February 4 "Abby in the Abbey"

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Shakespeare reminds me of London, and this phrase best describes how the past two days had gone. We arrived in London at 6:45 am, and were scheduled to meet my friend J at Westminster Abbey at noon. This is what we (successfully) accomplished in those short 5 hours and 15 minutes: got off the plane, got luggage, made it through customs/immigration, found a bus to Heathrow (as we now came into the wrong airport), paid for tickets on the bus with a debit card that I hadn’t registered yet in London, took an hour bus ride, found the place we could keep our luggage at Heathrow, checked our bags in there, tried to inquire about our tickets out of Heathrow on Sunday, freshened up/changed clothes, changed money, bought Tube (the subway) tickets, figured out which Tubes to take to our hostel, made it to our hostel, checked into our hostel, found a place for the hostel to store our carry-ons, made it back on the Tube, found the way to Westminster, and met my friend. And it all magically happened by 12:05. This morning made me feel so adulty. With J now joining the Abby and T duo, we now were a trio for the next two and a half days. We heard if you went to a service at Westminster Abbey, you didn’t have to pay the 15 pounds (about 28 dollars) to get inside for the tour. So we did. There were about 15 other people there and they tried to get us to do Communion, which didn’t work out so well, but we got blessed instead. We were able to see about 75% of the Abbey by going through this way, but we missed the Poet’s Corner where a lot of Englishy authors are buried. We walked around for awhile after this as Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament are very near this. It was so cool to see such an old city. I’ve been out of the country twice before, but never to a touristy place, so it was interesting from that aspect, too, to see these famous things like many others. We continued our walk across the Thames to see the London Eye (giant Ferris Wheel). It was all so much to take in! The city was gorgeous and although it was overcast and windy (our entire stay actually), it was nothing compared to the three feet of snow and zero degree temperatures we left behind! Numerous photo ops were taken advantage of with all the sights, and with the classic telephone booths and double decker busses. We also checked out Trafalgar Square, where the National Gallery is located. We went into the National Portrait Gallery to see famous paintings, many of whom I recognized from my Brit Lit course in high school. We also gallivanted through Piccadilly Circus (kind of looks like Times Square with the Jumbotrons, but smaller), and Leicester Square. Leicester Square has lots of small shops and eateries, and discount play tickets, but we decided not to jump on that band wagon. After wandering around for a long time and taking in all the sights, we were mislead by a sign that said “Fish N Chips” as the name of the store, but it ended up being an Arabian restaurant. Nonetheless, I had lamb kebobs and pita bread, and we failed at finding a traditional English pub to eat at because they were all chocked full with people watching rugby at that time of night. We made it back to our hostel (like a dorm) to explore and use the Internet and make a game plan for time and SLEEP to get over the jet lag, as we were now 6 hours ahead of Milwaukee time.