And There's No Place Like London

Here it is guys! I know everyone must have just been ITCHING with anticipation for this blog…

Since I have ten days of events to write about, I am going to break it into separate blogs for each place I went, so hopefully you have scrolled down and you are reading this one first (Although I won’t get too mad if you read them out of order).

So everything started last Thursday (The 4th) morning. We all had to be up by 6am. I am assuming everyone knows what college students are like, and you can just imagine how hard it would be to wake up eighty 19-22 year olds up before the sun rises. Luckily Sun ah Van de Elsen (Yes that is her real name) and her staff brought along their handy dandy whistles to blow up and down the hallways as well as banging on everyone’s door. Blake and I woke up and literally ran to grab a shower before twenty people all tried to use one of two showers available.

We loaded onto a bus at 6:45 and went to the Düsseldorf Weeze airport, which is about fifteen minutes away from Well. When we arrived at the airport at 7, we found out we were not allowed to check in until 9. That meant, they had eighty grumpy kids who were woken up insanely early for no reason at all. What ended up happening? Everyone put their bags down on the ground, and slept on the floor for an hour. We checked in and went through security with no problem. One thing I found weird was we had to go through customs to get OUT of Germany. Normal you have to go through them whenever you arrive in a new country but never to get out of one. It wasn’t a problem, just sort of odd.

Our flight was at 10:20 and we landed at 10:30. It was the shortest flight I have ever been on. No it was not 10 minutes long. There is a one-hour time difference between Netherlands/Germany and England, so the flight was an hour and ten minutes. Still really short. I was so excited because Ryanair is such a small airline, that all their planes use those stairs to get on and off the planes instead of those weird hallways that attach to the door. We all pretended we were either Richard Nixon or one of the Beatles.




Once we got to London, or sorry, London Stansted (Which is not anywhere near London, but I will get to that later) my hatred toward big groups started. It took us over an hour to get everyone through customs, collect their bags and get on the bus to take us into London. I didn’t really think too much of it at the time because I was excited to see London/drive on the other side of the road. It took about an hour and a half to get from “London” Stansted to our “hotel” in London.

Now I used the term “hotel” very loosely. When paying for this trip, they told us that included in our travel package were a number of things, one of which was a hotel in London. I was not expecting the Ritz, but I was not expecting the County Hotel. I don’t know why they call it a hotel, because it’s actually a hostel. We were in rooms of two and everyone one that floor had to share a bathroom (There were like 5 toilets and 4 showers for maybe 40 people to share. The floors and walls were all really grungy and the beds were uncomfortable. I lucked out, and somehow got placed in a single, but at some points I wish I had someone else in my room. My room reminded me of that scene in the movie “Big” with Tom Hanks when he spends his first night in New York City, and all he hears are gunshots the whole night. While it wasn’t as bad as that (No gunshots that I was aware of) the room was just as bleak and lonely looking. Because no one has cell phones and no one had any clue who was in what room, a lot of the time I was just alone in my room trying to figure out how to find people (Everything worked out in the end but it was weird at some points).

So after we checked into the “hotel” we had a brief meeting with the castle staff telling us how things were going to work for the week. Luckily they kept it short and sweet and then let us go off on our own. I really wanted to see shows in London, so I got a group together to try and find the TKTS booth in Leicester Square (Pronounced Lester for anyone who didn’t know, because I spent a few hours trying to find “Lie kester” square. We found the booth, which had a few things, but the show I really wanted to see was Billy Elliot. I decided to try and find the theatre itself because I read online they had cheap day of tickets.

Blake, Meredith, Spencer and I walked around to try and find various theatres together. Blake and Mer wanted to see Mary Poppins and Spencer wanted to see Billy Elliot too. We found the theatres and Spencer and I got tickets for Billy Elliot on Monday night in the last row for only £17.50, which is about 30 some odd dollars, which is cheap for London. We went back and met up with everyone else we were with and went to a pub for dinner.


Even though it is spelt a little different I got excited when I saw this on the table of the pub


The sign of the pub we went to

After dinner we walked around some more and then went back to the “hotel” to sleep.

Friday morning (The 5th) I woke up around 7:45 so I could get free breakfast at the “hotel” between 8 and 9. Then at 9:15 we had to all meet up and split into groups. All of my friends were in different groups than me, so I started the day off in a sort of bad mood. We went to see Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. Every group had a leader and the people I wanted to have lead my group all had the beginning parts of the alphabet. My group lead was my professor for The World Sine 1914. He is a great guy, but he is a historian, not a tour guide and knows nothing about architecture or art, which apparently the other groups went into detail about. It was fine though, and it was really cool to see these sites that I have seen in countless movies/TV shows/Magazines/Calendars/Etc.


Big Ben


The London Eye




Me and my friend Kathryn


Big Ben and the London Eye


Westminster Abbey


The Gates of Buckingham Palace


Buckingham Palace

After our tour, we had a little time to grab lunch and then had to meet back near the “hotel” by 12:30. I hopped on the tube (Which by the way is the best public transportation system I have ever been on) and went back to the hotel to grab and quick (And cheap) lunch. Luckily I ran into Blake and Spencer at the hotel and we decided to go over to Kinds Cross station and see Platform 9 3⁄4 (For those who are not Harry Potter fans, Platform 9 3⁄4 is a platform in between platforms 9 and 10 where students get the train to Hogwarts). Of course the only people there are American tourists who are all acting really silly, but it was fun.







I can fly!




Silly Muggles trying to get in…


9 3⁄4 Shakey Face



At 12:30 we all met up and in the same groups as the morning, we all went to the British Museum. Apparently it is the largest museum in the world (Even bigger than the Louvre) and has 30-something ACRES of exhibition space. Of course there was no way you could see everything in an afternoon, but it was cool too look around and see what was there. Again, Ralph was my leader and knows nothing about art, so he basically gave us a short history of the museum itself and then told us to just go off on our own and explore while other people had tours by incredible art historians from the castle.


The lobby


The Rosetta Stone



I am so amazed at the detail and lifelikeness of these statues.




Cleopatra’s Mummy

After the British Museum, a bunch of people wanted to go to the London Eye. It is basically an enormous Ferris wheel that has amazing views of London. The only problem is that it costs £15 to ride (That’s about $30) so I decided that I would just stay down and walk around a little and then meet everyone for dinner. So Mer, Jon and I walked around a little while 6 or so other people went on the London Eye.



London at Night

We stumbled upon the National Theatre, which is where The History Boys and a bunch of other plays started. They have cheap tickets for £10 and I really wanted to go, but we had just missed the beginning of the show that night, and every other night we had something going on, so we never got to go. However we are flying out of London in December when we go home, so maybe I can see something there when we come back.

We went back and met up with everyone else and tried to find a place to eat. Although everyone claims to have no money, they all seemed fine spending almost £10 each on dinner. I didn’t have enough money to do that, so after some frustration I just said screw it, and went off on my own to try and find something to eat. I ended up having a really nice walk around the different theatres in the West End and found a place that sold pizza for £1.50.


Piccadilly Circus


One of the most beautiful theatres I have ever seen. I wish I could have gone inside, but in order to do that, I would have had to pay for Phantom of the Opera and everyone knows how I feel about Andrew Lloyd Webber shows…

At around 9:45 I remembered that I told my friend Emily I would meet her at the “hotel” at 10 and have drinks with her and her dad. We went to this really nice bar in her dad’s hotel and her dad bought two rounds of drinks for us. I was really glad that happened because the night before that was really bad, but that put me in a really good mood.

Saturday morning I was dreading. I had to go to the Imperial War Museum with my World Since 1914 class. Once again, Ralph was my leader, but it turned out to be wonderful. He actually had things to talk about here and it ended up being a really good museum. It wasn’t enjoyable in the least, but it was very moving. There were two main parts that got to me. The first was this recreation of a bunker. It was a real life model of what bunker life was like and it just showed how claustrophobic it was and how horrible it would be to live in for a few months as soldiers did in WWII. However the most brilliant part of the exhibit was they had this odor running through the vents that was a combination of baked beans and gunpowder. It was absolutely revolting, but it just added even more to the feeling of what it was like.

The next section of the museum was this two-floor exhibit on the holocaust. It was so depressing and unsettling, but it did such a great job at depicting the horrible events and tragic stories from that time. I walked out of there in a haze and could not really think about anything for at least an hour afterward.

We got a short break for lunch and then split up into groups again to go to various museums. My group, led once again by Ralph, went to the Museum of London. It is a museum about the history of London from its start, to the present day…or at least it was supposed to be. Half of the museum was closed for renovations, so we just got to see London until 1666. It took use maybe 45 minutes to go through it and then we were let go. Since we needed to head in that direction anyway, we decided to go to the Tate Modern Museum. One of my favorite museums I have ever been to is the MoMA in NY, so I was excited to see Tate Modern.


Jessica and Mer looking out


Millennium Bridge. Apparently this bridge was built for the millennium, but was poorly engineered and was shaking, so the locals still call make fun of it.


Tate Modern

The building as you can see is HUGE. However only about 2 of those 7 floors have actual exhibits on them and in those exhibits were only the really weird far out type of modern art that I don't like. For example, there was a canvas where someone took a knife and put one slit down the middle. That’s it. My rule of thumb is, if I can do it, its not art. They did have one of Monet's Water lilies though which I sat in front of for about 30 minutes just staring at it.

After we were done at Tate Modern, we headed next door to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.



I was "required" to go see Merchant of Venice for World Drama. We paid £5 to get groundling tickets. In Shakespeare's time, the groundlings were the poor people who stood for the entire show in a pit (Where the orchestra seats are in American theatres). The entire day I was worried about standing for a 3 hour long show, but it ended up being one the most exciting theatrical experiences I have ever been to. It was like nothing I have ever seen or could have expected. I made sure I got there early so I could get a good spot (It is all first come first serve). I ended up standing right in front of the stage (Which was good because I was able to lean on the stage during the show and take some pressure off my feet).


Me in front of the stage


Panorama video of the Globe

The show started off with a 5 or so person band playing for maybe 10 minutes. I don't even know what instruments they were playing, but they were all from the Elizabethan era (Or at least that’s what I was led to believe). I think one of them might have been a lute perhaps. Anyway, they were incredible and it set the mood of the piece perfectly. During this prologue, the actors all roamed around the stage and set the scene of a market in Venice. The actors talked to the audience as well as walked around the groundling pit. People were talking and eating, just like they did back in the 1600s (The origin of throwing tomatoes was from Shakespeare's time because people would eat while watching a show and if they didn't like something, they would throw their food at the people on stage). The show started and was incredible. They did a wonderful job at acting with their bodies so that everyone in the audience knew what was going on despite the sometimes difficult language they spoke in. Of course, the actors were all incredible and it was a really nice treat to see actual British people doing Shakespeare instead of Americans doing British accents while performing Shakespeare.

During each scene change, the band would come out and do random silly things to keep the energy alive and to distract you from anything moving onstage. At one point we all had to step back about 10 feet, so people on stilts carrying torches could walk through the audience. It was overall just a lot of fun and I highly recommend to anyone who goes to London, even if you are not a fan of Shakespeare. For £5 it was the cheapest form of entertainment in London.

The next morning (Sunday the 7th) we had nothing to do. It was our one day off but I was really mad because no shows play on Sunday in London. Instead I went to The Tower of London. All I knew about the Tower of London was it was where they would lock people up back in the 1500s. I thought it was just a tower on the river, but instead it is an entire village/castle. We spent about 3 hours just roaming around the various buildings. Also inside are all the crowned jewels, which were unbelievable. Lets just say I felt really really poor.


"London Bridge" This is actually Tower Bridge. London Bridge is down the river, but everyone thinks this one is London Bridge.


Tower of London


What is this? Is this Torren 1 from Kasteel Well?? The Tower of London TOTALLY ripped off the design of our quad at the castle.



The ravens



Trader's Gate



Torture devices


I guess people still live here...






Creepy





After we got out of the Tower of London, we found a place that sold fish and chips for £1. It was the most satisfying meal I had in London because it was big, delicious, and I was not worried about going poor.

We then got into the tube and went over to Harrods, which was beautiful. It is the set of department stores in NY like Macy's, but with ornate marble and gold all over the place. It was fun to walk around and see stuff that I could not afford.

By this point I was so tired, so I just went back to the "hotel" and went to bed at around 9:30.

Monday was a sort of blah day. I woke up on my own at 7:30. I got in the shower, which had no hot water. Before I went to breakfast I went to the front desk to tell them there was no hot water so they could hopefully fix it. Then I ate breakfast and got ready to go. We had to go on these guided walking tours around London. Each tour had a different theme and mine was "Shakespeare and Dickens." It was really boring and we didn't really see anything special or new.


These are the "Nancy Stairs." Apparently Charles Dickens used these stairs to get the name for Nancy in Oliver Twist. This was also where Nancy told someone where Oliver was right before she got beaten to death. I don't really get the big deal about these stairs and don't quite believe all the history to them, but its cool I guess...

Afterwards we had an hour or so for lunch. Blake and I found a place with cheap sandwiches and ate there. After lunch we headed over to Westminster Abbey. It was really pretty, but by this point, everyone was sort of out of it and had seen enough museums/churches.







Inside I got yelled at by some guy for taking pictures. I didn't use a flash so I didn't think I was hurting anyone, but he yelled at me anyway. I said sorry and put my camera in my pocket and he kept yelling at me. He must have told me in 5 different ways that pictures were not allowed. By that point I was over the edge and sort of wandered through in a fog.

Once again everyone wanted to find "A nice Indian restaurant" to eat dinner at, but I did not have money for anything with the word "nice" in it. So I went back to the "hotel," got a sandwich and a bag of chips on the way and had an amazing little picnic in my room while people watching people on the street bellow. I also watched some TV for a little bit. The Weakest Link was on and I was laughing so hard because one of the questions was "What American holiday is celebrated on the 4th Thursday in November?" and the woman answered "Labor Day." Granted if anyone asked me about some random British holiday, I wouldn't know what day it was on, but it just struck me as funny at the point in time (PS If anyone was wondering, the correct answer was Thanksgiving).

At 6:15 I left to head over to the theatre to see Billy Elliot. I got there a little early, and decided to suck it up and buy a program for £5. Unlike NY, they don't hand out Playbills, so in order to see people's bios or read anything about the show, you need to buy a program. It was a really nice program with big pictures and lyrics to all the songs, so it was worth it. Plus I needed something to put in my Playbill collection back home.





The show itself was ok, but not great. Our seats were all the way in the back so it was sort of hard to see and their accents were so thick (It takes place in Northern England) that it was hard to understand what they were saying sometimes. I also think that the show has been playing for a few years now and got a little sloppy. The cast was so so and I feel like we saw the worst Billy out of all of them (there are 5 different boys who rotate playing Billy each night). He was incredible at jazz, modern and tap (His body moved like rubber during some songs) but he was not too great at ballet (which is the whole point of the show). It was still a good experience to see the difference between London and NY. Spencer and I kept saying how good it will be when it comes to NY and gets a lot tighter.

Tuesday was the first day it rained. Every other day it was clear skies and gorgeous and to be honest, I didn't want to go back and say I went to London and it didn't rain. I felt like I would have missed out on something.


Rainy day in London.

We checked out of the hotel and went over to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was enormous and really pretty. We climbed 434 stairs up to the very top where there was a breathtaking view of London. I feel like the view from up there was the same as it would have been at the London Eye, so I am glad I did not spend the money on London Eye.






View from the top

After St. Paul’s, our travel excursion began. We were free to go and do whatever we wanted for the next 5 days. Blake and I stayed in London one more night before continuing our adventures elsewhere, so we had a little time to kill. I decided to go on my own and find Fleet Street (The setting of Sweeney Todd).



While walking down Fleet Street, I got so excited because I saw a barbershop ON Fleet St.




So Pretty

I met Blake back at our "hotel." We got our bags and went to find our hostel for the night. Since we only needed a place to sleep, we booked the cheapest thing we could find. It was £3 a night ($6) and we were not sure what to expect. It turned out to be fine. It wasn't nice, but we didn't care. It had a bed and I didn't die sleeping there, so everything worked out in the end. We had a few hours before our show started, so we decided to do one last really touristy thing...










Like Platform 9 3/4, Abbey Rd. was all American tourists. We took pictures quickly and left to go find our theatre.

A few random pictures before I go on...




This poster made me laugh SO hard. Something tells me Granddad would not be doing this...


They do not beat around the bush in Europe…

The Donmar Warehouse is a pretty famous West End theatre company. Sam Mendes used to be the artistic director there, and a lot of shows that start there eventually make it to Broadway (The 1998 revival of Cabaret started there). I have always read about this theatre so when I was planning what to do in London, that was the first thing I looked up. I found out they were doing Parade. It is a sort of obscure show that played on Broadway in 1999 for a month or two before it closed, but it is one of my favorite scores. I was really excited to see not only one of my favorite shows, but to also see something at such an esteemed theatre.

My expectations were really high which usually turns out bad, but this show surpassed ALL of my expectations. After thinking for a while, it might even be the best show I have ever seen. The only three shows I can think of that came this close were Nine, Caroline or Change and Sweeney Todd. It was an intimate theatre (Only maybe 15 rows of seats on a 3/4 thrust stage) so it was almost like you were a part of the show. There is a scene where there is a trial going on, and the actors talked to the audience as if we were the jury.

The cast was flawless. From the two leads, down to the girls in the chorus, everyone was spectacular. They were all actors who could sing which is my favorite kind of performer. They did not just simply stand there and sing nice, they acted their parts and made their characters come alive on stage. The man and woman who played Leo and Lucille, were perfect together. They had the strongest chemistry I think I have ever seen between two actors. I was crying throughout the entire show and by the last song, I was convulsing because I was so involved in the show. I could go on and on and on about how incredible this production was.

After the show we went back to our hostel, went to bed and then woke up at 5am the next morning to catch our flight to Dublin. We got a bus from London to Gatwick airport that was supposed to leave at 7, get to the airport at 8:10 and then we had a flight at 10. We left more than enough time to get there, or so we thought.

The bus was 50 minutes late, and then we hit a lot of traffic, so we did not get to the airport until 9:30 and they close the gates 40 minutes before the flight leaves, so we missed our flight. We each had to pay £50 to catch the next flight. We called the bus company and they said if we send them a letter explaining what happened they will reimburse us. I won’t believe it until I actually see the money though. It sucked a lot but we did eventually make it to Dublin. Oh well, I live in a castle…