Day 3- London

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The day started slowly with a shower while our roommates were still sleeping. We made our way downstairs for breakfast, which my brother Tim would have loved. All you can eat, but cereal and toast only. I think that I had at least 4 bowls of cereal and 2 pieces of toast. Dad went upstairs again while I stayed down on the computer. He came down to say that we had to leave to Shakespeares Globe Theatre. We only had the small bag, not the backpack, becuase we didn't have that many things to take with us. When we were outside, our bus, the 63 was late, so when it did arrive, we were very relieved, thinking that we would have missed the tour. But when we did arrive, the path that goes straight from the bus stop to the theatre was blocked, so we had to sprint around the block and got lost several times before we arrived, at spot on 9.30, but the tour had already left, which looking back was probably a good thing because we had half an hour to look through the gallery which was a collection of costumes and props that were actually used in Shakespeares plays, as well as details about how the plays were conducted.

Our tour assembled outside the theatre at 10. we got to walk throught the theatre, despite there being workmen installing a prop for the Shakesperean play, Macbeth which was very big and took up a large amount of the stage. For those who have done their research, Shakespeares Globe is the third reconstruction (fourth construction) of the original globe theatre. It has 20 sides and our tour guide told us alot about the Globe, the history and how plays are conducted at the theatre. It was quite amazing and it felt like you were in the 17th century in London. There was a thatched roof with the rest made of wood making it extremely prone to a fire hazard (as was the original theatres, which burnt down twice). Unfortunately we could not go down to the stage or backstage because of the preperations. Unfortunately, Macbeth was sold out in the evening so we couldnt see a performance there.

We finished the tour and went in to the gift shop. I bought a blueberry muffin from the cafe, but when I sat down to eat it I realised that it was infact a Lemon muffin that was really sour. I couldn't eat it all. We had a look in the gift shop before leaving the theatre. Once again we had to walk around the block through a detour because the main path was blocked. Instead of going back to the bus stop, we went to the Underground Station. Our plan was to go on a 12 o'clock tour of Lords Cricket Ground, but there was repair works on the Jubilee Underground line, the line that we had to use to get there, so we had to change trains twice to get to the nearest station to it. Looking at the map, we found that Lords was about a kilometre away from the station we got off at, so we had to run really fast to the ground because we had only 10 minutes left. We arrived there, sweaty and tired, to find that there were no tours today because a match was on. Oh well, I thought but Dad tried to bargain his way in, with no success. We gave up and caught a bus back to the train station.

Our train took us to Tower Hill, where we would transfer to the DLR line to Greenwich. When we were at Tower Hill, we decided that, once we had come back from Greenwich, we would see the Tower of London. Then our DLR train arrived to take us to Greenwich. The DLR is an above ground elevated rail service that operates to to alot of eastern London. This is in contrast to the London Underground which is underground and the London Overground which is on the ground. Some of the scenery that we saw was interesting, and we got the feeling that it was the rich part of London. We had to change trains to get us on the line to Greenwich.

After we had arrived, we followed the signage to the Royal Observatory. However, we got distracted on the way, Dad had to go to a post office, and I wanted to look in a street market. Some of the stuff was ridiculously overpriced, others were ridiculously underpriced. Dad came back and we continued on. The Royal Observatory was in the middle of a park, so after we entered the gates of the park, we had to walk along an avenue, covered by trees. But on either side of the trees was a large grassed area, with lots and lots of sunbathers in bikinis or boardies. We decided that because London was so far away from the beach, that the middle of the park was the best place for the Londoners to relax in the heat. It was a very hot day for London standards.

We reached the top of the hill where the Observatory was, and we had to walk around it to find the entrance. We walked in and had a look and a large old telescope, before Dad met a local Greenwich firefighter who was off duty and working as a tour guide. They had a chat about firefighting in London. Typical Dad. We walked through a gallery which was all about time and how it was measured. There was a mix of really really old clocks, information about time zones and then there was a gallery which had John Harrisons four clocks that were used for very very accurately measuring longitude for ships. 3 of them were really big and looked really really fancy, while the fourth was a small watch which was the most accurate timekeeper of its time. It was really interesting.

We left that gallery and joined the line of people who were wanting to have their photograph taken in both the Eastern and Western hemisphere. Because there were no photographers there everyone had to take eachothers photo. We took the photo of a guy from New York and he took ours. While we were there we were joking that the east side of the line was more at home than the west. It was an unusal feeling to be standing there but interesting all the same.

The next gallery we walked through was all about Astronomy, showing some really old telescopes that were used hundereds of years ago. Some of them could hardly magnify anything, but none of them were as good as the telescopes at school. That was until we reached the top of the room where there was a 28 inch telescope in a massive dome, over twice as big as anything at school, and it was so big that I couldn't get a photo of it all. I pointed out to Dad that the ones at school are more usefull though because this one was in the middle of London and you wouldn't be able to see anything.

The final gallery which we walked through was again about Astronomy, but this time the theories behind it and not the observing. It was all stuff that I already knew, and several of the hands on displays were busted. Oh well. It was still interesting to some people, but because I studied astronomy, I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know.

We left the Observatory and ran down the hill to the Northern Gate. We made a short walk through Greenwich towards the ferries, but got sidetracked for lunch. I had and apple doughnut from a bakery and Dad had some fries from Macdonalds. When we made it to the peir, we purchased some ferry tickets and boarded our ferry, which would take us up the river and back to central London.

On the way, one of the operators gave a commentary describing what there was to see on the side of the river, explaining the history of the buildings and the inlets and whatever else was on the side of the river. Dad found it more interesting than me, but we both enjoyed it. Our ferry pulled up before the Tower Bridge, and when we got off, we ran towards the Tower of London, because we had 45 minutes before it closed. We made it, and the guy at the booth asked us, "you will only have 40 minutes, are you sure you want to go in?" We said yes, because we wouldn't get another chance to. He recommended that we go straight to the Crown Jewels exhibit because that was the best part of the tower. So we ran there and got in at 5 with 30 minutes until closing time. The first half of the exhibit was movies explaining about the crown. We didn't watch them because if we did, we wouldn't have any time to see anything else. So we went straight to the high security section. This had several security guards and the room had a massive security door, which was at least half a metre thick. In there we got to see Royal Spoons and Royal Gowns and Royal Swords and Royal Maces, all used by previous monarchs of the British Empire. Then we came to an slow travelator which took us slowly past the crown jewels of some of the previous British monarchs. They were amazing, covered with jewels and had beautiful smooth fabric, that looked fit for a king, because it was. From there, we saw some more massive gold plates and serving dishes that were used by the monarchs. That gallery was amazing. Then we left to go see some other stuff.

The Tower of London had lots of amazing stonework and arches and towers, each of them interesting in their own right. We went into the main Keep, called the White Tower, and we got to see some of the armour used by former kings, and knights. This stuff wasn't the valuable stuff that was in the Crown Jewels exhibit but it was amazing all the same. I enjoyed it.

We were ushered out of the tower, so before we left, we walked up to the castle walls and had a look around the battlements. It had incredible stonework and the towers that we walked through were amazing. But slowly, they closed it off, so we had to leave the tower of London. I needed to go to the toilet, but the only toilet that was around, had a fee of 50p, and it confused me, because there was a machine that turned things into 50p pieces, But I didn't realise that, and I thought it was a ticket machine so I kept putting in my 50p and it kept putting out 50p and I got confused. Then I realised that you put your 50p straight into the gate and it all seemed so simple, but it is something that you don't get back in Australia.

Next, we went to have dinner. Dad got a chicken burger and I had a hotdog, both with chips, from a local kiosk, and we ate on the edge of the Thames and looked at the Tower Bridge. From there, we decided to take another ferry, this time from the Tower Gate to Westminister. We took a different ferry company and again they had the commentary. However it was a little more interesting because they had more interesting stuff to talk about because we were in London. It was quite relaxing bobbing up and down on the river, but we reached Westminister, when Dad got the idea to catch random busses to see where we could end up. In the end though, we only caught one bus and that took us to a place called Elephant and Castle, from where we caught a Tube train back to Kings Cross. Finding the Tube train was interesting though because we saw a sign saying Underground with the London Underground symbolso we went down there but that lead to a maze of tunnels with contradicting signs. We did eventually find it, and from Kings Cross, we caught our bus back to the hostel

We didn't do much in the hostel that night because we were tired and it was hot, so we went to bed pretty quickly.

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Comments

[Jenny]

The Amazing Race
Pity you haven't got your GPS tracking on, or pedometers, for the number of Ks you're covering each day! Some hits and misses, but it sounds like you're seeing lotsof interesting stuff. Do they have vegetables in London? - doesn't sound like you've eaten any since home!