Who will be the sheepdog? 6/30/13

After jetlag put a kibosh on our breakfast plans, Gracie and I decided to run up to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. Along the way, we walked through St. James Park, where we ended up being fascinated by pretty much every bird. Apparently, we haven’t adjusted to the fact that we are on a different continent, and things like plants, animals, and even the stars aren’t going to be identical to home.

We didn’t get a great location for the Changing of the Guard, but what we saw was fun. We’re thinking about going back at some point. During the break between the Guards arriving and leaving, we somehow became fascinated by the memorial of Queen Victoria. We ended up examining all of the sculptures in the area, and looking up their various meanings. If anyone is wondering, on the statue itself, Victory, Courage, Constancy, Truth, Justice, and Charity are all represented. I never catch the symbolism of things like that myself, so I love having the information at hand to help process what I’m seeing.

After lunch, a history professor led some of us on a tour of the Westminster area with a focus on the political and military history represented. We learned how Westminster Palace was built to try to escape the stench of pre-sewer London, and how the city grew to reach it. We sat near the statue of Oliver Cromwell as the professor told us the story of how he was tried and executed, after he was already dead. I also now know the history of Trafalgar, so at least I have some context for the square. We tried to see some of the royal lifeguards, but they weren’t at their post at the home where apparently Prince Harry lives. Still, we got to take some photos inside, instead.

When the walk was finished, my arms were well and truly sunburned, so Christine and I tried to find an open pharmacy, to no avail. Who closes at 5:00 pm on a Sunday?! We hobbled back to the dorm on aching feet, before deciding to check out the local Italian restaurant. It was small and mostly empty, but the food was really good. I got chicken kiev, and when it came, it was the largest one I had ever seen. It felt wasteful to not finish it all, but I was stuffed halfway through, and they don’t have doggie bags here, unfortunately!

Waterloo Station is right across from the shop, an luckily there’s a Boots there (which is like a Walgreens). I lucked out, because sunscreen and aftertan is half priced as “Wimbledon musts!” I'm still a lovely shade of red, but at least it doesn't hurt right now.

Overall, it was a beautiful, low-key, summer day, and I’m eager to head to Greenwich tomorrow.

Half-Pints and London Pride 6/29

Woke up this morning without really feeling jet-lagged and pretty excited for the first real day in London. We had our first classroom meeting, at King’s College, where we received syllabi, and all started making plans and thinking about paper ideas. Class doesn’t start in earnest until Monday, when we go to the Museum Library in Greenwich, but this morning we had an orientation meeting with all of the BSP classes. We got to meet and get advice from the professors, and heard stories about earlier BSP adventures.

We had an hour before our walking tours, so Christine, Allison, and I decided to go to a phone store to get local phones. We really misjudged the difference from our directions, and then couldn’t find the store we were looking for. Christine asked some random passerby if he was a local and for directions. He told us we were standing right in front of the former store (which is now an Eat!), but that Google indicated there was another farther down the street. Around this time, we also witnessed a car rear-end one of the red London buses, which happened maybe ten feet from us, scaring us silly. The car was completely flattened in front, though both the driver an the bellowing passenger seemed fine. There wasn’t really time to process that, though, because we were running late and wanted to get to the phone store. When we finally got there, we were relieved to see that it was located directly across from Charing Cross Station. After getting our phones, we jumped on the Tube, but even though the return trip took us less than half the time it took to get to the store, we were still five minutes late for our tours.

I went in the historic pubs walk, and we made our way down along the Thames, seeing some artists making sand art, and musicians playing on the beach. We went across Blackfriar Bridge, and then down Fleet Street looking at them. I’m always amazed by the history available in other countries. We were seeing some pubs that had been standing since being rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666. It’s also sometimes odd seeing older architecture details on a building that now houses a Starbucks or some other chain restaurant. On the one hand, there’s an interesting sense of weight to the city, but it also looks blasphemous somehow.  At one point, passing one of the many red phone booths, we decided to play “How many librarians fit in a phonebooth?” The answer is 6, if you squeeze.

When we disbanded at the end of our pub walk, six of us decided to backtrack and have a half-pint at some of the historic pubs. Five of us were classmates from the library class, and one was a token accounting student that we adopted.

We started at Ye Old Cock Tavern, which felt very British. We ordered some lunch and shared our half-pints, before moving on. The second pub we stopped at was my absolute favorite of the day, Olde Cheshire Cheese, which was rebuilt in 1667. We went to the cellar bar, which is, naturally down three flights of stairs in a place with some of the lowest ceilings for stairs and doorways that I’ve seen. There was a group there starting a stag night party, who joked around and sang songs, and definitely provided some local color. They also recommended the pub’s cider, which turned out to be wonderful. Cheshire just had amazing color and history to it. Charles Dickens had worked there for a time. We then proceeded to Blackfriars, which was the most beautiful of all the ones we visited today. It had stained glass and copper under the windows, but it felt modern and lovely, despite being built in 1905 in a medieval style.

Today was London Pride, so our group decided to make our way up to Trafalgar Square to join in the festivities. We spent about an hour at the celebration, before deciding to seek out somewhere to watch the football match. We ended up striking out in finding a pub in the area that was showing the game, and instead we grabbed a bite to eat at the Sherlock Holmes Public House, which had a really fun themed atmosphere. We ate under the Hound’s head.

We walked home over Jubilee Bridge, stopping to admire the London Eye in rainbow colors.

Once again, the evening stroll over and along the Thames was one of the highlights of the day, for me. The weather today was absolutely perfect, warm and sunny, with a breeze. Hopefully we get a lot more days like it. They’re calling for 79 tomorrow, so we’ll see how that goes. It was a great first full day in London.

Does anyone know what day it is? 6/27-6/28

We were meant to leave Chicago for London at 7:15 pm on Thursday, but since I’ve never had smooth travel, we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes waiting first for a “push,” and then for another plane sitting on the runway. When we finally took off, Captain Champagne told us he’d speed it up a bit to try to make up for lost time, which makes me wonder why we weren’t planning on traveling at that speed in the first place. Shouldn’t we always be flying as fast as we can?

We got in at 9 am London time, which was 3 am Chicago time, and I don’t think any of us got more than 2 hours of sleep. Still, a group of us had decided to take the Tube in from Heathrow, and with the sunlight and the busy airport, we were feeling awake and ready to go. The chattiest transport person in London helped us buy our Oyster Transport Cards, which would have been nice, if we weren’t so eager to get on our way. Everything was going smoothly until we had to change trains at Earl’s Court and the elevator was out. So we dragged all of our luggage down the stairs, instead. And, for good measure, when we reached Waterloo station it was raining for the walk to the residence hall, but we felt a serious sense of accomplishment when we finally reached it.

After checking in, unpacking, and getting cleaned up (thank goodness), some of my classmates and I chose to avoid napping (which would complicate jetlag) by heading out to the grocery and the housewares store. The housewares store had pretty much everything we could possibly need: cookware, hair dryers, hangers, etc. We also had an interesting time roaming Sainsbury’s, examining groceries in the narrow aisles.

When we made it home, we had just enough time to put away groceries before meeting up with our professor for an orientation walk. The walk took us down the South Bank of the Thames, which was pretty nice, even in the rain. We stopped for pizza at a little restaurant, where Allison made friends with a cat, and we discovered “Chicago” pizza- barbeque beef, peppers, and onion? By dinner, weariness was coming on fast, but we did our best to counter it with Diet Coke. Then we took the Tube up to Leicester Square to find the cheapest place to buy theater tickets. We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening walking around Westminster, viewing such sights as the Canadian embassy, the Texas Embassy?, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, etc.

I think one of my favorite parts of the day(s) was coming back along Westminster Bridge. The rain had stopped, and the bridge was busy with people. There were artists and salespeople, and the air smelled amazing from the food carts selling sausages and onions, sweet roasted nuts, and the restaurants along the Thames. By the time we made it home, it was late evening on Friday, and I was wiped out.

Still, when I heard that another of my friends from Dominican was in town, and was only available to meet up that night, I joined several of my classmates down at a local pub. That was a mistake. The place may have been wonderful under normal circumstances, but jet-lagged and exhausted, I just couldn’t process the very loud bar. When I commented that the bar was beginning to feel more like a boat, one of my classmates helpfully walked back to the dorm with me, and I called it a night.