Friday, May 4, 2012

Spring Break 2012 (London): "Such a beautiful place, to be with friends"

Well! If you would have told me, two weeks ago, everything that would have happened over spring break, I would have thought it was too good to be true, but alas, it was actually that awesome. Without further ado, I present to you the most concise verbal and visual account of my last fourteen days. Here goes.

We arrived in London Gatwick after 1am, so public transportation had stopped meaning we had to find a taxi. Unfortunately, the airport only had one service open which cost over a hundred pounds, so close to two hundred dollars for the hour car-ride. How cool it was to be driving on the left side of the road again! Our cabbie was friendly and even bought us Capri Suns from the gas station, and an hour later he dropped us at the hostel. That was when the man at the desk told us we could have called a different cab for less than half the price. Not the best start, financially, but we’d made it to jolly old England. It was off to bed, then up and at ‘em for Stonehenge the next morning! After a few hitches with the train out to Salisbury, we grabbed lunch and were on the tour bus out to Stonehenge! I’ll let the photos do the talking.




We caught the bus back just as it was starting to sprinkle and made it to the train without any of the problems we’d had that morning. Once back in the city, we made our way to Buckingham Palace and through the surrounding gardens. The London marathon had just taken place that morning, so there were still ribbons and paths marked for the runners in front of the palace and along the road. As we walked, images of the royal wedding last year played in my mind, and I felt the same overwhelming, oh-my-goodness-so-much-has-happened-here feeling that I had at Stonehenge. Different histories of course, but still. I was in awe.



From Buckingham Palace, we walked around the city, toward Oxford Street and past all the designer stores. Every name brand you could think of lining either side of the street, along with several other very British landmarks. We ended up at an Italian place for dinner before heading back to the hostel to map out our next day.




We were up at a decent hour the next morning to pick up our London Passes, which covered our transportation as well as several of the attractions we wanted to see. We passed through Covent Gardens, a big plaza with lots of street performers and caught a decent magic show. Next, we grabbed our passes and it was on to Stamford Bridge, home of – yes – Chelsea FC! To say it was incredible would be an understatement. Chelsea has been my team for years, and to walk through the stadium and see the players’ locker room was, again, overwhelming. They actually had all the players’ jerseys in front of their lockers, Torres, Terry, Drogba, Cech, all the starters! Ah, I was so excited.




From the stadium, it was on to Kensington Palace, where Queen Victoria grew up. The first floor held an exhibit dedicated to Princess Diana, and there were photos of the royal family all over the lobby and entry way. According to the signs, this is where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (William and Kate!) have chosen to make their permanent residence. How cool?! The second and third floors were dedicated to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, her beloved husband. The excerpts from their letters were probably the most romantic, cutest things I’ve ever read. The house was beautiful, and it made all those historical fiction diaries I read growing up come to life. Unreal. We were all like giddy little girls as we walked around the grounds in search of tea and an afternoon snack.




Full of tea and dessert, we left the little cafĂ© we’d found but quickly turned back around for Roz’s postcard from Kensington. And boy, am I glad we did. Upon leaving for the second time, we were walking toward the underground when Chelsea points out that we’d just walked past Matt Leblanc, as in Joey from Friends. I had my head down against the spitting rain, but immediately whipped back around and the three of us quickly caught up to him as we debated if we should ask for a photo. He was holding hands with a girl when we caught up to him waiting for the signal to cross the road, and I decided to just blurt it out and ask for a photo. He seemed kind of begrudging at first, but agreed to let us take a photo. I’ve never seen a celebrity in person, let alone spoken to and taken a photo with one. We thanked him profusely in our giddiest, most excited voices, and went scurrying down the street with an incredible souvenir in hand.


We boarded the tube to Kings Cross to see Platform 9 ¾, still smiling and not believing that we were in fact living real life. The goofy smiles stayed plastered to our faces as we posed with the half-disappearing cart, ready to board the Hogwarts Express and all through our delicious Indian dinner – my chicken vindaloo, garlic naan, and a mango lassi were to die for! Exhausted from our day, we went back to the hostel to map out the following day over a bottle of wine from the hostel’s bar before catching up on some much needed rest.


Monday took us to the Tower Bridge and Tower of London. Since the tube took a little longer than we anticipated (as it did every time, so you’d have thought we would have learned, but no matter!), we just went onto the bridge over the Thames River before making our way to the Tower of London, which isn’t so much a tower as it is a walled village-looking place with a tower. Who knew? Since the line was way longer there than we anticipated, we settled for photos from the outside instead. The Tudor period is one of my all-time favorites in history, and Henry VIII’s wives and their demise is reason enough to draw me to London, so I think that was the singular time I was the least bit disappointed the entire trip. Still, it was wonderful to see the outside, plus now I have one more reason to make sure I get back to London!



From the Tower of London, we made our way to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It turns out that the day we visited happened to be Shakespeare’s birth- and death-day! So many happy accidents over the break. As we were given our tour, we watched the Maori (pronounced mow-ree, as in rhymes with now, not the yard work), indigenous to New Zealand, practice for their performance later that night. The Globe Theatre we were in was actually rebuilt by an American not too long ago, since the original burnt down centuries ago after a canon misfired and caught the thatch roof on fire. Still, it was built using the traditional methods of Elizabethan times, the design based on various journal entries and stage directions. So interesting!




We walked basically next door to the Tate Modern Museum where we poked around the modern art exhibits over five floors. I’d like to study and brush up on my modern art, because frankly, I just don’t understand a lot of it. But it didn’t stop me from taking a lot of photos and appreciating the paintings I did like. I was glad to have taken an Existentialist literature course as well, since I actually recognized some of the names of the artists as well.


We left after a relatively short time since we wanted to be sure to leave ourselves plenty of time to make it to the bus for our next item of business…WARNER BROTHERS HARRY POTTER BEHIND THE SCENES STUDIO TOUR!!!


To say I’m a Harry Potter fan would be the understatement of the century. Midnight movie and book releases, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve read the books, and I’m a new and proud member of the Pottermore community. I began to get those excited butterflies in my stomach on the tube on the way to catch the bus, following the Google maps directions I’d printed off along with the stack of hostel and airline confirmations and various other directions. When we got off the tube, however, we realized the directions in fact led us to the wrong place. My heart jumped into my throat and my stomach hit the ground as I compared our Google directions to the tour confirmation that reiterated that the tour would wait for no one and to ensure you arrive on time. We asked the tourist information kiosk, where the directions had taken us, and found that the actual place we needed to be was over thirty minutes away by tube, but maybe twenty minutes by cab. Looking at my watch, I saw that we had about fifteen minutes.

We frantically hailed a cab and gave him the address, asking him to pretty, pretty please, drive as fast as possible. While Chelsea and Roz spoke to the driver, I called the tour company and explained that we would arrive shortly. Around fifteen minutes later, after pleasant and calming conversation with the cab driver, he dropped us off at Victoria Station and we asked a number of security officers and station workers for specific directions to the meeting place. We arrived with about two minutes to spare, the very last group to make it to the bus. Whew. Relief doesn’t begin to describe how much better I felt once we were on the bus. An hour bus ride and one cafeteria lunch later, we were queuing to get behind the studios. Words cannot describe how giddy, elated, excited, geeking out, stoked, etc. I was to be going behind the scenes. I would love to plaster this post with those photos, but I’ll settle for listing some of my favorite things: the Great Hall, the boys’ dormitory, the Horcruxes, the Tri-Wizard Cup, Dumbledore’s office (which was originally the setting of Lupin’s office in the third movie! Say whattt?! And one of the portraits is of the guy that does the audio books - fun fact!), Snape’s dungeon, Umbridge’s office at the Ministry, the Knight Bus, the Potters’ and Dursleys’ houses, and more. Ah!





Once back from the tour, we made our way to the London Eye, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey, where we all proceeded to feel giddy and giggly, having had an absolutely wonderful time in London. Having seen some of London’s greatest, most famous attractions, we sought out a barbeque place that was recommended and had some good ol’ American barbeque and again marveled at the day we’d had, savoring our last night in London before pushing off to Liverpool the next day.




I’ll leave you with that for now, since I’ve still to unpack, post photos, and get cracking on this paper, but the most sincere, heartfelt thank you goes to Chelsea and Roz for making this trip so incredibly, unbelievably wonderful! You girls rock. I hope the end of term finds you all well, and congrats and good luck to everyone finishing exams in the states. Love and miss you all, wherever you may be!

Here and there,
Kiley

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