We left Amsterdam to get to Dusseldorf so we could fly to London. It took about 3 hours to do it, but it didn’t cost anything to get there because of our Eurail and the flight only cost 50 euros each. Our flight was scheduled to fly out at 9:05 PM but that actually didn’t take off until about 10. The terminal also didn’t actually connect to any of the planes, but rather you just waited at one of four doors and then would walk out to your plane.
By the time we got into London it was 11:30. We arranged to stay at our buddy Sherry’s place that we met in Budapest. He lived about two miles away from where we were so we decided to take the bus, but not just any bus a double-decker. Not trying to seem like a tourist at all I naturally ran up the stairs and grabbed the seats right at the front of the bus. It was pretty crazy sitting up there and realizing how close those bus drivers get to hitting things. Once we got to London Bridge Station we had about a 15 minute walk to his place and by the time we got there we were to tired to go out. So we just hung out and watched Big Brother. I didn’t realize it at first, but we were watching the Big Brother Channel, not the 30 minute or hour show it usually is, in which it was just a 24/7 feed from the house they live in for 3 months which I thought was pretty crazy.
The next day Sherry had to head out to a friends wedding for the weekend so Jeff and I left to go check into our hostel. Once getting there we dropped off our bags and headed out to this suggested walking path by one of the people that worked at the hostel that would bring us by a lot of the famous London sights.
First sight Shakespeare’s Globe Theater
The London Eye
Some stud in front of Parliament
Parliament Square where all the protesters hangout.
One protestor has been there every day since 2001 and was also the location where William Wallace and Guy Faukes where killed.
The next spot we went to was Westminster Abbey where a lot of famous and influential people are buried but naturally pictures aren’t allowed inside and they seemed a little more keen on spotting people with cameras so we didn’t risk it since it was 12 pounds to get into.
View of the courtyard with Parliament in the background
Fish and chips and as you can tell from Jeff’s face it is really good.
We continued up the street to Trafalgar Square where there was a celebration for the World Cup going on. It is also the location of the National Gallery where they have a ridiculous amount of art work that is free to the public so they can deal with the fact that most of it was taken back when they were imperialist of the world.
We then headed back to the hostel and moved our stuff out of storage to our 22 bed room. Not wanting to stay there long we headed out to the bar attached to the hostel, but it turned out the major crowed there was a whole bunch of people in their late 20s and early 30s so we headed out to find a local pub.
We went to a bar we walked by earlier that had a large group of people standing outside of it, but surprisingly we were able to walk right in. It was then we understood when Sherry told us that more people are outside of a pub than inside. It wasn’t too hard to find a seat and so we chilled at the bar. When Jeff went to the bathroom I was standing outside to see these two guys put an open bottle of ketchup in front of the door so someone would kick it over. Naturally I connected with their childhood since of humor and started talking to them. They were both in their late twenties named Max and Matt. Max was an English teacher for elementary students and Matt was a lawyer. The conversation switched from drunk talk about where the best looking girls are to religion. When they left Max gave us a good 5 minute speech that pretty much came down to do lots of drugs and bang dudes, if you want. After that we headed to chill outside of the pub. When we were out there Jeff started talking to some older woman and out of nowhere this girl yells at Jeff “don’t try to shag my mum.” After that Jeff’s main objective was flirting with the mom, going on about how large his bed was. I starting talking to some other people that looked like they were born in our generation and it turned out one of the guys only left England once and was to visit his girlfriend who went to school at University of Michigan. He said he went out a few nights to Good Time Charlies and Brown Jug but wasn’t ever subjected to Ricks. I found it to be a pretty crazy coincidence. After they left I told Jeff to wrap it up with the mom so we could head back which we did.
The next day, June 12, we took “The Tube” to Trafalgar Square and when we got off we saw a whole bunch of barricades and policemen. When we asked what was going on the officer told us they were celebrating the Queens birthday. So we rushed down to catch the parade, but it was pretty much over by the time we got there. We snapped some pics of the last part of it and then were going to head out. However, people began to walk down the street the parade was on and when we found out everyone was going to Buckingham Palace where the Queen and the Royal Family were to come out and greet everyone. So we joined the masses and wormed our way towards the front.
Once the road reached Buckingham Palace we were pretty close and once the horse mounted police stopped guiding us, everyone started a mad dash towards the gates of the palace and naturally screaming followed. Not partaking in the running and screaming we still managed to get a descent spot about three rows back from the gate. Then came the Queen.
Once on the balcony they started the flyover. There was about 5 groups that flew over and naturally the best was last.
After the flyover the Royal Family went back inside and the guards began to march out and the show was over.
After we went to the Churchill Museum, which was part of the War Cabinet Bunker, where they went to hide during the bombing raids on London by the Germans.
I thought this gas mask was pretty interesting because it would let them still work the circuit board in the case of toxic gases being released. Jeff managed to miss the turnout for the Churchill Museum which ate up about an hour so he was waiting outside and after a little while figured I left so he left himself.
Rather than taking The Tube back I decided to walk back to see some different sites around the city. By the time I got back it was almost 8 PM and the USA v England soccer game was at 8:30. Right when I was walking up to the hostel, Jeff was leaving. He said after he left he went to the park to go relax. He ended up getting kicked out of his lawn chair because he didn’t realize you had to pay to sit in them so he moved to the grass. A little later some other guys started grabbing chairs to sit in and he told them how you had to pay because one of the guys had an American flag as a cape he figured they weren’t local. He ended up talking to the guys for a while as they sat there and listened to their stereo they brought and played songs form Born in the USA, to Party in the USA, to the song by Team America. They told him to meet up with them later at some bar and when I ran into Jeff that’s where he was heading, figuring I wasn’t going to get back in time.
When we got there we realized that they actually rented out a room in the bar and it was full of people from the states that worked in London. The bar was below us and I was sure from the loud chants and stomps coming from us that there was going to be a group of England fans waiting for us if USA won. It turned out to be a tie so there wasn’t any bloodshed. Two people from the group headed out with us as we tried to find a place to continue boozing. The first pub we went to the bouncers stopped Jeff and I at the door, and I thought we had to pay a cover which would have been ridiculous for a pub. The other people we came with walked right on through and that is when he asked to see our ID where the legal drinking age is 18 lol.
Pubs all close at different times and this one decided to close at 11 PM. So we headed out in search of a new bar. As we were walking we noticed some subtle differences such as woman with adams apples. That is when we realized we found the gay district. After seeing our far share of transvestites we were out of the area and saw this bar called “The Yard” which looked pretty cool. As we were standing in front of it trying to decide whether or not to go in the bouncer told us that it was a gay bar (apparently we didn’t get all the way out) and with that we called it a night and headed our separate hetero ways.
(Jeff)
So i'm taking over the 2nd half of this trip to London. This blog has become quite the choir to do and I guess I need to make up for all the time Brandon updated it while I was sick. After reading Brandon's I realize he left something important out. While I was on my solo adventure after the Churchill Museum I stumbled upon a group of cyclists. It was crazy to see cause there were so many of them... o ya, and they were all naked.
There were literally hundreds of them and people were watching them with their 7-10 year old kids. Just a different culture across the pond. I couldn't imagine anyone in the States letting their kids see that. It looked like the cyclists were having fun, though! Maybe something to add to the bucket list...
Now, to pick up where Brandon left off. Brandon was attending free seminars from Sta Travel while he was still in Ann Arbor. At one of these they raffled off tickets for bike tour of London. Someone won the tickets, but gave it to Brandon because he had no use for them. We booked the tour in Ann Arbor on the day we left for Europe. We booked it in the middle of when we were supposed to be in London, according to our itinerary. This is why we didn't go on it until the 3rd day. Ideally, the we would have done it the 1st day. The tour left at 2:00pm, or so we thought.
To kill some time in the morning before our bike tour we agreed to go to a public market. The couple we met the night before, Greg and Cara, told us about this market and said it was something straight out of Asia. It had to be seen. So the first thing we did when we woke up was to head to this market on Brick Lane. Upon doing so we crossed the Tower Bridge, which is an ornately decorated structure (turns out The ugly bridge over Telegraph on I-94 is more impressive than London Bridge. It is a plain concrete bridge 4 lanes wide for cars and has a guard-rail. We didn't even snap a picture of it). We then walked through the Arabic part of London on our way to Brick Lane Market. This is a rather large community which is prejudiced against in London. There is a group called the EDL (English Defense League) which is a KKK-type organization, and everytime they march violence breaks out. I'm sure some of this racism has arisen from the subway bombings in London from Islamic radicals. At the end of this section of the city was the market.
We were lied to! It is a huge street market; we can't argue that. Probably the biggest we have seen. However, it didn't seem comparable to the flooded Asian street markets I see in movies, which is the sole basis for my comparison. We walked the market and picked up some fresh fruit and chinese food, which was everywhere. From there we headed to our bike tour.
When we arrived at the spot we were supposed to meet the tour Brandon looked over his voucher and realized that the tour didn't leave until 3:30pm. So no we had an hour and a half to kill in a boring end of town. We ended up going to the park across the street and planning out the rest of our trip in Europe until the tour began.
The tour first headed into a park just outside of Hyde Park. This park, Kensington, used to be the royal gardens, but has since been open to the public. Our tour guide showed us one of the palaces, Kensington Palace, where the royal family used to stay before they made their home at Buckingham Palace. this palace he showed us was also the same one Princess Diana lived in. From there we headed to Buckingham Palace, then to Hyde Park, then a memorial for Princess Diana, to the Westminster Abbey, and finally to Parliament. Brandon and I had already seen most of these sights because this was our third day in London, but it was nice to hear a little more about the places.
Now it was about 7:30pm and there was one thing I told Brandon I had to do before leaving London. Brandon found out where it was the day before while we were separated. So we hopped on "the tube" and took it to the stop nearest Abbey Road.
After walking through some shady parts of town we finally found the crosswalk where The Beatles shot their album cover. Abbey Road records was right there, as well. After about 30 minutes of failed attempts to get a good picture while not getting run over or having car headlights in the background, Brandon finally snapped a picture I could live with. I also signed my name on the concrete wall near the intersection. Mission accomplished. Time to go home. We have a long day planned for tomorrow.
The next day we woke up at 8am and headed out the door as soon as we could. We still had so much to see in England and knew we weren't going to get to it all today, but we wanted to get to as much as we could. First target, the British Museum. We arrived around 11 am.
Don't let the name fool you. This museum doesn't document the history of British culture. Rather, this museum displays items from the cultures that England ransacked. There were Asian artificacts (that we didn't even make it to), Egyptian, Native American, African, European, Greecian, Roman, and Middle Eastern. The most impressive were the Egyptian, Greecian, and Roman. When we were in Athens we saw a number of signs whining about waiting for the return of Parthenon artififacts taken by England. Obviously, the English display had a different message. Anyway, I can see why the Athenians were upset. This museum had more artifacts then Athens itself! This museum also contained a complete temple from the Lykans (a Greek community closer to the present-day Middle East) and huge Roman building remains. However, the Egyptian exhibit outshone all others. Tombs, statues, and mummies! We unfortunately couldn't go to Egypt on this trip (maybe I'll go next summer when I do this again), so this was a great opportunity to see Egyptian relics. The rosetta stone was here! Don't know what it is? You're dumb. Look it up. Just kidding, but seriously look it up. And the mummy of Cleopatra was on display. Impressive statues from Egypt. One statue was about 100 ft tall, but they only had the top 20ft of it (his head and shoulders). Great museum! Best I've been to. And it's free! Probably to appease all the cultures they stole this shit from. The halls of the British Museum held our attention until about 4:30pm.
Easter island, what?!?!?!?!
Rosetta Stone in all her magnificence
Cleopatra's mummy
We could have stayed longer at the British Museum but there was something I had to see and refused to miss. We blew through the European history portion of the museum in about 30 min as I pushed Brandon along, arguing we have been all over Europe and we already know everything about everything, so let's go to the next important place before it closes! Well it worked and by 5pm we arrived at the British Library with an hour to spend before they closed their doors.
Before you jump to the assumption that I am the biggest dork alive (though you might think that anyway), let me explain why I rushed to this museum with the enthusiasm of a frenchman running for the last baguette in the grocery store. This museum houses original written notes from The Beatles! Song lyrics that John and George scribbled on napkins and their sons' birthday cards. i couldn't leave without seeing this. I discovered The Beatles are one of the few people on earth with worse handwriting then myself. This library also housed the Magna Carta. Don't know what it is? You're dumb. Look it up. This was the document that knocked the King of England down a few pegs and was the first documented contract designating certain inalienable rights all men should have (life, liberty, speech, etc.). Also here were Leonardo Davinci's journals where he took notes when doing scientific research. These were interesting to look at because Davinci wrote backwards, or practiced "mirror writing" I guess it's called. There were also Chinese scrolls from the 3rd century and old Bibles from over 1000 years ago. The Alice in Wonderland original copy is here, along with some of Shakespeare's original plays, first edition.
After 30 minutes of waiting for an opportunity to snap a picture of The Beatles display case without the guard catching me I finally caught my break when we went to lock up. I snapped two fairly shitty pictures before jetting to the exit.
From there we headed over to Parliament, where we could watch the House of Commons deabate. We received our security clearance badges, all free of charge, and walked into Parliament. The building opens into a beautiful foyer which was originally built during medieval times and meant to strike awe upon the royal families that would attend banquets and balls here.
After walking through the hall we were led by security to a seating area overlooking the room where the house of Commons deliberates. We listened as the (government?), the name given to the majority party, and the opposition, which consists of the multiple minority parties, debated the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip where the Israelis attacked an aid convoy trying to go through the Israeli blockade. The speaker from the government dropped many jokes at the openning of his argument, but other than that it was rather boring to watch. We left after 20-30 minutes.
We had called our buddy Sherry, who was now back in town, from one of those tacky, red British payphone booths. We were supposed to meet at 6pm, but we wanted to go into Parliament so changed it to 8pm. Well, Parliament, grocery shopping, and leaving our hostel took longer and expected and we didn't get to his place until after 9:00pm. We buzzed him. No answer. We had the front desk try his cell and apartment. No answer. So we sat in the lounge as they continued to try him. Finally, answer! Sherry "allegedly" passed out on the couch and didn't hear us. Considering we arrived late our first night in London due to plane delays and got to his apartment around 11:30pm, then agreed to meet at 6pm this day, then 8pm, then showed up at 9:30pm, I'm thinking Sherry had enough of our "punctuality." He probably wasn't too excited that he would also have to sleep on the couch while we shared his queen size bed. Oh, and we were setting an alarm for 2:00am. I still feel sort of bad about the situation because I had a lot of fun with Sherry in Budapest. We dragged his ass to go spelunking, which we wouldn't normally do, checked out the thermal baths, and partied the night away. But Budapest was much more laid back and here we had so much to see! We were definitely an inconvenience and we didn't have much free time to sit and chat and be pleasant guests.
the next morning we awoke at 2:00am, left Sherry's by 2:20am, caught our city bus at 2:40am, then hopped on our bus to the airport at 3:00am. We arrived at the airport around 4:00am for our 6:30 flight. When we first got there I pointed out that the flight number was different, but Brandon remarked, "It's just Ryanair being Ryanair" and that was the end of it. Big mistake.
When baggage claim opened we hopped in line and reached the front at 5:30am. She couldn't find our flight. She was about to pick up the phone to call someone when I glanced at the boarding passes for the first time (Brandon had booked the flight) and saw a different airport listed. Shit! With only an hour we didn't have time to make it to that airport. I tried not to get too frustrated with Brandon because the airport's name wasn't completely obvious and it is easy to assume we would be flying out of the same airport we flew into, but human nature can't help you get a little frustrated. Plus, Brandon did all the work to book it so I shouldn't complain. It cost us 100 British lbs. to re-book a flight for that morning. This was hard to swallow (equivalent to about $150). We did get very lucky with the fact that there was another flight leaving to Dublin at 8:10am. I have missed layovers before and lost an entire day on vacation because of it. Here, we only lost an hour and 40 minutes. Losing a day in Europe would have been just as bad as the money... I don't think I could have handled both. But since our next flight was so soon after our intended one, this wasn't that bad of a situation and both of us were able to put it behind us rather quickly. If this is the worst thing to go wrong for us as we travel through foreign countries for 2 months then I say we did pretty good. It's ironic that it happened in an English-speaking one, however. Doesn't give us much of an excuse. Anyway, Ireland! I have been looking forward to going hear for years and now we were on the doorstep!
We arrived in Dublin at 9:20am.
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