London Day 6... our final day...

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London Day 6

Sadly - our final full day in London is behind us… and now we must prepare to return to our normal lives back in DC. But at least we were able to get in a last few sites before we left!

We started the morning with a quick return trip to Stafford Bridge, the stadium where Chelsea FC plays. Amy and I needed to pick up a few things that we weren’t able to get when we were there on Saturday. With all of the madness that goes with the playing of a match, we could barely get into the stadium let alone find our way around the place to find the store, etc.

Much to our surprise - the stadium had set up a number of fun pictures on the wall outside the entrance. These various action shots included spaces for fans to stand in and make it look like they were part of the team! Needless to say, Amy and I then ran around for the next 30 minutes finding these various pictures so that we could get the perfect action shot alongside the Blues!

With our pictures in hand and purchases in tow, we jumped back on the tube and headed down to Buckingham Palace. Though we knew we couldn’t go on a tour or anything, we still thought it would be fun to take a picture out in front of the British equivalent of the White House. Along the way though, by happenstance, we walked across a busy office building known as “The Albany House!” The workers who were on smoking break in front of the building gave us awfully funny looks as we took pictures of a rather non descript office building in downtown London. But it was fun to see the name of my hometown strewn across an office building thousands of miles away.

Once we made it to Buckingham Palace, we took a quick walk around to see the various statues and architecture. The building itself is far bigger than our White House, but I would venture to say, not as identifiable. Maybe it is because I grew up seeing pictures of the White House that makes me think of it as such a different building than any other. Even today, when driving through DC I still get a different feeling when passing it. Not to discredit Buckingham Palace in any way, but other than its sheer size, the building itself seemed too ordinary to me, or at least too similar to those buildings that now surround it, perhaps eroding some of its visual luster.

After our picture taking session at the Palace, Amy and I headed towards St. Paul’s Cathedral to get some lunch. Once we arrived nearby, we settled on the “Old Bell Tavern,” a traditional pub like the hundreds of others in town. The tavern had quite the history in its own right and proudly featured its origins in the menu. Evidently, this pub had been around for over 300 years, and given its location close to the “legal” district in town, was a regular spot for lawyers. The pub was known for its various types of homemade sausage, so of course we each had to try the specialty. And since we were on vacation, Amy ordered a pint of beer, for LUNCH no less, just because we could.

With lunch over, we headed towards the famous St. Paul’s Cathedral. Like Westminster Abby, this church is definitely one of the historic landmarks in the city and country for that matter. This church was constructed in the late 17th century and was the first major one built in England after the country split from the Roman Catholic Church to start their own.

But before we could go in for a tour, we needed to relive a little pop culture. Evidently, it was on the steps of this great church that a famous scene from Mary Poppins was filmed were Mary fed the birds as they flew around. Not to miss an opportunity to be a part of history, we stopped at a nearby Starbucks, bought an overly expensive cookie and marched towards the front steps. Amy then competed with the nearly 200 or so other people trying to feed the birds, and ended up attracting quite the crowd of pigeons! Anyways… mission accomplished!

Once inside, we realized we only had about 90 minutes or so until the Church was to close for its daily services. So we quickly picked up our audio tour guides and headed for the stairs to go to the top! St. Paul’s has two domes over its center, one that dominates still to this day, the London skyline, and another just inside of that, which depicts a number of very important religious scenes. Guests of St. Paul are invited to walk up the 175 stairs or so to the base of this lower dome, called the “Whispering Room.” They call it this, because they found that if you stand on the exact opposite side of the dome as another, no matter how quiet one speaks, you can clearly hear what they say on the other side. Evidently, this is because of the acoustics of the dome itself.

The view from this level of the church was stunning. Looking down, you could see all of the activity going on, on the floor of St. Paul’s. At the moment we peered down, a short prayer service had begun while church staff were starting to clean up after all of the tourists for that day. Looking up, you could see the amazing murals painted on the top of the interior dome that you could see from the floor, but not make out in great detail. Through the middle of this amazing dome scene, you could start to make out the second dome above, but this also served as a reminder of how far you still needed to go to get to the top.

Amy and I started working our way to the top. In total, there were over 300 stairs we needed to climb, but we were told we would be rewarded for our efforts. At the top of our climb, a line had formed for those people who wanted to step outside onto the small cupola that was there. While we were waiting just inside the door that would lead us outside, I noticed that on the floor of the middle of the room there was a small plexiglass window. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to look through or step on the area around the window, but my curiosity got the better of me. Slowly, I started to peer through the window. At first, I didn’t see anything and was about to give up. But as I leaned forward just a little bit more, I realized that class was a window down to the exact center of the alter area on the main floor of the church! Everything looked so distant, and the people so small. It was a fantastic view, and after I started bragging about my discovery, I think just about everyone else in line took a quick view for themselves.

Amy and I were then able to walk around the outside portion of the top of the outer dome. While we had seen many beautiful things in London, with the sun setting behind the Thames river at that exact moment, I can not think of a better one during our week long trip. Every part of the city was in sight, and with the weather once again cooperating; we were able to indentify many of the places we had visited during our stay. It was a perfect ending to our weeklong journey that sadly, was just about over…

But our trip was not over just yet, we still had to finish the tour of St. Paul’s before a final dinner with our host family of sorts. Again like Westminster Abby, St. Paul’s has been closely connected to the Royal Family since its construction. As a result, a lot of the sights and monuments are a combination of religious importance and royal history. There was also a very strong emphasis inside the Church, recognizing England’s military successes and sacrifices. Of particular note, is the recently constructed monument behind the high alter, that was dedicated by the Royal Family to those American’s who sacrificed their lives to help protect the Britain during World War II. As part of this monument is a book, which includes the names of every American serviceman and woman who at one point served on the British isle or died protecting it. Every day, a leader of the church turns just a single page of this massive registry so that every person who was part of this effort will be recognized by future generations.

With our final tour over, it was time to get one last dinner with our host family, Brian and Emily Bower. We ended up at a local Thai restaurant called “The Sugar Hut,” close to the Bower’s flat in Fulham. Brian and Emily had been so kind to Amy and I; opening their house to us for an entire week and helping us get tickets to the various events we wanted to see like the Chelsea Soccer match and a showing of Dirty Dancing, that we needed to somehow repay the favor. So after our final dinner together, we gave the Bower’s what every Wii owner should have: their own copy of Mario Kart with two steering wheels!

It’s sad that our great adventure is just about over… but what a great trip it turned out to be… I know that I wont be able to take trips like these too too often given the amount of time and expense that goes into them. But I only hope that I will be able enjoy such a combination of education, culture, sport, and the great hospitality given to us by the Bowers, the Cooks, and all of the other Londoners and tourists that we interacted with along the way.

And to be able to experience all of these celebrations with Amy is something that I would not trade anything in the world for.


In a few days, after I have finally caught up on my sleep, and worked through the backlog of emails and other things I have neglected, I hope to sum up a few of my general observations from this trip… so until then… thanks for reading! I hope you too were able to experience at least in part, some of the great adventure that was London, October 2009.

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