London Day Five

I apologize to the people who have been anxiously awaiting the fourth installment/fifth day of my travels in London, I have made you wait far to long. However, to my defense, I just started a new job and have been working anywhere between 8-13 hour days, so cut me a little slack. So, without further ado……..

Day 5

Our wake up call arrived at 8:00 AM, which I must say was far too early, but all the same, I was anxiously anticipating the events in front of me. After we all ate the horrible English breakfast it was time for the panoramic bus tour, which we were supposed to take during the first jetlag filled day, but due to an excessive amount of sleeping on the bus it was postponed until day five. The tour was nice but unspectacular; the best part was definitely our tour guide. Her name was (is) Madeline Rainbow and she was 4’11” tall, but what she lacked in size she made up for with knowledge of the city. She seemed to have an interesting story about every building in London! She also went out of her way to drop subtle (or not so subtle) attacks on Tony Blair and George Bush.

Our tour bus tour ended in close proximity to Westminster Abbey, which strangely enough, was the site of our group activity for the day. The Abbey was amazing, it is something I have wanted to see my whole life, but my interest in it has increased even more since reading the DaVinci Code. The architecture of this building is simply astounding, and is by far the most beautiful building I have seen in my few years on earth. The ceiling was a high arch supported by various pillars, and the walls are basically works of art in themselves, completely covered by stone carvings. Perhaps the most impressive artwork in the building was found on the “High Alter,” which is more or less a giant gold room, full of elaborate gold carvings and artwork, bling, bling baby! It really does make you wonder how many decades, or even centuries, it would take for medieval Londoners to build and sculpt such an extravagant piece of architecture.

After saying all that above, I haven’t even mentioned what I believe was the most awe inspiring quality of the building. Of course, that would be the grave markers of all the famous people from England. This may sound morbid, but as this is the closest I will ever come to being in the presence of great minds such as Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, George Frideric Handel, Rudyard Kipling, and nearly all of the important kings and queens that lived throughout England’s history. There are also many less well known markers such as Oliver Cromwell, the man who led a revolution that temporarily disbanded the monarchy, and Lord George Grote who of course is the great, great, great, great grandfather of the immortal John Grote (I can't actually back that up with evidence).

Alas, we could not stay there all day, although if it was up to Jill we surely would have, so afterwards Tiff P., Amber, Chantel, and I looked around a few London tourist traps, I mean gift shops. This lasted for a short while, and I did buy a “Mind the Gap” t-shirt, but we had to cut it short in order to catch our bus to Charles Darwin’s Downe House.

The journey to Kent was only 15 miles, but due to the extreme congestion of traffic and poorly designed infrastructure, this trip took us a solid ninety minutes to complete. The wait was well worth it and the exhibits in the house were extremely interesting. In fact, this museum was everything that the Freud Museum could have been. The ground floor was recreated, or preserved, to be exactly as it was when Darwin was writing his “Origin of Species.” This is interesting to a point, but the real attraction is found upstairs where a number of preserved specimens, and interactive exhibits could be found. These exhibits shed light on everything from his trip to South America aboard the S.S Beagle, to the reaction of the church to his theories. It even had a small café downstairs where Amber, Jill, and I sat down with a small group of Welsh people and had our first cup of real British tea, which, by the way, is far superior to its American counterpart.

All this sightseeing tends to work up a large appetite, so we went to dinner at a pub called “The Duke of York.” As a general rule English food is not good, but the one dish they do extremely well is fish and chips (fries). I do not know what type of fish I ate, but I do know that it was bread battered, extremely tasty, and was so big that it did not properly fit on my plate. The chips were not so good, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

Since this was an educational trip, I will tell you one of the many important lessons I learned, DON’T TRUST GUIDEBOOKS!! We decided we wanted to go clubbing and Tiffany P. found Club 333, which was supposed to be the second best club in London. Three hours, and God knows how many wrong turns later, The Bohnkers, Tiffany P., Chantel, Amy, Kristen, Jake, Jen, and I arrived at club 333 and immediately doubled the clubs population. It was horrible, Junior High spring flings had more people than this place did! We tried to find another hotspot in the area but all we found was a Mexican bar, and a punk rock club complete with leather collars and metal studs. Not exactly the proper scene for our group of people.

Eventually we decided to take the tube back to Piccadilly Circus and found a club with no cover charge called The Buzz. We all partook in some adult beverages, I personally had a rum and Coke, a Strongbow Cider Beer (which was very good!), and a shot called “Suck Me Beautiful” which contained Kahlua, Baileys, and some other hard liquor. Once we were sufficiently lubricated we went downstairs to the dance floor which was pretty cool. I personally was loving life because I was at a club dancing with six different attractive women all at once, which let me tell you, did not suck. After an hour or so everyone but Jake, Jen, and I left, but being the troopers we are, we left for another club.

We wandered around until we found some guy selling VIP passes to a club called Walkabout, where we skipped the line and went straight inside. The place was packed; it was one of those clubs where it was actually difficult to move. We drank the English Snakebites, which are half Strongbow Cider and half Stella Artois Beer. This is probably the best tasting drink I have ever had so I had to have like 5 of them, plus a three wise men, and another suck me beautiful. I was all sorts of fucked up and I danced some and unsuccessfully hit on some girls from Wales. This debauchery continued until about 3:00 AM and then we bought a Bratwurst from a street vender, and took a double decker bus back to our hotel.

Somehow I made it back to my room and lay down to go to bed, but the damn bed decided it was going to spin on me. As a result I made a mad dash for bathroom where the contents of my stomach were emptied into the toilet. The odd part was that my puke was red, which made me wonder if it was blood the next morning until I remembered that the Snakebites I had been drinking were, in fact red. Eventually I fell asleep and my Snake bit night was complete.

Day 4

Day four of my journey around London began slowly. The majority of the group left and got an early start on the day, but I had to meet my friend Jake and his girlfriend Jen, who were studying abroad in Wales, at the hotel. To pass the extra time I slept a few extra hours and looked through London guide books for attractions to check out later that day.

Jake and Jen arrived at about noon, and there was much rejoicing. We were all hungry for a day full of English culture. However, we were also hungry for lunch so we took advantage of the number of English restaurants in the area by eating at Pizza Hut. We all ordered the lunch pizza buffet for four pounds, but apparently the pasta sitting three inches from the pizza was not included in the pizza buffet so a charge of two pounds was added to my bill, bloody English people.

Once our stomachs were full to the brim, we walked to the Churchill Museum/ Cabinet War Rooms. I was skeptical about the quality of the museum because from outside it looked extremely small. It was only an illusion, the majority of the museum was underground, and it was huge. The Churchill section was incredibly high tech and very interactive. The exhibits utilized touch screen computer technology, motion sensors that cued videos to start, and excerpts of speeches that started playing when you stepped on a certain section of floor. You would think that with such a setup the style of the exhibits would overshadow the substance, but in this instance that was not true. The place was absolutely loaded with information about Churchill’s life, his relationship with other world leaders (most notably Stalin and Roosevelt), his actions during WWII, and all sorts of random fun facts that helped visitors to delve into the mind of one of the greatest military leaders the world has ever seen.

The second section of the museum was the actual Cabinet War Rooms. These rooms were the secret hideout for Churchill and his military advisors during WWII. It was there that they developed their wartime strategies and hid from bombing raids. It is difficult to imagine the living conditions that these people had to deal with. The ceilings of the shelters were extremely short and required me to duck nearly the entire time, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this museum.

We had planned on spending around 30 minutes inside of the Churchill Museum/ Cabinet War Rooms, but 30 minutes quickly turned into 3 hours and we were forced to meet up with our group at the hotel immediately afterwards so we could go on the Jack the Ripper Walking Tour. This so called walking tour ironically began with a scenic boat ride down the Thames River. On the boat I bought a Carling and enjoyed the view of downtown London. It was during this boat ride that Chantel and I sang the “London Bridge Is Falling Down” nursery rhyme as we were actually passing under London Bridge.

Once we started the walking tour, which included bus rides to several locations, I realized that this was no ordinary tour. The first words our tour guide uttered were, “My goal is to make this night as unpleasant as possible for you.” It was immediately apparent that he had every intention of keeping his promise. We visited several of the Jack the Ripper murder sights which, when they did not have office buildings built over them, were simply vacant parking lots. However, our guide brought the locations to life with all the disgustingly gory details how each murder happened, how he got away, and who the major suspects of this still unsolved case were. On the tour we came across several other sites of interest including: the William Wallace Memorial, the outer walls of the Tower of London, the 10 Bells Pub, Tower Bridge, and White Chapel. Our guide showed the dark side of many of these spots by telling stories of death and destruction at each site.

After the tour, Jake, Jen, and I had worked up an appetite, so we once again took advantage of the English cultural experience, and ate at Subway. After eating, we went to Piccadilly Circus, which is basically the Times Square of London, and met up with Tiffany P., Chantel, Amy, Kristen, and Kristen’s friend Amanda at the statue of Eros, and began searching for a drinking establishment. We were handed free passes to a bar called the Sports Café by some lady on the street and we took full advantage of those passes. The bar itself was similar to an American sports bar such as Hooters in most respects, except this bar had a dance floor. Once inside I ordered a Guiness, a Fosters, and a shot of Jack Daniels.

Once I had partaken in a few spirits I was ready hit the dance floor and show everyone what a horrible dancer I am (hopefully they thought I was having a seizure). It was especially funny to watch some brave Englishmen hit on Chantel only to be shut down when he asked to buy her a drink. At 11:45 P.M. we decided it was time to leave, so I bought a Becks, and attempted to walk out the door. Unfortunately, the bouncer would not let me take it out of the building, and I was forced to chug the entire beer on the spot. Once we finally got out of the bar we took the tube back to the hotel and went to sleep. It was definitely a successful night.

Day 3

I woke up at 9:00 in the morning and was happy that I did not experience the tiredness from jet lag that I was expecting. I had my first experience with the Vandon House Hotel continental breakfast, and I should say it was quite unimpressive. They offered a wide array of choices to cover you breakfast eating need: croissants, croissants, croissants, little fun sized boxes of cereal, or croissants. The croissants were not especially good but I ate them anyway due to the fact that there were no other options.

Our first stop of the day was in the neighborhood of Finchley to see the house that Sigmund Freud lived in for the last three years of his life. The Freud Museum was a colossal failure. There were no exhibits shedding light into the fascinating mind of Freud, instead there was just a bunch of furniture and figurines with no explanation as to what they meant. This museum could, and should be extremely interesting, but unfortunately fails miserably in that regard.

We had our first experience riding the tube, or British subway system, and I must say I was impressed. They are kept much cleaner than their American counterparts and I did not experience any delays during the entire trip. However, the escalators that are found throughout the tube stations are somewhat dangerous contraptions. They are extremely long, and have certain etiquette that was never explained to us. If you simply stand still and let the escalator do its work you MUST stand on the right side because the left side is for people who are trying to get through quickly, and those quick moving individuals show no remorse for running people over if they are standing motionless on the left side. I made the mistake of standing still on the left side and not only was I nearly knocked down the escalator, but the man who did the running into had a few not so choice words for me as I moved over and allowed him to pass.

We returned to our hotel, and Tiffany P., Chantel, Kristen, and Amanda took a self guided tour to see the sights in the direct vicinity of our hotel. It was then that we saw the Buckingham Palace guards for the first time. I was hoping to get a picture next to one of them, but due to an excessive amount of people with the same idea, they are now behind a fence, which makes the gaurds inaccessible to would be photographer. We took a stroll through St. James Park, which is adjacent to Buckingham Palace, and it was extremely scenic and well groomed. It had an abundance of squirrels, ducks, and even pelicans wandering through its numerous, well kept flower gardens. Chantel randomly started chatting with an elderly couple from Bristol that was sitting on a bench in the park. We took pictures with this random couple, which they thought was rather strange, but were good sports all the same. It was also on this walk that we caught our first glimpses of Big Ben, the Parliament Building, and Westminster Abbey.

Our next stop was at Trafalgar Square, just outside the National Gallery, because Tiff P., wanted to see the fountains decorating the square. The fountains were magnificent and we each took several pictures before finding a tube station and taking it to South Kensington to find the Science Museum that Amanda and Chantel wanted to see. We found the Natural History Museum right off the tube station so we decided to go there instead. The Natural History Museum turned out to be very impressive! It had a large dinosaur exhibit complete with many fossils, and a full size animatronic T-Rex. Other attractions included: a full size blue whale replica, ancient mammal fossils, a large assortment of precious gemstones, and even meteorite specimens. The only downer was that the Darwin exhibit and the giant squid exhibit were closed for the day!

For the next leg of our adventure, we traveled by tube to the theatre district. It was here that we first discovered the Jubilee Market, which had a large assortment of low priced souvenir stands. After meandering around the market for a while we decided to move on and check out the National Theatre Museum. This wasn’t an especially interesting museum, but it did pass some time before dinner, so it wasn’t all bad.

For dinner we met up with Amy, Amber, and Jill and we ate at a fancy pizzeria called Pizza Express. The food was expensive, so Amber and I split a spicy “Diavolo Pizza,” which was good, but not worth the nine pounds that we paid for it.

Now that our stomachs were at least moderately full we proceeded to the Drury Lane (do you know the muffin man?) Theater to see a performance of “The Producers.” The performance was very good and extremely funny. The casting director somehow found the world’s best Matthew Broderick look-a-like for the part of Leo Bloom, he was not only a dead ringer appearance wise, but he also had the exact same voice. All in all, I can safely say it is the best play I have ever seen.

After the play we decided to go out as a group to a pub or a club; however, every time we passed a pub or a club one of the girls (Jill Bohnker) would complain about how it “looked to expensive.” So we decided to buy some stuff from an off license, which is what the British call liquor stores, and drink at the hotel. Once we found an off license I flirted with the idea of buying some absinth, but decided against it and got a bottle of Malibu, while the Bohnker’s bought a bottle of wine. Once we got back to the hotel we all assembled in the lounge to drink and plan the next day’s trip. Well, that’s what we were going to do until the Bohnker’s realized that they didn’t have a corkscrew. I was going to save my Malibu for another night, but the futility of watching girls trying to plan a trip drove me to alcoholism. I drank the entire bottle that night and I don’t think the girls ever figured anything out, weird huh? My final action for the night was to call my friend Jake, who was studying abroad in Wales, to arrange to meet up the next day. So I made the call and then went back to room 1/12 and hit the sack.