This past weekend we put on our bowler hats and drank warm flat beer in London! We had a long weekend due to a holiday falling on a Saturday, so the company organizes to have Friday off as well. It's a wonderful country, Belgium.
We opted to go by train to avoid traffic and any driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road mishaps. We were also excited to have the experience of going through the "Chunnel." All was going well until we approached the "Chunnel" itself. Apparently, it was having some sort of mechanical issue, so we came to a complete stop while they investigated and resolved the problem. The delays were always announced in French, Dutch, and English, so it was funny to hear the wave of groans from the passengers three separate times. In the end, we were standing still for about 2 hours, but finally got going again with no more interruptions. Despite some descriptions from co-workers about glass walls with stunning underwater views, the "Chunnel" is in fact just a long dark tunnel. 20 minutes under the water, and you come out the other side in another country. A couple of immediate observations about trains and train stations in the UK: 1. They are really worried about you falling in the gap. Everyone has probably heard the "Please mind the gap" mantra of the London Underground, but wow they say it a lot. 2. They don't like trash cans. We had trash from our snacks on the train and we were desperately searching for a trash can to free up our hands. We must have been in the station for a solid 45 minutes before finally finding a really full trash can. There were times were people just decided that a certain corner or ledge of a station was now a trash receptacle, and everyone would follow along. An easy problem to fix it would seem. With the unanticipated delay, our plan for the day was a bit thrown off. We had originally planned to do some site-seeing around town before stopping for lunch, but we were now in full-hangry-for-lunch panic mode. Naturally, our first stop in the great city of London was a Mexican cafe. (We are starting to sense a theme in our blog posts...). Chilango is essentially the UK answer to the US Chipotle. We found one close to a Tube stop and joined the finance lunch crowd to chow down on some burritos. Muy sabroso! After a quick stop to check in at the hotel, we headed to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was interesting to get to compare the head of the Anglican church to the head of the Catholic church in a relatively short time period. St. Paul's is a bit smaller than St. Peter's, but just as impressive. Of course, we had our personal tour guide Rick Steves to make it all come alive. Our favorite moment was halfway through our climb up the dome at a level called the Whispering Gallery. As we took a moment to rest our legs and admire the view of the nave below, the choir started their practice for the Evensong. The experience was profound. We finished the climb (now outside) to the top of the dome just in time for a quintessential London shower to start. The visibility wasn't great, but we could still appreciate the view. After the Cathedral, we wandered the busy streets at rush hour with Rick pointing out fun facts. We had picked a pub across town for dinner, so we hopped back on the Tube. We hadn't given a thought to where we were, and the site of Big Ben took us by surprise when we stepped out of our stop. There is nothing quite like the experience of being taken by surprise by a world-famous landmark.
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| Mmmmm... Mexican food |
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| St. Paul's |
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| St. Paul's |
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| We've topped another dome in Europe! |
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| Big Ben |
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| Typical London weather |
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| Tyler needed to make a quick work call |
On Saturday, we started the day with a traditional English breakfast. The restaurant we had aimed for must have moved recently because Google had us a bit lost, but we got there eventually. Our confusion turned into a happy accident, when we wandered into the start of crowd forming. After asking a police officer (they are extremely nice and helpful in London!), we found out that it was the 70th Anniversary of VJ day, and the queen was scheduled to go to a church service at that location. We were a little incredulous and she supposedly wasn't due to show up for another hour, so we went on to our breakfast at Bill's Restaurant. This was probably our best meal in London. They know their breakfast. We passed back by the church on our way to Westminster to see if the Queen had showed, and we could not believe that we were there right in time to catch her drive up and pop into church. Due to the congestion the queen had caused, we were running a bit late to catch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. This also turned out to be somewhat fortuitous. There was a huge crowed already in best spots to watch the change that occurs behind the palace gates, but being late meant we were stopped by the police to let the guards march from the guard house to the palace. With only a mounted policeman between us and the guards, we got to complete the march as if we were in the royal detail ourselves. Pretty neat. After taking in the stunning views of the Queen's house, we wandered aimlessly through St. James Park enjoying the scenery. Our plan for the rest of the day was a bit flexible, so we took a seat on the curb to plot our next steps. And here comes the Queen again! This time, with no crowd in our way, we could have reached out and touched her Rolls as it rolled by. Unreal. We toured the important political sites and caught the VJ veterans parade before heading up to Piccadilly Circus and SoHo. We had a nice dinner at a Tapas joint and reflected on our unbelievable luck that day.
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| English Breakfast |
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| Everyone wants to see the Queen! |
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| Changing of the Guard |
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| Buckingham Palace |
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| Piccadilly Circus |
We started Sunday with a visit to the Tower of London. This historic site contains The Crown Jewels and many other royal trappings. The Jewels are certainly a site (have you every seen a 530 carat diamond?), but it was a bit too crowded to get into the spirit of the history. The views of Tower Bridge are stunning though. Before catching our train back to Belgium, we had Rick lead us on another walk through the city. Twinings Tea shop was a fun stop, and our final hearty meal in London held us through dinner. We were running a little behind to make our "Chunnel" train, but we stopped to see Platform 9 3/4 for you Harry Potter fans out there.
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| Tower of London |
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| Jewels! |
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| Tower Bridge |
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| Twinings Tea |
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| Hogwarts here we come! |
With no delays on the way back, we made it home at a reasonable hour, but were still exhausted from the travel (Tyler says he was "train-lagged" the next day). London was an amazing adventure. There is still so much we haven't seen of this historic city. We may have to make a return trip some day.
