Please, do not push your friends into the gap ...

---

Our eight hour overnight Coach journey from Edinburgh to London wasn’t as painful for me as for Jason and Ryan, since I took Ryan’s advice and had some of his sleeping pills. I hardly even remember having a pit stop at a Coach rest stop in the middle of the night, and I ended up with four soft chocolate bars in my pockets the next morning. According to the boys, I paid for those candy bars at the convenience store, which I have no recollection of, and that’s a good thing, because ending up a local prison while being drugged is the last thing I want to experience in any trips.

Arriving at 7am in the Victoria Coach Station, most places are not open yet for the day, including the public loos. After having a quick breakfast and getting our £8 coach ticket to the Stansted Airport at the station for later trip, we ended up on the Great Portland Street tube station in the middle of pouring rain, looking for International Youth Hostel that Coreen was telling Jason about, while I was in an urgent need to find an open public bathroom. It wasn’t a good start the day for me.

Westminster Abbey is often associated with royal ceremonies that has taken place during the last, I would say, eight centuries, including the fairytale 1981 Prince Charles and Lady Di’s wedding. It is a gorgeous church that serves as a royal monument and graveyards for many England royalties and famous historical figures, including a Shakespeare monument, Queen Elizabeth I, Alexander Pope, and Dickens. Some of them are portrayed as marble statues in deep slumber on top of their coffins, wearing clothes that is definitely look like from a Shakespeare play. Are these the clothes that they are wearing for their burial? Imagine on going to the eternity with funky clothing on.

Almost as mysterious as the famous Londoner Sir Sherlock Holmes, the 221 Baker Street is nowhere to be found. According to my travel book, now it serves as a museum dedicated to the famous detective; but where is it?

Sir John Soane, another famous Londoner and a legendary British architect, willed his house along with every antiquities collection he possessed for the benefit of the state. The original house is left as he wished, and it is open as a museum dedicated for architectural students and general public that has interests in architecture. His collection covers a huge range of subjects; including Egyptian mummies, paintings, lots of sculptures and busts, and a cozy library with big, dark leather armchairs and wood paneling on walls and floor.

One good thing about visiting a first world country is that most of the government established venues including museums and art galleries do not collect admission fees, such as the British Museum in London, where holds an outstanding collection of Egyptian, Syrians, Babylonians, most Asians and Greek antiquities. Modern Greece criticized the British government, citing that the earlier British explorer ‘stripped down’ Greek temples and removed artifacts to London, such as the famous Elgrin Marbles that is part of the Parthenon in Athens’ Acropolis, which need to be returned to the original geographic locations.

If you think that the Greeks are too sensitive about the issue, imagine on how if our future generations moved Big Ben to China, or the Stonehenge to Namibia, then you start to see where the thinking process are coming from. Or maybe the London Bridge to its new home in Lake Havasu City in Arizona.

Strolling London’s many public parks is definitely a London pastime. Regent’s Park nearby our hostel has been a strolling ground since early 1800s, notably in my favorite ‘101 Dalmatians’. It is an honor to walk around the Park Ground, along the Inner Circle, St. John’s Wood, and the Outer Circle.

U.K. is blessed with many smaller charter airlines that offer cheaper fare to go around Europe. Ryan’s Air is based in London Stansted, a small but chaotic region airport in outskirt of London. Our check in counter for our flight to Roma Ciampino took place somewhere inside the open hangar, which are organized by a logic I cannot follow.

The discrimination against the non-European Union community citizen is obvious at the airport. Almost every single queue in the airport is divided between two: EU citizens and non-EU citizens, and as we don’t have any EU residency cards, the authorities need to check every passports and paperwork of all foreigners, causing a huge delay on the non-EU line. A never ending line was formed at the airport’s main terminal to enter concourse, and it doesn’t help to witness a group of Czech athletes that was originally at the back of our non-EU queue, got a special treatment to enter the concourse through a back door.

As a low budget flight, Ryan Air does not assign seats, so as soon as the plane doors open; all passengers fight their way in to secure any seats. There are no complimentary drinks served on flights; instead, flight attendances push a small cart for us to purchase any beverages or snacks. Jason tried to have a transaction by using his Scottish two pound bill he has received in Edinburgh, but the flight attendant has not seen the bills before, therefore the transaction is null. Unfortunately the moody weather of London was carried through the continental Europe during our flight; our conscious feeling told us that we flew over the Alps, but all we could see was grey clouds.

---

Photos

Mind the Gap
Please do not push your friend into the gap.

Big Ben
Big Ben and rain!

Baker Street
Where is Mr. Holmes?

British Museum
A Syrian artifact. Hey-oh!

Tower Bridge at night
It glows!