I took over four hundred photos on this trip, so if you want to see them all, please click here. If not, I made a silly little scrapbook-y video in iPhoto for silly enjoyment. So, enjoy! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqXAFyWJ5Wg]
Last week was one of my favorite weeks of the year: Semana Santa!! Meaning "holy week" in Spanish, this is always the week leading up to Easter in which those of us involved in schools get to take a nice 10-day vacation. Last year I went with Leigh to visit her family in Scotland and this year I returned to the UK to see London with mom and our friend Sharon.
Due to a general strike taking place on, wouldn't you know it, the day I was set to fly to London, I changed my ticket and got to London with two full days to spend on my own before they arrived. In this time I got to meet a friend of a friend and stay at her house in North London (thanks again, Michelle!!) and get acquainted with the city. Late Thursday night we were all reunited in the hotel and had to get a bit aggressive with the guy at the front desk until he gave us the room we booked. I don't know if I'll ever believe the phrase "fully booked" again...liar!!
Rather than attempt to write out every day of the trip (nine days for me), here's a quick run-down of the sights we saw/things we did:
London
- Big Ben/Parliament/London Eye, etc (we didn't go in any)
- National Gallery
- Shakespeare's Globe theatre experience
- The Rose theatre
- Tate Modern
- Tower of London/Yeoman tour/Crown jewels
- Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace
- Stroll through St James park
- Abbey road - the crossing was closed!!
- Primrose hill & Regent's park
- "Haunted pub crawl" - see below
- British Museum
- Maundy Thursday mass at Westminster Abbey
- British Library
- King's Cross station/platform 9 3/4
- Harrod's
- Hyde Park
Re: The "haunted pub crawl" - Sharon's London guide book had some daily itinerary suggestions and one of those was a haunted pub crawl, suggesting some pubs with a lot of history. On this crawl, we started on Fleet Street at the Punch Tavern which to me seemed to only be haunted by young bartenders with stupid tattoos and strange taste in music. We were so distracted by the blaring electronica-meets-trip-hop that we had to finish our drinks quickly so we could move on to the next stop, The Old Bell Tavern. This pub had a bit more of the cozy pub feel we'd enjoyed at The Blackfriar a few days prior, so imagine our non-surprise when we picked up an Old Bell menu and noticed it was exactly the same -- from starters to puddings -- as the Blackfriar. Turns out they're both owned by a chain called Nicholson's Pubs. This is in no way a hindrance, as we liked both pubs very much, from decor to staff and drinks. Clearly Nicholson's are doing something right. But alas, two stops do not a pub crawl make. On to the next--Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. This was by far my favorite of all the bars we tried last week. Rebuilt in 1666 after London's Great Fire, this locale has been a pub since 1538, it boasts a long list of authors who were once regulars, among those Mark Twain and Charles Dickens (allegedly). We walked into a dark, wooden bar with no clear windows and only one door. The floor was dirty, the lights were set to a low orange-y glow, and the only sounds to be heard were the patrons' muffled conversations and the occasional burst of hearty laughter.
I loved it.
We ordered a round of drinks and I was hooked (the Cheshire Cheese is a Samuel Smith's pub). I finally got my hands on a pint of Sam Smith's Extra Stout, my favorite of the trip, tied with the Belhaven Black Scottish Stout I had at the Blackfriar, and the three of us thought about ordering some dinner there if we could find a table. The place was packed upstairs and we were unaware of the network of caves that sprawl through the basement, so when I saw what appeared to be an open table, I asked an old gentleman if he'd mind us sitting with him and he said it would be no problem. There we sat, the three of us sharing a delicious chunk of fried goat cheese, and our table mate, Stephen, telling us stories of his trip down the east coast of the US with some friends. He did not like Orlando at all. He gave us some suggestions of other Samuel Smith's bars to visit (The Princess Louise and the Cittie of Yorke, which we did eventually find) and even bought us a round of drinks. We later decided that he was a ghost and the rest of the bar patrons thought we were crazy talking to nobody to make our haunted bar crawl seem more legitimate.
Paris
- Notre Dame
- Eiffel Tower
- Liberty flame(?)
- Arc de Triomphe
- Champs-Élysées
- Musée du Louvre
- Moulin Rouge/Montmartre (quickly!)
My advice for one day in Paris: don't do it, unless you've seen everything a billion times and you're just going there to be there. It feels like someone took my camera and went to Paris and gave it back to me. Yes, I've seen all of those things listed above, but I don't have any story to go with it. I wish I did. I guess this means I just have to go back to Paris! Life's hard.