at the palace we think that the queen was having a party because there was a huge lineup of distinguished looking gentlemen and society ladies in funny hats of all sorts. we took pictures of them and laughed at their silly looking hats. but at the end of the day the joke was on us because they got to go in and we did not. boo!

lisa and i continued on and had our own tea party at Harrod's. it was quite lovely! we had scones and sandwiches and delicious desserts, and a qhole heap of nice tea. we pretended we were fancy! no wait, we ARE fancy. since i don't need nice pants anymore i ditched them after tea! anything to lighten the load!

that night we met up with dimoe in east london. he is there for 2 months doing some training for work. right before he met us at the tube stop he said there was a ridiculous street fight right outside his apartment! wrenches and baseball bats and everything! when we got there it was mostly cleared up but there was a car that was all smashed up. don't worry, london is safe if you are not in a gang that is fighting another gang with bats. we went out for drinks at an english pub and i tried the most awful beer i have ever tasted. it was served warm and gross and so i drank it as fast as i could to get it off the table. oh man. it made me miss ireland. and belgium.

yesterday we had a huge day. we visited kensington palace in hyde park in the morning and then went on a rowboat in hyde park in the afternoon. i REALLY wish that we could be uploading things, because we have an awesome video of a swan attacking another swan that we will have to youtube when we get back!

in the afternoon we went to visit covent gardens and watched some street buskers. we had fish and chips in an english pub (with some imported beers) and then went to shakespeare's globe theatre for a presentation of love's labours lost. it was really good! our tickets were 5 pounds because we were sitting in the rabble (we were "groundlings"), the people that stand in front of the stage while the play was going on. at the end of 3.5 hours our feet were dying, but it was a good play when we could figure out what the heck was going on. my feet still hurt today and so do lisa's.

but, we played through the pain anyways. today we went to windsor castle in the countryside, which is huge and is medieval like the tower of london but also impossibly decorated like versailles in paris. it looks just like you would expect and want a castle to look like.

we are all done our sightseeing now, and we can now relax. we're going to take it easy for a couple of hours, have some dinner, and then go out and see harry potter here on opening night! is it weird that we were more excited by this than by almost anything else in london? (yes) we went to a toy store to look for magic wands and capes to wear tonight but decided not to for 2 reasons: 1. it would have been 20£ each and 2. the capes were kids sizes... why can't we find an adult sized cape in this city?

tomorrow we are going to be taking a train through the chunnel into paris. we will eat baguettes, drink coffee and ride our bicycles, all at the same time!

some comments about london:
- the tube is vast and complicated but its not all that fast. there are often slow downs and with so many different trains using the same tracks they often have to wait for each other. its busy and hot. but its also impossible to live without, and with a city this big and this dense is an absolute must.
- our hostel was okay but we had to move around a couple of times in order to get the rooms that we wanted. it will be nice to stay in the same room for 6 days in paris!
- london is uber expensive but thats not a surprise to us, we had heard all about it. still, it hurts.
- bye bye english... this is our last day in an english speaking country. lisa will be my personal translator from now on. its so nice to have a linguist as a travelling companion! okay this wasnt really about london.

sorry it was long but there was a lot to say. london is a busy place!

au revoir!
simon