Well, here we are. The end of the European part of the trip. And to be honest, it couldn't have ended on more of a high. I decided to london last because it is just so ridiculously expensive, if I didn't I would have run out of funds half way across Europe and had to beg for food for the rest of it, haha. But seriously... it is EXPENSIVE. Just everything from accomodation, to food, to attractions and with the dismal exchange rate... FAWRK. In the end though I did take the attitude that really, it is my last stop (technically) and that if I don't do things I'll whinge when I get home, and no one needs that!
The first thing into London was the Tube from Victoria station. Now the Tube is interesting as I was DREADING it looking at the little coloured pinwheel map they give you, but seriously, it is SO easy to use, when it's working it is fast and although it is hot as hell and I would be changing my tune if this was last summer, I thought it was really great. HOWEVER. The day of arrival there were weekend maintenance on some of the lines (not mine) which is fine, so I went and bought a week pass for the Tube (at A$60) and the whole time I'm there there is a Tube strike, hahahaha! Gotta love it. I was lucky in the sense that the lines I used most often were the only ones open through the strike, but yeah, typical. Some of the stations are really cool too. I mean I had seen the mozaic thing in the Paris Underground but some of the London ones are really trippy!
Anyway, Hostel is really cool here, it is directly across the road from the British Museum (Astor Museum Hostel for those travelling) cool staff, big rooms and all... ahhh last hostel is a nice one, you cannot know how relieved I was seeing I had been living with people for the previous week.
So yeah, I do my normal thing of checking stuff out all around my area.
Did most of the British Museum, and when I say most I mean a tiny fragment as it is insanely big and after three hours I was just too tired to go on even though I was so interested! It was cool through to see things like the Rosetta Stone and the casket of Cleopatra and all. Things that you always see in books and now I get to see them in real life. The cool atrium was really visiually impressive (See Pic) but at first I thought it was white frosted glass, but it turns out that it is actually clear glass, it was just overcast... like most of my time in London, hahaha.
After I gave up on the Museum, I went for a walk to Covent Garden, Leister Square... Piccadliy.... HAHAHA MONOPOLY BOARD! It was SO funny walking around the street seeing a Bow Street, a Mayfair, Park Lane, Oh look Moulbourough... I'm such a kid! I did resist the tourist urge to take photos of these signs, as I thought I'd laugh at people doing it, so I couldn't with a clean conscience. That and the red telephone boxes, double decker buses and black taxis, hehe. So Stereotypically London.
But seriously, London is awesome. It is a massive city with a cool vibe to it and I would seriously like to work here and live here too. I am going to find out more about the Ancestory Visa and all because I think it is a great opportunity, especially in my line of work. But yeah...
On my huge ass walk around London I went and saw Downing Street, which can I just point out, you have absolutely NO chance of getting onto. When you see it on TV with all the presse there, it looks like they camp outside No. 10 and just go for it. Hell no. There is boulards, gates, dogs, guards, security, cameras, etc at each end and there is NO way you are going to get in without some prior arrangement. Not even onto the street. but still, it was kinda cool to see all the same. Big Ben is actually really impressive. I was reading an English paper and it was described as one of the biggest let downs in English tourism, but i think it couldn't be more wrong. I loved it! They were fixing one of the clock faces so the hands are set to 12, in the traditional way they always do. There is actually writing around the clock face too, but it's just too small and scripty to be made out by my dodgey eyes on street level. Looks cool at night too, not sure if I have pics of that, but still. I think london is one of the least photographed cities on my trip beacuse I spent more time without the lens infront of me and enjoying it for what it is. Good move I think.
Walked all the way along the Thames (which is really dirty and low...) along past the London Eye, Tate Modern, the Millenium bridge (famous for it's lateral movement upon opening), Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, The Tower Bridge, which really does look awesome at night as well as during the day. Funny thing about that too. London Bridge is just a boring, flat, concrete bridge. Nothing special at all. Tower bridge and most of the other bridges crossing the Thames are really cool, so why the song describes losing London Bridge as such a tradgey is beyond me. I'd be more worried about losing Tower Bridge, or even Blackfriars bridge. Anyway, looks awesome.
Jane, you'll love this. I have actually picked up on architecture people around the place. I walked past the London Town Hall and was gobsmacked at how similar it looks to the Reichstag glass cuppola in Berlin. Turns out that it is actually done by the same guy, just like the 'Gherkin' in London's business district. This guy gets around! and the same thing just happened to me in Melbourne too (more later on that). It was very cool, very modern and very London.
The london tower at night looks really cool too. All of that stone, must of have been so menacing in the days of old. I walked the city until it was fairly late and caught a double decker bus home :D Big Tick for London! But yeah, I was buggered from walking and so I pretty much went straight to bed that night but it was cool because I had some really cool people in my room by the time I got back. Spent until the early hours talking to them about whatever and because they were Aussies and one of the girls actually lives and works in Oxford now, (where I had been last week) I had so much to talk about and it was great! like being home. On that note Ill just point out, it's funny when you are backpacking you just take on people so quickly, get good mates with them, maybe do a couple of activities during the day with them, have a few drinks with the next night and then say goodbye.
It's such an amazing turn around of friends it's amazing. I've tried to keep most people's details when I can and although you only spend a day with some, they make a really good impression and there is nothing wrong with having mates on the other side of the world... Right!! This trip is a classic example of that, and next time I can expand the hirizon now having mates in other countries and cities. And there is always the offer of those people to come back to Adelaide with me and I'll look after them.
Anyway, Next day brings on the Tower of London. This place while expensive to see, was actually worth it. I always imagined the Twoer of london being just that, a Tower, but it is actually a complex made up of 20 towers, some defensive, some to keep convicts in before they were sentenced to death, others were living quarters. The White Tower is widely agreed on to be a living quarters, it's now the garrison for weapons and the armoury. I took a tour around with a Yoeman Warder and we were introduced to a historic mking moment as that day heralded the day when the First Femal 'BeefEater' started. Oh, Noone really knows why they are called Beefeaters either. There are quite a few theories but none have been proven. Interesting fact I thought.
Aside from the grizzley history that the Tower of London has had with the many, many hangings and beheadings it also houses the crown jewels. Now these things are impressive! The security around the place here is amazing! But when you have a 5000 caret diamond on display, you need it. The amount of diamonds and the sizes of some of the other precious gems is simply astonishing! The thing is, it's not just the crown jewels, they have sceptres, orbs, rings, badges, gold plates, Coronation stuff, blah blah blah... Just think Crazy expensive. I think it's the State Crown has something like 3000 individual diamonds and gemstones on it!!
The other cool thing about the tower, aside from all of that stuff is the Ravens and the history of some of the prisoners. First with the Ravens, legend has it that if they were ever to leave the Tower the monarchy would fall as would the Tower, so although it's pretty unlikely, there are always at least six ravens kept at the Tower by means of having their wings clipped. you don't want to tempt fate with these kind of things. And these Ravens are no small little birds either, they are like the size of a small dog! Some are little but I'd say the 'permanent residents' are the big ones. They are pretty good with humans too, not that Id get too close because they bite, but you can get reasonably close to get a good photo of them and they don't move a muscle.
Ahhh so much more about the Tower I don't remember but you get that when you are on overload. There was so cool 'graffiti' etched into many of the cell walls which dates back to the 1500's and historic escapes made by using the juice of an orange, a toothpick and some Rosemary beads... I believe this to be the basis for the modern-(?)-day MacGyver!
I seriously spent half the day at the Tower, so that afternoon I met up with Beth and the other Brisbanians i met the night before for a few drinks at this Aussie chain of pubs called 'Walkabouts'. It's not really thaaaat Aussie, but they have drinks like Thooey's Extra Dry, VB, XXXX, V, Cruisers, etc, and they are cheap as! Cheaper than getting them home in Adeliade, hahaha. love it! They play the Footy anf the Rugby and have Expat Aussies and Kiwi's working the bar. Great atmostphere, so after the others left for dinner with family, I came back to it later and spent the night there.
Next Day. Went and saw the Changing of the guards.. meh, It was ok, but they are Guirka Soldiers now, not the Fuzzy hatted Redcoats. The Redcoats are now solely the band, who, mind you, play for about 40 minutes after the actual guards have changed. It's all a big spectacle with horses, music, and guns. I think with modern times it's less impressive than days of Old, but still. it was something you have to see while in London right?! The crowds it drew on an off peak time were still amazing, so I would HATE to be there in the middle of July/August!
After that I moesied on down (Through the Australia Gate of Buckhingham Palace) to the Churchill museum and Cabinent War Rooms. This was my taste of British War history I previously knew very little about. I kinda knew who he was, and that he was good at speeches but really, this guy was a legend! Some memorable quotes:
"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required."
"I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
"We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it."
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"
And my personal Favourite: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". This one refers to the Battle of Britain and the fighter pilots who really did save Britain from falling to Nazi Germany. It was in this speech where you really do realise how close Britain came to coming unstuck and losing the war. This was something I never knew. It was the 'British Bulldog' resolve that Churchill inspired in the country and the troops is what won the war. Try a the Nazis might to break the spirit (and towards the end of the battle of britain, that's all they had left) they could not do it. Britain were DAYS from falling to the Germans as they had run out of planes, ammunition, pilots and were seriously in danger of not being able to continue the fight when Germany finally said 'Bugger it' (well not really, but anyway) and they stopped their bombing tactics and thus lead to the beginning of the end of the Second World War for the Germans.
You see what I did there? I relayed something I had learnt from about three different places across this trip, HAHAHA. I love it!
The museum itself takes you through Churchill's life and it also takes you through the bunkers that were underneath London as the Blitz raids took place because they sheltered all of the 'important people' in the war. Funny thing about that though is that Churchill used to go and watch the raids from the top of the building above. Classic! The guy was really cool. He slept next to no hours a night because he was always thinking about new ways to out strategy the enemy, get in a new weapon, write speeches to inspire (like above) I mean the guy just did not stop! The bunker itself had some crazy thick concrete between it and the street level which could sustain a major, direct bomb hit, however despite being an awesome target for the Germans, it was never actually struck with a bomb.
After spending quite a while in there, I went over to the other part of the Imperial War Museum in London. Duxford, the bunkers, the Naval ship i nthe Thames just down from the Tower Bridge and the Imperial War Museum are all part of the same trust. So it's really cool. Unfortunately I couldn't spend all day in there, but it was a great place and it was cool to get a different view on the Holocaust in their WWII section. Although not radically different from the German version, it does show more of the POW camps, the tradgedies and more visual and anecdotal evidence of the Concentration camps which I found really interesting. The bottom floor of the museum is HUGE and takes you through EVERY SINGLE theatre of war that has taken place and it is amazing. Right up through Vietnam and into the Current conflicts overseas. Amazingly detailed and so much work has gone into this place.
I did notice though, that Australia is not that well represented in these major theatres... I was a bit disappointed because here we live and breathe the ANZAC legends and I'm not for one second doubting out contribution to the wars, it seems like no one else noticed... But coming back here to Melbourne has been good to get an Aussie's Eye View on the same wars. Damn I love this country. No matter how much I loved being overseas, there is just something about being on home soil that makes it all worth while.
On my last day in London I did the London Eye, which has an amazing view, and in some twist of fate, the Sun came out and I could see for miles, I did Tate Modern which is a groovy Art Gallery in a disused Power/Generator Station, I did St Pauls Cathedral and Westminster Abby too so I got a real range of what London has to offer.
I'll give you a quick overview of what each place was like. Tate Modern was really cool except that the generator room which houses all the HUGE, cool exhibits was being swapped between exhibitions so I didn't get a chance to go in there and see it and the other exhibitions were really expensive, BUT the permanent collection is actually very damn cool. St Pauls Cathedral is impressive. It is a gigantic church on the bank opposite Tate (acrosss the Millenium Bridge) which has an amazing amount of space inside! It reminded me of St Peter's Basillica in Rome actually. The cathedral here is famous for its domes. There is on central dome which was to be the highest point in London, but the architect also realised that by building such a large dome, that the ornate paintings on the downside of them would be so far up, no one would be able to see them. So what he did was designed another dome, inside the church, lower than the main one so it could be made pretty and people would be close enough to admire it! Good man.
Also he built a viewing ring that could be accessed from the main alter so that worshippers could get again closer to the dome... and God. The Crypt underneath is also very cool with many stones dating back to the early centuries and notably, Lord Horatio Nelson (ie, Battle of Trafalgar) is buried there. The cathedral also offers a viewing are on the outside of the dome which actually affords one of London's best views. While it is no longer London's tallest point, it still gives you a 'miles around' view. (The pic of Millenium Bridge and Tate is taken from there). The Cathedral was hit during the Blitz by the Nazis and has been perfectly restored, but it was also lucky because it was also hit with a huge Luftwafe bomb however it did not explode. If it had exploded, because it was such a direct hit, the Cathedral would have sustained complete obliteration rather than damage to one alter like it did. LUCKY. God must have been lookiong out for it I think.
After this, I went and had a look at the Houses of Parliment up close... so amazing!!! They just don't build them like that anymore, that's for sure. Then right next to it is Westminster Abby. Wow, what a place. Most of the Kings and Queens are buried here along with hundreds of other influential people across England. There are also memorial plates in here for those influential people who are buried somewhere else, ie Shakespeare, The Bronte sisters... etc. I spent AGES walking through it because there is SO much to see. There is one chapel that is the knights hall, where all of the Templar knights once where and there is now little plates naming all of the Knights from the UK and their crests. That was REALLY interesting. The Abby is huge and everything is ornate and old of course, but I couldn't help but feel cluttered. EVERY alter, wall, floor space, column is surrounded by statues, plates, stones, panels etc comemorating someone and it really is over the top in some areas. Mind you they've had a lot of time to accumulate, but still. Tht is why I loved St Pauls so much because it was white and had Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open spaces inside, free of clutter.
Well that night, I met my American buddies and we went out one last time because it was all of our last nights in London. We decided to do a pub crawl, starting at the local Museum Pub (Across the road from us and the British Museu), then a cool pub which was really small on the front, but opened up into this three floor (down) room which had a huge Gum tree in the middle and many levels of bars and knick nacks! It was great! Pity it shut so early, so we went to the Irish pub were were at the night before and we then finished it up with the Walkabouts on Shaftsbury Avenue. This one was more of a club then a Aussie pub, but it was cool. Pity of it all was the music was SO loud, I still had ringing in my ears late the next day... Big Day Out doesn't even give it to me that bad... :/
BUT... All in all an awesome night, with awesome people and it finished London off nicely. The next day was check out and so I went down to Covent Gardens and walked around Trafalgar Square one last time, saw the National Portrait and National Galleries quickly before having to catch my last Tube ride to Heathrow :(
Heathrow is an enormous place and I'm glad I was only in Terminal 4 (1, 2 and 3 are all together another train stop down) but that was big enough. I can now say I've been through there though egh? That flight left in the evening and flew to Schipol, Amsterdam. Luckily I didn't have the trouble you did Carro!! Instead it was pretty much the opposite, I browsed the art gallery in the airport, (haha, I love the Dutch) and had a cruisy change over. The flight from Schipol to Kuala Lumpar is something like 11,000Kms and takes 12 hours. I was lucky in the sense that I was in front of the wings, I had no one sitting next to me and I managed to get maybe 3 hours 'sleep'.
Got to KL, had a 6 hour stop over and actually I like KL airport, but It is so big that there is hardly any people in it. It's really bizzare. It seems empty all the time despite being a hub of travel! The flight from there was 7 and a half hours later that night, but I hardly got any sleep at all. I managed to see the sunrise over central Australia (See Pic) and got into Sydney Airport at about 0730. Coming over Oz, before the sun had come up, I was just gazing out at the Big Dipper, the Southern Cross and I was just smiling uncontrollably. Despite having travelled to some of the World's most recognisable places, there is still nothing like coming home to see the same stars you've always seen and just be content with that!
Next up: Sydney and of course, my FINAL destination before home, My favourite Australian city (aside from Adelaide), Melbourne.
Recent Comments