Last weekend was the last weekend in a long, but short; fun, but exhausting succession of weeks where we traveled three weekends in a row and were gone from home more than we were here. We went to London and it was a beautiful weekend when the sun was out and the flowers were blooming. We took a walking tour and saw the changing of the guards outside of Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Wellington Arch, the London Eye, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge and the countdown clock until the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London. There was also a boat tour that we took through the city that showed us a lot of the key sights. We also went to Camden Town which was bustling with an outdoor market that was bustling and had all sorts of cool things for sale.
Compared to the previous two weekends it was, once again, a really awesome but different kind of cool. It's been difficult to rate the last three cities because they're all unique. Edinburgh had the cool, quaint, old, castlely city thing going for it. Berlin had the alternative scene and recent history deal. London was a modern city that had a lot of cool royal parts to it. They were all awesome, but in their own way.
There were only three of us that went to London so it was fun exploring with a small group the whole time. It's notorious for being one of the most expensive cities in Europe but we managed to find the absolutely cheapest hostels, cooked our own meals and took advantage of all of the free things to do in the city. Since we've gotten more practice, we've learned to be more efficient travelers and spend a lot less money.
We went into the National Gallery, which was a really cool museum but, to me, seemed like it had a borderline excessive amount of religious imagery. Of course, so much of history is closely tied to religion, so I suppose that's understandable. The part I liked most about the gallery though was seeing the portraits of Erasmus and Pope Julius II. I didn't know who these two figures were until a few weeks ago when I started a research paper for my Roman history class where I'm analyzing the writings of Erasmus about the pope as well as Julius II's duel roles as the "Warrior Pope" and a pope aiming to make huge interior renovations within Rome. I know, it sounds terribly fascinating. Anyway, the portraits of these two figures that always come up when you look them up were both hanging on the wall of the gallery! Pretty exciting stuff, because, as a history major, I see so many famous portraits of people and places in books and online, but I finally got to see some in person, which was something I was looking forward to when traveling.
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| Shakespeare's Globe Theater |
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| Wellington Arch |
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They're going to play sand volleyball in front of this at the Olympic Games.
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| On the way to the changing of the guard, in front of Buckingham Palace. I'll admit, I'm not positive where the scruffy dog fits in to the whole thing... |
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Big Ben, with the London Eye in the background.
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One of my personal favorite spots! I tried to make it through the wall but there seemed to be some technical difficulties. At that point, I had no choice but to flush myself down the toilet to get into the Ministry of Magic. If that last sentence didn't make sense to you, I'm sorry. If it did, then I'd assume that my choice to try to flush myself down a toilet seems perfectly rational to you. :)
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Westminster Abbey (where the royal wedding was last year)
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