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Old London Town
These griffins mark the entrances and exits of Old London. The wonderful thing about my class schedule while I'm over here is that I only have classes on Tuesday/Thursday, so I have a great amount of free time to explore and do things without a time constraint.
The one bad thing about my schedule is that most students are Monday through Thursday students, leaving them half of the day in the classroom and the other half of free time. I did meet one girl, Meagan, who has the same schedule as me, but she decided to switch one of her classes around...so it looks like I'll be doing a lot of things on my own on the days that I'm free while others are in class.
Classes officially started on Monday, but because I'm a Tuesday/Thursday girl I had the whole day at my disposal. Once Meagan and I found out that we were both free, we decided to go on a walking tour of the city... self guided, of course. We started from our House and just started walking towards the River Thames. We passed by one of the griffins that signified that we were entering "Old London," and the city just looked so different. The buildings were older
Griffins
More griffins on a bridge, leading the way. and more elaborate, there were various statues and designs etched into the streets, and narrow alleyways in between some of the shops that only two people could walk through comfortably side by side.
We could see the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral getting closer, and pretty soon we were only one block away from it. After a Costa Coffee break, we went into the Cathedral to investigate it's nooks and crannies. It is an incredible structure. Although the present standing Cathedral was only completed in 1666, many other Cathedrals dedicated to St. Paul had existed in that spot since 630 AD. London is notorious for catching on fire, so the older ones had been demolished through fire damage. Outside of the Cathedral stands a grand statue of Queen Anne, the last leader of the Stuart monarchy. She has her head turned to her right, and apparently she used to be looking straight at an old liquor store. The Brits used to have a poem about "Brandy Anne" while she was Queen. The inside of the Cathedral is a marvelous sight. It's really big inside, with elaborate things to see: mosaics and frescos on the wall, immensely high ceilings with
intricate paintings on them, marble floors and statues. Oddly enough, there are only two stained glass windows in the Cathedral. The rest are clear glass because the designer wanted "the pure light of G-d to light this church." I found that very lovely/interesting, seeing as everything else in the Cathedral was extremely done up. Underneath the Cathedral is a crypt that holds tombs and memorials to many important British figures, including Sir Alexander Fleming, the Duke of Wellington and the poet William Blake, which had me really excited because I've studied and read Blake's work and am kind of a dork when it comes to British literature. Meagan and I were laughing so hard as we darted around each of the tombs... we agreed that walking on famous dead guys from history was bad karma.
Then we headed up 450+ steps to the top of the Cathedral dome. There are a few viewing galleries on different levels of the dome, the first one called the Whispering Gallery. This is an indoor gallery, and from there you can look down to the cathedral floor for a different view. You can also see the dome paintings close up. It's called the
Queen Anne...
... says whats up. whispering gallery, because if you whisper something against the wall it can be heard directly across the dome on the other side. Meagan ran to the other side and whispered something, but either I wasn't listening right or she didn't whisper loud enough because I couldn't hear anything. There were probably too many people around. Crazy tourists =).
The next level up was the first of two outdoor observatories. The only way to get there is by going up, up, up, and up some more teeny tiny steps on one of those really narrow metal spiral staircases. Although heights don't freak me out, those staircases definitely do. I clung to the railing so hard and moved slower than a sloth in the winter time, but I made it up. And it was well worth it, the view was awesome. It helped us plan our next stop on our walking tour, seeing as now we knew what direction the good stuff was in. Up another windy staircase, we were at the top observatory, more breathtaking and crowded than the last. Down, down, down the steps and out the door just as everyone began bowing their heads in prayer.
We headed
St. Paul's III
The church bell, as seen from the first observatory up on the dome. in the direction of the river, and soon made it to the Blackfriars Bridge. We crossed over the Thames and took a long stroll along the South Bank of London right next to the river. This path was called the Queens Walk, and we walked along it for a good long while. We passed a number of museums - the Tate Modern and the Salvador Dali exhibit, to name a few, along with the London Eye ferris wheel and a number of shoreline tourist stops. We finally made it to the spot that we were trying to find originally: across the way from the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. It really is a beautifully done structure, and I was glad to go back and observe it for longer on my own time. We crossed back over Westminster Bridge and gazed at Parliament some more, before heading down the road to Westminster Abbey. I'm absolutely dying to go see the graveyard at the Abbey (no pun intended hehe), because I want to pay my respects to Poet's Corner where more of my favorite dead British writers are buried. I'm saving that for another day, seeing as we had already done
Hello, London!
Ah, how I love this city. one official tour. We did ho into Margaret's Church at the Abbey, but compared to St. Paul's there really isn't much to say about it.
Whitehall Street was next, where more government buildings are situated... the Admiralty offices, the Treasury, the Old War office, and the Ministry of Defense. They had a lot of equestrian guards and policemen, which are my favorite. Someday I'll have a horse of my own to ride on and boss everyone else around while doing so...
Kept on walking until we saw the entrance to Buckingham Palace. It was only then that we realized we had covered A LOT of ground and were way exhausted from our foot journey. We headed on home via the Tube, and for the rest of the day I did practical things like errands and grocery shopping.
Random fact: I have yet to see grape jelly at any of the grocery stores. They have every other flavor imaginable (mincemeat? WTF does that even mean?!?!) except for grape. Grumble grumble.
Until tomorrow.
Cheers,
Leah
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