London: Day 4

Day 4 was going to be a shocker weather wise—making the umbrella a timely purchase—so we decided to make it museum day. We had three museums that we’d like to see, but it looked as though we would only make two, so we decided first to visit the Natural History Museum.

It was a bit of a convoluted tube ride there, and the weather was absolutely hopeless, so the day didn’t start well. Somewhat bizarrely, out the front of the museum they had an ice skating rink. With the genuine desire not to kill myself ice skating, we decided not to go ice skating. The weather had put a couple of inches of water onto the ice as well, which made watching those already skating look quite ridiculous/hilarious.

The line was relatively long, though it gave us an opportunity to take some touristy photos as well as to appreciate the architecture of the building. The building itself was absolutely beautiful, so we were excited about what would be inside.

Once we entered, we realised that the day was going to be a hectic one. There were people everywhere. In particular, there were a stack of children—which is never a good thing. Personally, I was there to see an exhibit on Human Evolution. I had read in Cosmos a couple of months previously that the museum had updated its exhibition, in particular, with the inclusion of some realistic models of human ancestors, such as of Neanderthals. Most of the morning was spent looking for the exhibit, whilst having a squiz at some dinosaur bones and various other exhibits. A particular low light was the mammal exhibit, which included a plethora of poorly kept stuffed animals. Everything had faded considerably as a result of the lights in the cabinets that kept the animals.

When I found Wifi, I discovered that they had closed the exhibit. This was a particularly disappointing moment for me, as it was one of the things that I was looking forward to most on the trip. The particular issue of Cosmos that included the article about the NHM’s new exhibit was fantastic and I found the prospect of seeing the exhibit thrilling.

Before leaving, we decided to have a quick look at a few different things. There was the base of a gigantic tree, which was pretty amazing, as well as a statue of Charles Darwin, which currently features in my profile picture on Facebook. In their rare collections, we also found a first edition copy of On the Origin of Species, which, for some reason, evoked a real sense of awe in me. It’s no secret that I believe that Charles Darwin is the most significant biologist ever to have lived, so seeing the original work that fuelled his fame was a special moment.

The dinosaur exhibit was our last stop. Some of the stuff was genuinely interesting, though the exhibit itself was far too crowded, with the bones presented in a relatively poor way. It was a poor way to finish what was a relatively disappointing visit to the Natural History Museum. Indeed, overall, it was actually quite a poor museum. With the architecture aside, I really didn’t feel as though it were much better than the Melbourne museum, for instance, and this is in spite of the fact that this was the Natural History Museum of worldwide fame. Perhaps a visit to the Smithsonian in the US is in order to make up for it.

We had spent far too long in the NHM, so we had to hot tail it along to the British Museum next, deciding to give the Science Museum a miss. This turned out to be a good decision, as the British Museum presented itself as absolutely bloody fantastic.

Without much time, we started a frantic look, in a frankly gigantic museum, for the Rosetta stone. This led us through the Egyptology department, which is replete with artefacts from Ancient Egypt, ranging from ornate jewellery to beautifully decorated coffins for dead pharaohs. That such art has managed to survive for so long was truly incredible. I had already had the privilege of seeing some of the British Museum’s collection in person when I was in Brisbane for PESA, but seeing it all together again was absolutely breath taking.

Eventually, Tara decided to ask one of the guards where the Rosetta stone was. Naturally, we were nowhere near it, so we made our way over pretty quick smart. It was absolutely breath taking. For some reason, I have always found the Rosetta stone fascinating. Sure, the stone itself is pretty, but its significance makes it even better. It was the key that really opened up the world of Ancient Egypt. Personally, I find it really interesting that we manage to learn so much about dead languages that have not been spoken for more than 1000 years; the Rosetta stone is a nice way of explaining how studying them goes.

With the Rosetta stone looked at and worthless merchandise purchased, we next looked at the department of Ancient Greece and Rome. The sculptures there were truly breathtaking. That an ancient society could construct such beautiful artefacts with their bare hands is something I really do find difficult to comprehend. This feeling was fairly constant for my whole visit to the museum. Even after Ancient Greece and Rome, when we started to have a look at Medieval England, I still couldn’t believe that an ancient civilisation, without all the tools we had today, could produce such beautiful things.

It was an incredible excursion to the British Museum and I doubt it is something that I will forget in my life. I’m not entirely sure why, as a Biology student with a useless knowledge of history, I found it so wonderful. Perhaps it was because I really don’t understand it, because I have so little knowledge of what I was looking at that I could properly appreciate its beauty. I don’t really know and don’t really care; all I know is that it was incredible there.

London: Day 3

Our third day in London started off very slowly. The evening before I had managed to hurt my knee—presumably because I’d been traipsing around the joint in rubbish shoes—and, as such, I decided to buy some shoes that offer me more support. So after a bit of googling, off I limped to Black’s, a shoe store in the UK.

We went to the Blacks on Regent street where we were enthusiastically greeted by a man who I imagine was the store owner. It was our first time in a proper British store—one that didn’t sell food—and I must confess that it was a tiny bit of a culture shock. He warmly welcomed us and then outlined the process of getting me my new shoes. “Take a seat, and we’ll have a shoe specialist come a long do an expert fitting, then we’ll discuss your needs and blah blah”. It was all really bizarre.

The man who actually did the fitting was a little less enthusiastic. He was an immigrant from France, named Kevin, of African origin. I have never in my life met someone who more clearly hated their job in my life. When the shop owner asked him to do the fitting, Kevin asked “do I have to?”. We then did the fitting and got some shoes. In the interim, however, we got chatting with Kevin and decided that the shop owner was actually a bit of a dud. At home, there’s generally the expectation that when you do walk into a shoe store, for instance, that the assistant will give you genuine advice and try to help you out. From the store owner, I really did get the sense that he was trying to game us into making a more expensive purchase. It’s hard to describe, but it was quite a stark difference from home, where people are generally honest.

The store owner is a pretty good example of how the British seem at times. There’s a lot of kindness and politeness in their words. Their way of speaking is far more polite. Where we may say “thanks”, the Brits would offer something more along the lines of “thank you so kindly”. It gives the impression that the British are far more polite than us. Though their words may be, I don’t really believe this to be true. With notable exceptions, overall I experience the British to be quite rude on this day in particular. Their words are polite, but their actions often aren’t.

After the shoe store, we decided to visit Primark. Evelyn had suggested it the previous day as a place to buy an umbrella. Stupidly, neither of us had packed one so we decided to pay the store a visit. Primark is pretty similar to Target or Kmart. It differs in that all it really offers is fashion and little tidbits. There is no toy department or electronics department for instance.

Our experience in Primark was quite a poor one. It was horribly busy. There were people everyone. Clothes were strewn all over the floor because of the crowd. It was hot and stuffy because of all the people in close proximity. Indeed, the best way to describe our experience in Primark would be to compare it to Boxing Day sales. It was that kind of busy. When we made our purchases (an umbrella and some presents some friends), I got talking with the cashier, who told me that this was a pretty standard day; one that she wouldn’t describe as busy at all. It scares me to think what Primark would be like on Black Friday (the British and American equivalent to Boxing Day sales).

Tara decided to take us on to the residence of Sherlock Homes, where there is also a museum. Being tight arses—both in respect to money and time—we decided to take a few quick snaps out the front rather than enter the museum. It was mildly amusing going and seeing that. It was even more amusing watching the locals crack the shits because of the crowds staring at a random building.

Next door was a Beatles merchandise store. It was somewhat surprising that this, on the third day, was the first reference to the Beatles that either of us had seen all trip. Naturally, London isn’t the city of the Beatles—they came from Liverpool—but it was surprising that there wasn’t more Beatles “stuff” about the place.

We rushed away from Sherlock’s joint and headed back to the tube. The previous day we (read: I) had led Evelyn on a Cook’s tour to purchase tickets for a tour of the Palace of Westminster, which acts as the UK’s houses of parliament. Our tour was booked for 4.00, and we were very nearly late.

Because of the amount of time I had taken to find the ticket office, we had only managed to book an audio tour. We very nearly didn’t book it because of the price (£17), which would have been an enormous mistake. Without a doubt, the Palace of Westminster has thus far been the highlight of my trip.

We were ushered through security and into a grand entrance hall. The hall was enormous, with a beautiful oak roof and statues scattered around the hall. Various plaques appeared on the floor to mark the place where a significant leader had spoken, such as Nelson Mandela. The hall itself was somewhat marred by the scaffolding within it. Unfortunately, at this time of year it appears to be common for the UK government to do restoration works on their significant tourist attractions, such as the palace and the Westminster Abbey next-door.

Leaving the entrance hall, we made our way into another hall, which, if memory serves me correctly, was named St James’ Hall. This place was truly breathtaking. The hall was much smaller, but far more beautifully decorated. Numerous statues and beautiful murals depicting significant moments in British history adorned the walls, whilst the floor was made of polished marble. Truly, there are no words to describe how pretty this room was.

This was the case for the next room we entered, which was a domed chamber that connects the House of Commons with the House of Lords. It is the area of the palace that sees Lords run into MPs so that they can have some form of contact. The room was high domed and ornately decorated with yet more statues and murals. Most notable in this room though were the four enormous paintings that represented each of the components of the United Kingdom. There was one for Ireland, one for Scotland, one for Wales and one for England, with each being decorated with symbols synonymous with those countries. Truly breathtaking.

Our tour then progressed on to the house of Lords. We got to see the various chambers where the Lords do their work, as well as the robing chamber that the Queen visits when opening parliament each year. By our audio guide we were told a lot about the history of the palace and the functions of the House of Lords. I must confess that I have since forgotten most of this; though interesting I’m sure, the audio guide really was just a distraction from the beauty of the place.

In the area dedicated to the Lords, we saw many more statues and some of the most beautiful paintings I have seen in my life. The scale was incredible. Thinking about the amount of work that would have to have been done to produce such a pretty building is simply boggling on today’s standards.

The House of Lords itself, which we were permitted to enter, was also extremely pretty. It was, however, surprisingly small. There were a few tidbits that we heard about that were particularly interesting. Indeed, to Australians the House of Lords would appear somewhat odd. It’s not an elected body and, for most of Britain’s history, has been about inheritance more than anything else. Nowadays the House of Lords is comprised of some members of the major political parties, as well as various distinguished persons as well as members of the Church of England. The inclusion of Bishops from the Church of England is particularly bizarre in Australian standards, as we, sensibly, have separated church and state. With the ultimately undemocratic and churchiness aside, I was really taken back by the House of Lords. It was beautiful.

After the House of Lords, we were escorted through the people’s house: The House of Commons. For the most part, the House of Commons is extremely similar to our own House of Representatives. Indeed, there is little different at all: even the chairs are the same colour. Most striking is the size of the Commons. It is far, far smaller than ours and yet, there are more than 4 times the number of MPs in Britain than in Australia. During important debates, it is common for MPs to jostle for a position in the House of Commons.

The room itself wasn’t as nice as the House of Lords, and the various chambers off the side weren’t as nice either. There was one particular chamber, however, that was decorated with statues of 20^th century British Prime Ministers. It was a tiny bit cool being able to identify a few; such as Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Somewhat concerned by the fact that all those I could identify were Conservative Prime Ministers; bugger Labour I guess!

On either side of the Commons are chambers called the Yes or No chambers. They have the same in the House of Lords; except for the fact that they are called “content” and “not content”. If a division is required, MPs go to these chambers to register their vote. If an MP wants a bill to be passed, they go to the no chamber (a lord would go to a content chamber) and conversely, if he or she wants to oppose the bill, they would go to the no chamber. I must confess I did take a sneaky photograph inside the no chamber through the gate where one records their vote.

Inside the house itself, I did allow myself some time at the despatch box, wondering what it must have been like to stand there as a politician. I stood at the government despatch box, where the next day David Cameron—the Prime Minister of the UK—would deliver his speeches during Prime Minister’s Question Time (the British version of question time). It was quite a nice moment.

Leaving the House of Commons concluded our tour of Westminster Palace. We took a few more photos and made a detour through the gift shop, where I bought some presents for myself and friends. The shop was surprisingly cheap, which was a bonus.

After the palace, we decided to go on a bit of an explore. Tara had been talking about going to the Milleneum Bridge, so I decided to take us there. The bridge is somehow significant, though I must confess that I don’t know why it is. All I know is that it’s the bridge that the Death Eaters decide to destroy in the seventh Harry Potter. In truth, the bridge itself was a little underwhelming. Compared to London Bridge or Tour Bridge, for instance, it was actually quite ugly and quite bland.

We did take a walk over the bridge, however, and to our surprise found that the Tate Modern was on the other surprise. Tara had been urged to go here by her mum, so we were even more happily surprised to find that, at 8pm, it was still open.

The gallery itself was kind of cool. There were some nice pictures there. It was particularly cool to get to stand in front of a Picasso and the soviet era posters were also a highlight. Some of the works were breathtakingly ridiculous though. One, for instance, depicted the Australian desert. The painter had done a pretty shit job of painting the desert, so he decided to brand his painting an impressionist work, that combined reality and imagination. Perhaps this was his aim, but I’m liable to think that he was just a shit painter.

We didn’t stay in the gallery too long—mainly as a result of tiredness—and made the short walk up to the Globe Theatre. The Globe Theatre is the theatre at which many of Shakespeare’s plays were shown whilst he was still alive. We had a bit of a look around, though tours had finished for the day. It was a bizarre feeling being in the same place that he had worked. Personally, I’ve never read any of Shakespeare’s work—though I once played some bloke in Macbeth and was a jury member in a trial of Macbeth that our teacher ran—but it was still quite significant to be there.

After leaving the globe, we had a stroll through the Borough markets—which were closed—and through some sketchy back streets to the underground station. On arriving home, we completely collapsed into bed, ready for the next day.

London: Day 2

On the second day in London, we arranged to meet up with Tara's friend, Evelyn. Evelyn has been studying archaeology and sociology at the University of Warwick in Coventry for the past few months on exchange and had asked to see Tara whilst we were in London.

We had arranged to meet Evelyn at the Waterloo Bridge around midday and, as such, decided that the morning would be a good opportunity for us to visit the Australian High Commission in London so that I could vote in the upcoming Victorian election. By this point we had mastered the tube and managed to get there very easily. We were both taken aback by the building the High Commission is in. It was exceedingly pretty and much better than anything we could find in Australia. It really did make me wonder about our gigantic phallic symbol parading as a parliament house back home.

With Tara waiting in the lobby, I went down to vote. It was quite a walk through all the passageways to the voting room. It was nice to see quite a few fellow Victorians voting there too. Even nicer, however, was that there was actually a Labor party member handing out how-to-vote cards in front of the commission. He'd also put a stack of Labor signs up as well. We later found out that he was from Perth and had been living in London for quite some time, which was, in many ways, a little sad.

As it happened, Evelyn had come to London to vote as well and we actually ran into her at the High Commission. She appeared, on first impressions, to be genuinely lovely, which did remain to be true for the rest of the day. We left the high commission and set off on a bit of a walk. This took us up to the national gallery, which is a truly spectacular building. Bizarrely, there's a statue of a blue rooster sitting out the front of the national gallery. None of us could understand why it was there; it looked very out of place. We then took the short walk back down to parliament to buy tickets for a tour the next day. After quite a long time pissfarting around trying to find the joint (completely my fault), we found the parliamentary ticket office only to find out that the tickets for guided tours had been booked out. We briefly flirted with the idea of taking a tour in Spanish or French, but instead opted for an audio tour at 4pm the next day.

Evelyn then took us to South Bank, which is just across the Thames from the Palace of Westminster. There was a market there, which was kind of cool, though we didn't buy anything from there. That also took us past the London Eye for the first time. The eye is enormous, though I wouldn't call it any more grand than the Melbourne Star.

We crossed the Thames again and decided to get some lunch. Evelyn suggested we got to a store called Pret à Manger, which really doesn't have an Australian equivalent. It's a café with a fridge and warmer full of ready-to-eat food. It was reasonably cheap, for London, and quite good food, so that was a good find for us.

After lunch we headed off for Hamleys. This took us down Oxford Street, which is the kind of London street one would see on the TV. It's full of double-decker buses, nice buildings and London taxis. It is quintessential London. It was a really nice walk, where we saw some pretty cool street performers and really got to soak up the London atmosphere.

Eventually we arrived at our destination. Hamleys is the oldest toy store in the world and contains six floors chock-a-block with toys. The second we entered we knew it was going to be great. The staff stand around the store "demonstrating" (read: playing with) the toys. Of particular note was a guy on the first level who was dressed as a pirate and who wouldn't let Evelyn and Tara pass, opting to shoot them with his bubble gun. When I tried to past he begged me "don't leave me" and insisted that we take a picture together. I happily obliged.

What ensued after this was a further 5 floors of the same kind of craziness. The atmosphere was incredible, even as a 20 year old who has long outgrown the toys in the shop. It felt good to feel like a kid again. On the sixth floor, we found some lego statues of the royals, with which we took photos. Oddly, Tara decided that she needed to kiss the statue of Prince Phillip. To each their own I guess! Whilst she was having a bit of a snog with the prince, she kept complaining of being hit by a jet of air. Evelyn offered the explanation that it was the vents above doing it; an explanation that Tara was happy with. As it happened, it was actually one of the staff on the other side of the floor firing air at Tara with a cannon. He then decided to make a mess of Tara and Evelyn's hair with the cannon, you know, as you do.

We ended up having a chat with the man and found out some interesting things. He does actually get paid a wage to fire air at people 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. Indeed, that air cannon is the toy that he's specialised to demonstrate. He then confessed that, after a long day like the one he was working, he couldn't feel his thumb. He also had a callous there that would rival even the best of tradies, putting to bed the myth that there's no hard labour in retail!

After Hamleys, Evelyn had to make the two-hour trip back to Coventry. We escorted her to the station and said our goodbyes. We had a bit of a walk around the general area, finding an Ugg store. Tara got talking to one of the staff, telling him how surprised we were that people actually wear ugg boots here. In fact, we were both pretty surprised I think. There are a hell of a lot of people wearing ugg boots in London. Indeed, the silly bastards even wear them out. Apparently they're fashionable here.

Hyde Park was relatively near us, so we decided to visit it. At this time of year there is a festival sort of thing on called Winter Wonderland. It included a pretty substantial market and some rides. The stalls were mainly food stalls, which offered foods of pretty much every description. Most notable were the quintessentially British offerings of ale, mead, mulled wine and all sorts of roast. This made the Winter Wonderland feel somewhat unique and showed the differences between their Christmas and ours. We decided not to partake in any of the rides because we were carrying too many things with us (read: were too buggered to go on them), but it was kind of cool seeing them anyway. There was an impressive array of activities and some fairly substantial rides that one would only expect to find in a theme park in Australia. We bought some fish and chips from the market, which were surprisingly good. The fish in particular was excellent, putting shame to the fish and chip joints at home; lift your game Australia!

At this point, we were completely fucked and decided to head off home. We both had plans for things that we needed to do that night, but both again ended up falling asleep in our clothes. Such is jet lag.

London: Day 1

We arrived in London early in the morning extremely tired from the long trip to the UK. Customs ran very smoothly at Heathrow and we had soon entered the country. I was struck by the number of pianos they had in the airport. Indeed, there was even one piano with "play me" written on it in various languages. It was quite comical really, as the translations were clearly a Google Translate job.

After a short time on the laptop trying to work out train tickets, we took the tube to our accommodation in Greenwich, to find out that they were not able to give us an early check-in (despite a request for this). We left our things at the hotel (at a cost of £2) and headed out to London to have a look around.

On our way in we stopped off at a supermarket: Tesco. I'm not sure if it were because we were sleep deprived or genuinely excited, but we must have seemed a bit silly to the people also using the supermarket. We were amazed by some of the products on offer, most notably Mars Bar Milk. Another highlight was chocolate Special K. This was particularly weird, as Special K tends to be marketed as a healthy choice back home. Chocolates were also extremely cheap, which is certainly a bonus. We bought our lunch there, as Tesco has a meal deal that's relatively cheap (a drink, meal and snack for £3).

Dad's girlfriend had asked that I get her a bag from Harrods, so we decided that we should get this done first. A short ride on the tube—which is infinitely better than our excuse for a public transport system at home—and we had arrived. Harrods is an odd place and it's somewhat difficult to explain in terms of Australia. It's, essentially, an unholy mix of Myer and Safeway, with a nice amount of inflation thrown in. Better put, Harrods really is just a shop for snobs. It has everything that the wealthy could possibly need in one place. It operates as a grocery story, where the snob can buy his/her caviar and jambon, it has fashion, where the snob can buy all sorts of dead animals for thousands of pounds and it has just about everything else in between.

We didn't stay for particularly long in Harrods, but we did make sure to have a good look. What got us most was the price of everything. There was even a dressing gown, made of cashmere admittedly, worth £2000. There was also a washing machine worth about £1300, which was a bit of a surprise.

The busiest part of the store was our destination: the Harrods merchandise area. This area was packed with visitors from all around the joint (English was a rarity). Gladly, we did end up finding dad's girlfriend's bag, which we purchased at a later day.

After leaving Harrods, we decided that we'd hit the clichés and head off to Buckingham Palace. Another ride on the tube and we were soon there. At this point, we were really starting to question why a country that drives on the left insists that everyone on the tube sticks to the right on escalators. The announcements were also exceedingly polite at times, which I guess is very British.

Buckingham Palace wasn't particularly busy, though that is not to say that there wasn't a crowd. It was easy enough to get a good look and get some good photos. In truth, the palace is a little underwhelming. It's neither big nor exceedingly pretty and really does miss any sense of grandeur. This dullness was exacerbated by tacky, mismatched curtains and the carpark full of Ford Mondeos.

Near the palace is Wellington's Arch, which is 1000 times more interesting than the palace itself. The fountain outside the palace, and the gates into the palace itself and the park that is adjacent to it were also much more interesting.

We left Buckingham Palace after a few quick snaps and headed through St James' Park. This was a good decision, as it allowed us to see some of the sites. There's a bridge across the middle of the park from which you can see some very pretty buildings (that I couldn't identify) and the London Eye. It makes for a good scene, that's for sure.

Leaving the park we headed over to a collection of buildings at the opposite end to the palace. One of the buildings was the guard station, where the guards to Buckingham Palace reside. There were some sillily-dressed men sitting on horses at the gates to this building. One of them looked very likely to ride his horse into the traffic.

A short stroll from the guard station are the Houses of Parliament, also known as the Palace of Westminster. That the legislature got Westminster and the monarch Buckingham must have been a hard pill to swallow, as the Palace of Westminster is the most beautiful building I've seen. This palace is home to Elizabeth Tower, more commonly known as Big Ben.

At this point, we'd just about crashed and decided to head back to Greenwich. We were, finally, permitted entry to our room and quickly moved our things up stairs from the lockers. I must admit that the room was pleasantly surprising. There is plenty of space and a surprising range of amenities, including a kitchenette that is dangerously close to being a proper kitchen. We decided to retire to bed for a nap and wake up in a few hours to have dinner. This didn't exactly go to plan—I slept through the alarm and woke up at 3 in the morning. I guess that's jet lag for you!

T Minus Two Sleeps

On Wednesday (which is technically tomorrow) I will be setting off on my first trip overseas. This is sure to be an exciting experience, but I can't help feeling a certain dread about the prospect.

I have never been away from my family for more than a few days and the most significant amount of travel I have done is probably somewhere around 5 hours. A 30 hour flight and three weeks without my family has left me feeling a little scared.

Hopefully, these feelings will pass and I will be able to enjoy my trip.