I started out in Huntingdon where I caught a train into London. It was apparently the slow train, because every couple of minutes we’d be passed by an orange and blue train going so fast that when it passed us, the air would suck us closer with a loud “THUMP” and I was sure we’d just been hit. A bit paranoid? I took the train into King’s Cross where I got off and went to search for the right train to start my wandering around London. What a surprise when I turned the corner and was right in front of…
Platform 9¾!
I hopped on an escalator and was greeted with beautiful violin music - there were musicians in almost every Tube station playing such great music. I headed to Piccadilly Circus because that was first thing that popped into my head since one of my brothers had lived in the Piccadilly Apartments…in Milwaukee. But still.
I got off and was in awe - the buildings were so beautiful and everything was just packed in.
It was a bit overwhelming - I didn’t know where to go, which direction, what to see. And I had not prepared - at ALL, no books, no websites, nothing. So I just started walking. I found that Piccadilly seemed to be kind of the Broadway part of town - tons of theaters with shows like The Crucible, Billy Elliott, Phantom of the Opera…big, gorgeous theaters that I would’ve loved to have gone to a show in but not only did I not have the time with this being a one-day excursion, but my GOD, London is expensive!! Tickets would’ve cost me an arm, a leg, and a couple of my children. So instead I continued wandering…
After wandering aimlessly for a while, I asked a guy picking his nose what was close by that I could walk to. He suggested Trafalgar Square and pointed at a building and grunted, “Thataway,” and I headed off.
Trafalgar Square was the first place I found where I could sit down and eat the sandwich and banana I’d bought at King’s Cross. I sat on some steps at the foot of the National Gallery and pulled out my Ploughman’s sandwich and started eating and was beseiged by the pigeons. So of course I shared my sandwich, because who can turn down a London pigeon?
From there, I asked a nice gentleman in a suit where I could walk to from there and he pointed at another building and said, “Buckingham palace is that way.” So I started walking again and passed through some buildings, under a beautiful bridge, and into St. James Park - finally, a park!
There were pelicans there! They were huge! Their feet were almost as big as mine!
At the end of the park was Buckingham Palace…alas, no princes or queens were standing by to invite me in for tea.
After Buckingham Palace, I walked back to the Tube…
And took it to Oxford Circus. I got off and stopped at Borders - 4 floors of books! - and bought a few things for the kiddies and then stopped at a few more small stores before finding myself back where I started this whole thing, Piccadilly Circus. On my way, though, I found this:
The Soho Cabaret with a girl in hot pants and boots positioned right next to the Soho Parish School where I could hear the little schoolgirls singing their playground songs. Weird.
Next I took the Tube to Hyde Park which was…just a park. Maybe it was because it had started pouring (I, of course, did not have an umbrella) but it was just trees and grass. So I skipped that and chatted up a bus driver who was between routes who let me stand in the bus while the rain passed over and told me about some places close by. I was in a kind of inconvenient place where I could go North and see Madame Toussaud’s wax museum or go South and see Westminster Abbey and further to London Bridge, but unfortunately, I couldn’t go to both because of the time. So I decided to go South and headed back to the Tube and took it to Westminster.
The first thing I saw was the Parliament - enormous and beautiful.
There was a beautiful green field on one end of it, so I stopped and took off my shoes - which by now were killing me - and ate my banana and stretched out for a while. I couldn’t stop too long because despite my pleas, time refused to slow down so I could wander around more. On my way out of the park, I saw this statue, which from my angle, appeard to have one guy with roaming hands…
Westminster Abbey was, as so many places in London were, breathtaking. The churches in Spain are beautiful, too, but there’s something about the historic buildings in England that were somewhat different.
After this, I followed the signs to take me to Victoria Station so I could take another train somewhere else, but along the way I saw House of Fraser which drew me in with its displays of Oasis clothes and signs for tea in its restaurant. I made my way upstairs with the requisite stops in the shoe department, jewelry section, housewares and stationery section, and had tea - tea with scones, jelly and clotted cream.
Clotted cream was one of those things that I never had a burning desire to try - the only thing “clotted” reminded me of was a song in 8th grade…and for the sake of all that is good, I will not go there.
But clotted cream, not nearly as bad. In fact, it was pretty good. It’s kind of in between whipped cream and butter. Heavier than whipped cream, not as heavy as butter. It was very good. And my tea - for the first time, I had my tea with cream and sugar, and I have to say - I liked it! I turned my nose up at at the thought of adding cream to my tea but when I was given a spread that included tea, I figured what the hell…and so I added it. Soooo much better. The clotted cream in the picture looks bright yellow but it was actually almost white.
I read some of my book and let my feet relax for a while and then I headed back. My last stop was to London Bridge. I didn’t see a sign, so I just picked a direction and started walking. Having not read any information on London before I went, I didn’t know what anything looked like, and I saw a bridge down the way and figured it was London Bridge. It was not. It was Tower Bridge. London Bridge was very boring and, like Hyde Park was just a park, London Bridge was just a bridge.
Tower Bridge:
London Bridge:
Tower Bridge was gorgeous, and just next to the bridge was HMS Belfast, a floating museum of their Naval heritage. I walked back up the River Thames all the way to London Bridge, but the whole way I was looking for the Tower of London so I could see the Crown Jewels that were on display.
So I walked from the station (which ended up being right by London Bridge) all the way down to Tower Bridge, back up to London Bridge, and back down almost all the way back to Tower Bridge in search of the Tower. When I finally found the Tower, just my luck - it was closed for the night.
I hobbled back all the way up to London Bridge in my too-small shoes, stopping right before the station to pick up another sandwich, banana and a Fanta to eat on my way back. I stopped for one last picture before the light started weakening, and it happened to be my favorite picture of the whole lot. Click for a larger picture.
Of course, my luck, I left my dinner on the Tube. And then I ran to catch my train, which ended up being a different train than I came in on (I was on the super fast orange and blue train), sat in the wrong cabin (first class), and got off on the wrong stop (St. Neots, the stop before Huntingdon). I waited for a half hour for the next train and got back on and into Huntingdon where I took a cab to the base, walked from the gate to my room, and crashed, hard, for the night.
