Rachel in London

Ello ello! Two and a half days in London = 16 miles walked (x three ginormous blisters) + one sunburn (sorry Ma) + an empty bank account. J'en ai bien profité !! Thanks to my lovely Grace, I basically saw everything there is to see in Londontown in the short time I was there. (Including The Hunger Games... uh. ahem. It was... so good...) We were lucky since the weather was beautiful, and so we essentially walked from one end of the city to the other and back again. I really liked London, although it was a very different 'type' of city. I'm not sure how to explain it really, but it was interesting just the way the city is set up, I guess. You have the main business/touristy areas (for some reason, British architects really like making fully glass buildings for everything), and then around the metropolitan area you have all these little districts that have quiet streets with lots of apartments and condos and houses, and then each district has a High Street that has shops and restaurants and the like. Also, just as Madrid's history was shaped by Franco, a lot of London history is based off of the Blitz during World War II. There were areas that had been preserved because of the bombings and lots of information about what was lost and what was saved at various tourist sites. Random fun fact: in the 'tube' (heh), Grace told me that between two stops, the reason it takes so much longer than between any other two stops is because the train has to go around the giant pits of bodies that were buried there from the Plague. Eek! Anyway, I also liked how there were so many parks all over the city. And not the French version of a park, which is a bunch of sand, a jungle gym, and three benches next to one fenced-off tree. A real park, huge really, with hills and tons of trees and lakes and whoo nature! It was also interesting to eavesdrop on peoples' conversations because even though they speak English, they phrase things differently and use different words, some of which I still don't know the meaning. Alright, I suppose I should start uploading my pictures now because, as they say, they speak a thousand words... Update: Dang I took a lot of pictures. Be warned! (And click to enlarge!)

The Tower of London! (Much bigger than just a simple Tower, actually)

Inside the Tower/mini-city of castles

sup

sup part 2

We saw the British Olympic track team! (Why they were at the Tower of London is unclear)

MySpace photography at its finest

Borough Market aka FOOD HEAVEN

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

People actually live here! In between the Globe and more glass office buildings! Weird!

GUYS LOOK HOW FAST THEY REBUILT THE MILLENNIUM BRIDGE AFTER THE DEATH EATERS DESTROYED IT !!!

St Paul's Cathedral

Chillin' near Big Ben

Hangin' with the London Eye

Back of Parliament

Westminster Abbey (closed unfortunately when we got there)

Near Grace's house

Foggy view of London skyline!

One of the High Streets near Grace's house

GUYS LOOK IT'S ABBEY ROAD CAN YOU TELL

 Actually, there was tons of construction everywhere in the city - roads, tube, sidewalks (they were even polishing all the monuments and washing the buildings), because they're trying to prepare everything for the London 2012 Olympics. So I guess Abbey Road needed a makeover too! Oh well... snagged these photos instead:

The wall that everyone comes to sign outside the studio (so often, they repaint it every month!)

Buckingham Palace

MySpace pros part deux

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British Museum (free entry and I saw Van Gogh's sunflowers!)

Whew, I'm tired just looking at these photos... we only took the tube once the entire time, to get to the Tower of London the first day. We attempted to take the tube to St. Pancras train station so I could catch my train home, but there was a problem and the station basically shut down, leading to a good panicked fifteen minutes of cab-hunting and cash-counting on the street (I ended up making it to the train station in plenty of time, especially considering it was delayed a half hour when I got there... not my day for public transportation - once in Paris, there were huge métro problems and we had to wait forever. Zut... I made it back though!). That's one thing okay, one of several things about New York that I have yet to see replicated in a European city... taxis are not as prevalent! Neither are bagels (but that didn't stop us from eating at least one per day from the Jewish deli near Grace's house!).

All in all, a lovely (if short) trip to Londontown, special thanks of course to Grace and her family for hosting me and willingly playing tour guide! Springtime is finally (hopefully) here in Paris, it is absolutely gorgeous everyday and I hope it lasts... for now, dress day is erryday! This was my last trip out of the city for a while, although I'm not complaining... I love this city too much to want to leave it every weekend. "Only" one more giant paper, a shorter paper, and two finals(lol) stand between me and relative scholastic freedom!

x R.