Little Red Phone Booths

~Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, London Eye, Buckingham Palace, the change of guards, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, St. Peter’s Cathedral… it’s amazing what you can see and experience in just two days~

So London decided to hate us upon landing. The tubes, which are basically unground railways all over the entire city, were closed due to a strike the day we landed. This never happens and the entire city was crazy. Cops were everywhere, people were shoulder to shoulder, busses and cars could hardly move and everyline was miles long. We landed at 8:10am and didn't arrive to Hysung's flat until about 1pm via a train and a bus and some serious walking with Louie. The normal commute would be 30mins-1 hour not 5 hours. Oh well!


So Hysung (a schoolmate turned friend from Australia this summer) took us to her place and it was so cute! Kristen and I left and walked forever... no way I was attempting any more public transportation that day. We were starving and stopped in at a little Italian shop and got the best salami, tomato and cheese sandwich ever! After that we kept walking and walked across the London Bridge (does any one know where that song comes from? London bridge is falling down, falling down?) and went over to the Tate Modern. The art in London deserves it's own blog, stay posted but basically I was in my little kid in tha candy shop state of mind. It was everything i've ever studied in one place... who needs a college class when you have the Tate! It closed at six, like everything does in the city, so Hysung met us there.

We walked along the water to the London Eye, across the river to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. All of this was during sunset so beyond seeing all of this is real life it was even more unreal. I never really thought I’d be standing on a bridge looking at Big Ben or the next day watching the change of guards… truly unreal and I feel so blessed. Hysung took us to a bus that took us back to Angel Station (right next to her place) and we met her roommate and he was very kind to us. We all went out to dinner and again I got the best food! She took us to an Italian pizza and pasta restaurant and I got stuffed pasta… mmmm!

The next morning we got up and guess what was running!!! THE TUBES! We traveled all over London by tube on our second day and after seeing everyone using them and people getting squished into the doors to barely fit I don’t know how anything functioned the day before! During this day I got to “see” the change of guards at Buckingham Palace. There was hundreds and hundreds of people everywhere. It’s astounding that this big of an event happens every single day. Sure enough it was just like in the pictures; yet, add hundreds of people, the noise of the band, the horse hooves on the ground, policemen yelling and shutters clicking in every direction.

We made our way from the palace down the main roadway next to the stunning gardens and wah-la! National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery! Now this gallery had every painting I had ever studied! I kept telling Kristen oh, I wrote my final paper on this painting! See those curtains drawn in that painting, that means…. Etc. etc. Oh the art and history London has.We went to Tate Britain next, another incredible art gallery. (see next blog) Next stop, Tate Modern for souvenirs and one last look. We went to a few more shops but even just walking around the city is an event. Double decker busses everywhere, rain storms on the drop of a dime (although we had very nice weather most of the time) and people speaking in their British accent (it was so hard to take them seriously, especially the little kids because of their accent! I loved it).

Our last stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral and we arrived right after a rain storm with a perfect rainbow right behind it. We sat on a bench outside the cathedral just enjoying the weather, the people, the city and everything around us. It was dreamlike really. After commuting back north to Angel station Hysung and Quin met us for dinner at an Irish pub. By that time we felt SO poor because the pound just eats huge amount of money, enough to make me sick! So they took us here for a “cheap” meal haha. It was really good too. By the time we got back to the flat, we packed up and jumped on a series of tubes to get to the airport and that was home for the next 9 hours until I flew to Cyprus looking like a zombie. Oh well, I made it and made the most of every waking moment.