After another long day of standing in line, going through security lines, filling out boarding cards, and listening to safety demonstrations we landed at Stansted airport, boarded a train and we were off to the center of London. First things first, we bought an Underground tube card that would allow us to get around for the weekend and then off to the apartment we were staying in. We stepped off the train from Stansted at Liverpool Station and wow was it incredible. It looked almost exactly like the set from Harry Potter, with a high ceiling that had bronze supports twisting together to hold up the structure. I felt as though I had stepped off the train directly into the past, it looked precisely how I had hoped all train stations looked. However there was no time to waste so we walked down the stairs to catch the Piccadilly line towards South Ealing station, on the edge of London. After a subway trip that was much longer than I was comfortable with we set off on our half-hour walk down Pope’s Lane towards the apartment, the phrase “Mind the Gap” ringing in my ears. We stopped at a nearby Fish & Chips place and I devoured a pile of doner meat resting on salt and vinegar “chips” (fries). While I was exhausted from the day, myself and one other member of the group decided that we’d quite like to see London at night, so the two of us walked back to the underground station, and made the long trip back in to the city center to explore the great metropolis all lit up.
Walking up the stairs outside Westminster station the first thing we saw was the base of Big Ben, London’s famous clock tower. Attached to the British Parliament building it rose like the beacon of Amon Din against the cold of night. Burning brightly for all to see, it was outshone only by the London Eye, the gigantic ferris wheel, from which you could probably see most of the city. I have been to London twice now and still not been on the Eye, but someday I’ll taste the thin air that only the Eye can reach. It was getting late so at this point so the two of us slogged our way back to the underground, and nodding off a little more stop after stop, until finally, mercifully we only had a half hour trek to the apartment, and I collapsed on the couch to sleep.
Day two the team headed to the Tate Modern Art Museum, which was very interesting. Monet, Picasso, even a Van Gogh or two were all at the Tate Modern, and I was really happy for the other guy on the trip because he’s heavily involved with art, both as a student and as an artist himself. He got to stand next to Monet’s Lilies painting, which is a favorite of his. A lot of the art there was a little....well modern for my taste that’s a good way to put it I think! I was able to appreciate a good amount of what I saw there, but with each floor I ascended the art became hard for me not to ask myself “really? this is art?” which may sound ignorant of me which is why I would like to stress the fact that floors one and two I enjoyed very much. It was just difficult for me to see why a neon light, bent into the word America and spray-painted black is a statement on the “capitalist nature and society of neglect of the so-called world power”. After a few hours here we sat in the lobby as a “living art exhibit” making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and eating them right then and there.
The group stayed fairly busy in London, and we really got to see a lot. We took pictures and ate lunch in the sprawling Hyde Park, visited Buckingham Palace (from a distance, and unfortunately we missed the changing of the guard) rode on a double decker bus (I definitely pretended it was the Knight Bus from Harry Potter) looked around Park Lane, and even took a quick tour of the Hard Rock Cafe where I got to see John Lennon’s army jacket up close and personal. The best part of my London experience came in the next three stops. After a full day of walking around, I noticed that I was quite hungry, and I hadn’t exactly had any real London style food, electing instead to eat doner meat and chips from the place near our apartment, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. From what I noticed around the city, a 10 pound (about $20) burger was quite a reasonable price for a Londoner. So I just had to grit my teeth, and pretend like the exchange rate wasn’t almost $2 for each pound and get the burger because otherwise I wouldn’t have eaten that day. We slipped into a bar called The Barley Mow which is apparently famous for its appearance on the tv sitcom Friends and I ordered the Big Ben burger, and a pint of ale called London Pride. I was pretty satisfied that those were London-y enough for me. I guess. A towering stack of meat and cheese, topped with a fried egg and a perfectly blended amber beer washed it down with style.
We also visited 221B Baker Street, or the residence of Sherlock Holmes! I was really excited about this I got to see the famous door, and step into the official museum shop of Sherlock (the museum itself was closed when we got there) where I escaped with a few treasures that I intend to give to my family as gifts (but they’re really...really cool so I may just keep them for myself) and for those of you who watch the Benedict Cumberbatch series on BBC I saw a small restaurant they used for filming the show right on Baker Street.
Perhaps the best moment on the trip though was when the group visited Kings Cross Station and Platform 9 and 3/4! There was a trolley that was halfway between the muggle and wizarding worlds that we got to take pictures with while wearing whichever scarf from Harry Potter you wanted. As there were four of us, we each decided that it was only proper for us each to have a different one, and I immediately claimed Hufflepuff. And no I’m not kidding quit laughing! Hufflepuff is awesome. The lady in control of the line laughed as well, saying “you just keep that on for awhile no one ever picks that one” as her colleague with the camera called me a “Harry Potter Hipster”. I liked Hufflepuff before it was cool I guess. Wayyyy before. For the picture we were asked to jump, and most people did a quick hop and that was that. Not me though. I bent my knees and rocketed up past the trolley, and my skull connected with the brick wall, garnering praise from both employee and customer alike. In other news, brick walls? Just as hard as they look. Totally worth it though. We also were allowed to take a group photo of the four of us which turned out great. The Hufflepuff (myself) basically went splat on the wall at the direction of the photographer, the Gryffindor at the front with the Slytherin pulling on her scarf holding her back, and the haughty Ravenclaw who “just couldn’t be bothered with all this nonsense”. The staff had a lot of fun with the four of us and helped make my London experience one I’ll never forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment