Off to Never Land

LONDON! Haha I know I’m finally getting around to it. I would have yesterday if I wasn’t sick/ recovering from the weekend. When I wasn’t in class I was sleeping and today I’m doing better so I think I was just exhausted. But I’ll get to my weekend later on. So it’s been a little over a week since I was in London so I’ll remember what I can.

Around 5 am Thursday morning we all left University Hall and headed up towards Katie and Rafa’s place to catch the taxi. Some of the girls had slept over there so it was just the rest of us who had to meet up with them. At 5 am in Cork you would think that it was the middle of winter. Everything was covered in frost, it was the coldest I had ever known Cork to be and it was dead silent. The walk to Katie’s is only about 15 minutes so it wasn’t too bad. When we got there we paged their apartment and whoever answered the phone sounded pretty much dead. It was really amusing. At least to me it was, I didn’t sleep the night before since we had to be up so early, so I found most anything to be a bit funnier than it probably was. The taxi rides weren’t bad. Since it was really early there was no one on the road and it was a 10 minute ride. We weren’t able to actually get one big taxi for all of us so we split 2 smaller taxis.  When we got to the airport everything went fairly quickly since there weren’t a whole lot of people travelling at that time. We were flying ryanair and they give very specific details as to how EVERYTHING must be done. We only paid 30 euros for a round trip and we saved money by just using a carry-on bag for all of our things. I’m pretty sure we all were outside of the dimensions they gave for our bags, but that early in the morning, as long as you don’t have anything illegal, they don’t really care.

As we were waiting in line to board the plane the sun was coming up and we could see the fog that was covering the ground. It was really cool to watch as it lifted and you could see the frost covered ground. Ever since I’ve been in Ireland I’ve found a greater fascination with nature and just watching as things happen to it. I guess when you’re surrounded by fields and fields of green grass that happens. At UConn I think they’ve officially gotten rid of most of their green grass since they built (or are building) on the lawn behind the union. Either way I’m fascinated by nature now. The flight was great! Once we were in the air and the pressure from takeoff had gone away I was out cold. The flight was only 1.5 hours and I woke up when I felt the plane touch the ground. It was so nice. Before I had fallen asleep I was playing a pretty large game of dots with Bryan. Try playing dots with an entire sheet of graph paper. It takes FOREVER, but it’s a lot of fun. When we got off the plane we went through customs, which to be completely honest, was a joke, and also very disappointing. It was literally one person standing there checking our boarding passes and letting us go through. There was no passport check, no anything. Just one lady checking our boarding passes to make sure we got off at the right airport. The disappointing part was that there was no stamp. That’s always the cool part about passports, you can look through them and see where you’ve been, but that’s only possible if you get a stamp from that place. We didn’t get stamps from London and we covered the fact that it would be illegal to find a stamp to put in our passports, so we all just got over it and let it go.

Here comes the fun part. Our group ended up getting split up into 2 groups because we were all on different buses to Central London where we were getting metro passes and heading to our hostels. It worked out that we were separated into our hostel groups. We weren’t all able to stay at the same hostel so we picked 2 that were literally a minute away from each other. So one group left on their bus which was 20 minutes ahead of our bus and it was the last time we saw them before later that evening. Since we pretty much had an entire day to do stuff around London, our group headed out to Tottenham Court Road and we met the head of the UConn in London program. She was this sweet little British woman and she was such a character, it was great. We hung around for tea and coffee before heading out to the British Museum. I honestly can’t even remember how long we spent in the museum; all I know is that we set a time to meet back in the main lobby area. Since it was a while ago I can’t really remember a lot of what I saw. I just remember that there wasn’t enough time for me to go through and take pictures of everything like I did at the Ulster museum, so instead I took pictures of the things I thought were really cool. After that we headed back to our hostel and found out where the other girls were staying since Danni and Katie were going to Les Mis that night. Apparently the rest of the group had decided to just sleep once they got to their hostel so they had just gotten up when we got there. Danni and Katie went off to their show and Bryan and I had agreed to go back for a human rights lecture at Tottenham Court Road. Oh just for clarification most of the places that I’m referring to I’ll refer to by their metro stop since London is massive and I don’t really know where we were to be exact a lot of times. I would love to tell you all about the Human Rights lecture but I’m a horrible person and as soon as I sat down my brain shut down and I kept nodding off. The parts of it that I can remember were so interesting and I wish I could recall everything but I can’t. Although I will say I don’t think I could ever look at a Chiquita banana the same ever again. It’s one of those things that just make you think about what happens behind the scenes of different companies. I remember at least listening to a video about the Chiquita massacres of their workers. The thing about it is that you can’t really help what happens in other countries and you can’t stop it, but you think about it every time you see that product or you see a commercial for it. I really do wish I remembered more of the lecture. Afterwards we all went out to dinner and I met a few random UConn students and it’s so funny to talk to them and realize we know some of the same people. As big as UConn is, it’s still a small world. After dinner we headed back to the hostel and I have to say I was out cold. I ended up getting up really late and missed breakfast, but it worked out that I still had part of a baguette from the day before. Okay so random moment, but honestly it’s going to be so weird to go back home and not eat as much bread as I have been here. You can just walk into a store and get a baguette for a euro or less and walk out and that’s it. They aren’t little baguettes (those are actually called pains, it’s French, I think), but they’re at least 400 grams each and it’s just so easy to grab one and eat it as you go. I’m also pretty much considered like the cookie monster of bread to the girls. It’s really amusing, I’ve started realizing that I’m a part of a lot of random jokes to them, it’s so weird. Haha so yeah that’s just my random little moment about bread.

Friday in London was spent doing pretty much everything that the typical tourist to London would do. We headed to Westminster and as soon as we got out of the metro Big Ben and Parliament were right in front of us. I was so excited. After taking a bunch of pictures and walking even further down one of the streets we made it to the Supreme Court. Go figure, free admission to just go wander around inside. I’m actually really curious as to whether or not you can do that in the U.S. I highly doubt it, but it would be really cool to be like, oh hey, I just wandered around the Supreme Court for a while. Haha, but yeah we wandered around the Supreme Court for a little while and got to go into a couple of the court rooms and look around. They had security at every door that would open the doors for you and then follow you into the courtrooms just to be safe. After the courthouse we made our way over to the Westminster Abbey which was astonishing. You can’t take pictures inside of it, which was fine, it was just magnificent to go inside and look around. The architecture here in Europe is so detailed and elaborate and I understand why they take so much pride in their buildings. Especially buildings that are as well known and important to them as the Abbey. We continued our walk around the area and over to the bridge on the other side of Big Ben. On one side of the bridge you can see Parliament and Big Ben and off in the distance is part of the city of London. On the other side of the Bridge is The London Eye and the Millennium Bridge is across from the one we were standing on. For those who may not know, The London Eye is pretty much a massive ferris wheel that you can go up in and you can see all of London from it. We didn’t go up in The Eye because we were already on the ground and seeing what we wanted to of London. I’m going to probably spell this wrong, but after spending time at Westminster we took a walk down to Trafalgar Square. There were these really pretty fountains there and I liked the little dolphin statues in them that were squirting water from their mouths. The National Galleries are also at Trafalgar Square so we went in and had a look around. All I’m going to say about all of these museums here is, they’re massive mazes. Someone seriously had a lot of fun drawing out the blueprints for these building because everything is just a maze and you can get lost or walk through the same room multiple times and not even realize it. Since it was a gallery you can’t take pictures in there either so there really aren’t many pictures of a lot of the museums because you’re not allowed to take them.

Since we were making our way through London it only made sense for our next stop to be Buckingham 

Palace. We walked through St. James Park on our way there and I’m really glad we did because there were all sorts of birds just walking around on the grass. There were geese and different kinds of ducks, pigeons, swans, seagulls, and all sorts of other birds just coexisting in this park. There were SQUIRRELS! I don’t think you understand how excited I was about the squirrels. In Cork there are birds and I only know that because I hear them every morning chirping away, but there are no bugs or squirrels or any kind of visible animal in Cork. So it was really exciting to see animals in general, but being a husky, there’s always going to be a special love for squirrels. We have them all over UConn and they are some of the friendliest squirrels ever, they just come up and walk beside you and they won’t harm you. So it’s always exciting to see squirrels. We made it to the palace and to be completely honest I think I was more taken by the statue in front of the palace than the palace itself.

There really isn’t a lot to tell about some of the things we saw because we pretty much just went to them, took pictures and moved on. I’m actually drawing a blank as to what we did next. It’s between King’s Cross station and the Tower of London. Haha okay so if my pictures are right we did the Tower of London next. That was really cool and I wish that they hadn’t dried up the moat that used to be around the tower. It would have been so cool to see an actual castle with a moat around it. We walked around the tower and saw the outside. It was getting kind of late and there was still a lot that we wanted to do that night so we didn’t end up going inside, but the Tower is where the crown jewels are held. While we were there we also got to see the Tower Bridge and London Bridge. Just for clarification the Tower Bridge is the one with the two towers on it that is actually more famously known as a symbol of London. The London Bridge actually isn’t that exciting. It’s just in the song London Bridge is Falling Down. People are known for mistaking the two and thinking that London Bridge is the one with the towers, but it is not. We crossed the Tower Bridge towards the South Bank and then ended up walking right back to the North end because King’s Cross Station was in that direction. For those who don’t know about King’s Cross Station, it’s where Harry Potter gets on the train for Hogwarts at Platform 9 ¾. We found the platform and took pictures of it. That’s really the only reason why we went, just to take pictures of the platform. By the time we were done with that it was evening and we headed back to have dinner before heading out to see Westminster and Piccadilly Circus at night.

One thing I’ve noticed is that they like to light up their important buildings or sites with really cool colors when it gets dark out. Big Ben and Parliament just had simple lights on them because they are magnificent just the way they are. The London Eye and the building next to it though were very colorfully lit up. It was kind of chilly though so we didn’t stay there for too long. We took the metro to Piccadilly Circus which is pretty much the Times Square of London. So we went to take some pictures of it at night and then headed back to our hostels. It was a very relaxed night.

Saturday I will say was my favorite day in London. It started off at the Victoria & Albert Museum just kind of as a time killer. At 2:30 was The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theater. All I’m going to say is that it was absolutely beyond phenomenal. I had never seen Phantom actually performed on stage I had only seen the movie, which I will say is amazing as well, but to actually see it performed on stage was incredible. Right now that’s the only thing I can think about and I can’t remember what we did afterwards. It was the most wonderful 2.5 or 3 hours ever. By the time we left the theater most things were closing so there wasn’t a whole lot to do. We ended up heading towards the South Bank to see St. Paul’s Cathedral and Shakespeare’s Globe. Oh! Actually that reminds me, so originally we were all planning on going to see Macbeth at The Globe, but seeing as how it was a free performance tickets were pretty much gone the second they went out for reservation. That’s why I ended up going to see Phantom instead because we weren’t able to go see the play at The Globe. Actually I have to thank Sarah Ribeiro and Christina Quental because there were a lot of plays playing on the West End and they pretty much decided on Phantom for me. After we saw the outside of the Globe we headed over to Harrod’s, which is pretty much the mall for rich people. We didn’t go because we wanted to buy things but just for the sake of looking around. The most exciting thing I found in there were these giant teddy bears that were taller than me. I’m sure they were about 7 feet tall. We didn’t spend too much time in there because we got there about 20 minutes before closing. Apparently when Harrod’s closes the metro that goes straight to it closes as well. So we had to go find another metro entrance to go in. On our way back to the hostel we stopped at The Hard Rock Café and looked around the shop. I was very intrigued by the touch board they had with different pictures floating around it. When you touched a picture it would get bigger and tell you about it and the other pictures in the background would change to things that were relevant to the picture you chose. I read a lot about The Beatles (of course).

I apologize if I’m skimming over things. I have about an hour before I have to go to Shakespeare and I really want to get this post finished.

Sunday was probably the most relaxed day that we all had. We met in the morning and walked through Hyde Park to get to the Museum of Natural History. It was a nice day to walk through the park. We saw the sky mirrors and also the statues that were in the park. There was a really big one that I can honestly say I don’t remember who it was for. I think it was for Albert but I could be very mistaken about that. We spent hours in the Natural History Museum, it was really cool to walk around and see everything. It was all interactive or just designed in a way that I was very intrigued by everything. Once we had seen everything that we wanted to in the museum Colleen and Rafa went to a Dr. Who show. Honestly I can say that I have no clue who that is or what that’s all about. I guess it’s some kind of British Comedy show with David Beckett. So they went to see that. I ended up going to the Science Museum afterwards. It was really confusing in there for a while because part of the building has 5 floors and the other part only has 3. My favorite floor was the one with the plastic on it because they had these long strips of red plastic hanging from the ceilings. It looked liked the things that a car goes through first at a car wash. I wish I had a better way to describe it than that, but me being me, I decided to walk through them because it just seemed like fun. Of course the only issue with that is that they surround exhibits and there are also random support beams that they cover, so I ran the risk of walking into something. I didn’t though, which was good, and I enjoyed walking around and getting lost in all of them.

Once we had seen everything in the Science Museum we walked back through Hyde Park to see everything else that was there. We walked through the Kensington Gardens where I had a lot of fun feeding the squirrels. You weren’t supposed to feed any of the animals in the garden but I really wanted to play with the squirrels so I took out a tiny piece of bread and they would come up and at least sniff what was in my hand. It was the closest I had ever gotten to a squirrel and I was having so much fun with it. It ended though when one of the squirrels reached up to grab the bread out of my fingers and scratched me. I know it wasn’t intentional but that was when I decided it would be good to just leave them be. I tried to be nice and threw the bread to the squirrel but a pigeon scared it away and stole the bread. I had to laugh at the irony of it. After we were done playing with the squirrels we headed towards Kensington Palace which is currently under construction so there wasn’t a whole lot that you could still see. So I took pictures of what I could see and then moved on, mainly because I was more excited to go find the Peter Pan statue that was on the other side of the park. On the way there I got distracted with taking pictures of all of the birds that were surrounding the little lakes in the park. I believe that one of the lakes was a memorial to Princess Diana. We also fed the ducks and Swans that were there which got interesting because I’m willing to throw the bread to them but not let them eat out of my hand, but I tried to let some of them eat out of my hand and it just didn’t work out. They would get really close and I would get nervous and drop the bread for them. On the way to Peter Pan there were the sky mirrors which were really cool because the sky was so blue that day and had clouds scattered everywhere. We continued to walk along the river until we found Peter Pan. I was so excited and I’m pretty sure I spent most of the time in that area. I love Disney, so to find Peter Pan was so exciting.

On the way out of the park there were the Italian fountains which were really pretty. We walked around them for a little bit, but honestly it was cold and we were still quite a ways from the hostel. After we left the park it was about 20 minutes back to the hostel so we walked along and saw the street artists who were selling their paintings. Some of the pictures were so beautifully done and there was one person who had paintings of the beach and he used actual pebbles as a part of the painting. It was just a nice, relaxing walk back. We didn’t really do anything that night because we had to catch a bus to the airport at 2:30 in the morning. So we just got Thai food and hung out for the rest of the night. We got back into Cork around 8 am on Monday morning and still had classes and everything else to attend to that day. I have classes with some of the girls and it was just so funny to get into our classes and we just knew how exhausted we all were from London, but it was totally worth it. We had a great weekend.

Well I was able to finish this with 20 minutes to spare before my Shakespeare Class. So I will be heading out really soon. Hopefully before I leave for Dublin in the morning I will get the rest of my posts done. Now that London is covered the rest of them should be fairly short. I apologize for the length of this one.

With Love Always