Last Days in London

It was weird to be with a group of people who mostly went home last Saturday when I'm not even halfway done with my time here in England. Many people were checking things off their lists and trying to fit in as much as they could in the time they had left, whereas I was telling myself "You still have 9 more weeks to fit in your suitcase. Slow down." I started making a mental list of the places I'd been more than once to get a feel for what I liked most. Here is the list:

Hatchards bookstore: 3 times

Sherlock Holmes Museum Store: 4 times (It's on Baker Street anyway, about 2 minutes away from the college)

Fortnum & Mason: 2 times

Hard Rock Cafe: 2 times

St. Paul's Cathedral: 3 times

The Globe: 2 times

Westminster Abbey/surrounding area: 3 times

Regent's Park grounds: more than I can count. Multiple times each day.

The Old Vic: 2 times (second time a bit better than the first)

Lyceum Theatre, trying to get Lion King tickets and then actually going to Lion King: 3 times (I think)

Baker Street Tube Station: At least twice a day, every day.

Walking past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament: about 100 times less than I would have liked.

Kensington Gardens: 2 times

And then there's places I'd have liked to go back at least one more time:

The British Museum

Stratford (not London, I know. I actually might go back there this week! I'm only about a 20-minute train ride away...)

Bath (also not London)

Buckingham Palace (maybe to see some of the inside come August...)

Nando's (really good chicken restaurant - I think it was Brazilian)

The National Portrait Gallery

Greenwich

And that's all I can think of right now. I won't make a list of things I didn't see and want to, because that could go on forever. I'm convinced that you can never run out of things to do or places to see in London. Even if you've seen it before, being with the right people can make anything fun and exciting. Here's to great friends in the London group and many happy memories!

St. Paul's Bell Ringing, Kew Gardens, Hampton Court, Stonehenge and Bath translated into Kathryn-ese mean "Ridiculously Beautiful".

A few unfortunate things about traveling around the English countryside:

1. It's really hard to not take 30 bazillion pictures of everything I see.

2. The views from the roads through the countryside are overwhelmingly gorgeous. That's not unfortunate at all. However, thick rows of trees line the roads, giving only tiny peeks of the gorgeous views, making it close to impossible to get a good picture from a moving tour bus.

Now that those are out of the way, it's been an incredible week:

• It started with attending the ringing of the bells at St. Paul's Cathedral. Incredible in so many ways, most of which those who went are not allowed to share. Just know that I was thinking about Quasimoto the bell-ringer a lot and I want to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame again.
• Kew Gardens - First, imagine you're carrying a gun and repeat "kew" a few times in a high-pitched voice. This will make you have an experience similar to the battle scene we had on our way from the train station to the garden entrance. Second, "kew" must have "lots of trees" somewhere in its etymology. There are many, many trees there. Also, there is a large pagoda whose presence we never quite figured out. Formally the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew has 300 acres of beauty, including some royal cottages and ponds.

To justify the lots of trees comment, here's a view from the Treetop Walkway. They go on forever!

This is Queen Charlotte's cottage. She came here with her family during the summer. I think this is the royal family's version of having a cabin up the mountain, except that having a cottage in the middle of 300 acres of ponds, flowers and trees from around the world might perhaps beat the cabin. My favorite part about this cottage is that the pathway leading up to it and the grounds surrounding it are covered with bushes of gorgeous purple flowers. My camera didn't do any of them justice.

One of the waterfalls.
You'll see this pose a lot in my pictures. The combination of our close height and my awesome self-portrait skills makes this position work quite well sometimes. Sometimes we spice it up with a little bit of 5-feet-tall Lynsey, and we get some funny results. You'll see some of those later, I'm sure.

I believe this is the Palm House. I took a lot of pictures of flowers here, but I'm sure not everybody loves flowers as much as I do, so I refrained from posting any of those.

• Hampton Court: I'm learning a lot about myself on this trip. I learned here that I could live in a palace, at least for a visit, and spend all day walking around with a book and be content for the next 100 years. This is where many of the English monarchs spent their time, including Henry VIII, Mary I, James I, Charles I, Charles II, William III and Mary II, and George II. The palace is marvelous - everything you'd imagine a palace to be. The kitchens are huge - they had to feed around 1000 people sometimes. The grounds were my favorite.

What's missing in this picture is my giddy excitement about this garden and this view. You really can't tell, but this is every bit of the word majestic and amazing. This is the Privy Garden with a side view of the palace.

This is the Main Entrance to the Palace:

As it does often in England, it rained for a bit while we were there. The resulting effect on the roses in the gardens excited me quite a bit, and I can say that this is definitely not the only picture I took of a rose with water droplets.

This is Fountain Court inside the palace. Wouldn't it be incredible to have this be your home and to walk this way to breakfast every morning?

We took a boat there, and the ride itself is an experience. The Thames River is lined with beautiful trees and houses that are the dictionary definition of quaint. Here, Linsey and I are excited to be on the boat.

• While Stonehenge is basically what you see in pictures, it is definitely cool to stand right by it. However, it's most decidedly a one-time thing. The audio guide was a bit long. To summarize it: Stonehenge is really old, the stones are really heavy, and there are a lot of cool predictions of how they got there. To see my pictures, google Stonehenge.

• Bath is quite under-rated. Jane Austen didn't like it here, but I sure did. The Baths themselves are pretty great and it's fun to imagine ancient Romans wandering around and enjoying themselves. Apparently, bathing here was quite a religious activity. I tasted the famous Bath water - it was hot, gross water. Bleh. I could only drink two gulps.

Here is the floor of one of the baths. From my half-interested listening to the audio guide, I think the floor sat on these little stone pillars to keep the bathers from getting burned by the steam flowing through the ground...

This is a famous street in Bath. I can't remember the name, but I know it's been in Jane Austen movies. I think it's called something Circus.

This is a view looking up to the organ in Bath Abbey. The Abbey is called "The Lantern of the West" because 80% of the walls are windows. Many of these are windows are stained glass.

A view of the Abbey from the floor by the main pool in the Roman Baths.

A view of the Abbey from the outside front:

Other highlights of this week include:

• A fantastic production of Romeo and Juliet in the smallest theatre I'm sure I will ever attend.
• The British Library! This really deserves a separate post. Let's just say Handel's Messiah manuscript, Jane Austen's writing desk, an original Shakepeare folio, original Magna Cartas, Beatles' handwriting, and Beowulf. Enough said.
• Hard Rock Cafe - brownie, ice cream, hot fudge, sprinkles and whipped cream - this heavenly combination happened that night, and will happen at least once more before I leave London.

Temple and Greenwich

Thursday was temple day. We took the train about 45 minutes, and then we took a cab for another maybe 7 minutes or so. The train ride is worth it just for the view. As soon as you're out of London, the world turns into green hillsides with sheep, cows and horses. It is one of the most beautiful sights I have seen. The temple itself is pretty simple, but the grounds are gorgeous. They are truly "grounds" and I'm not sure if I even saw all of them. It's like another whole park with a temple in the middle. It's perfect.

Our temple group: Emma, Charles, Mike, me and Ben

The temple grounds are covered with little pathways through a little forest. I followed one for a while and kept coming across these beautiful views into farm backyards. Sometimes I couldn't tell where the grounds ended and private property started...

Just some of the beautiful flowers. So so beautiful!
The front of the temple. The sun is appropriately glowing in the back.

Through some of the trees.

On Friday, Mike, Ben and I went to Greenwich (said gren-itch). We took the Thames Clipper (a water bus) down the Thames and it was absolutely delightful. We've had such good weather this weekend! There is so much to see in Greenwich. This is where the Prime Meridian can be seen, and this is what divides the eastern and western hemispheres. Greenwich is also home to the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory, which we saw. Other places of interest were the Queen's House and the Painted Hall, which looks like a mini-St. Paul's.

Straddling the Prime Meridian. Two timezones at onces, and at 0° 0′ 0″. This is at the Royal Observatory.

The view out from the top of the hill on Greenwich Park.

Not exactly sure what this is, but it's awfully geometrical, don't you think? It was somewhere between the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory.

View of part of the Royal Observatory with the ball that drops at 1:00 pm (or 13:00 here in the UK) every day on top of the Octagon Room.

Facade of the National Maritime Museum.

Kathryn's Guide to Having a Cold in London:

1. Accept the fact that while beautiful London is outside your door, staying inside and taking a nap is ok.

2. Also know that there is no Mucinex at the Boots down the street.

3. One person in the dorm gets sick, you all get sick. Fortunately, this means that you know by observing all the other girls that after your cold progresses to a cough, the worst is over.

4. Of course it will rain the days you get sick. This either means that you don't feel as bad for staying inside to get better, or it means that you feel even more miserable while going on the mostly-outside Tower of London tour. Luckily, you brought an umbrella.

5. You won't feel like taking many pictures, especially of yourself. I think this is the one and only picture of me I have from the past few days. We're at the Tower of London. It was so cool! I couldn't stop thinking about how fun it would be to take all my Harmon cousins there. All the guys would love the beefeaters, the torture chamber and the armor, while the girls and I would walk several times down the moving sidewalk that moves past the crown jewels. Who knew there could be so much sparkly beautifulness in one building?

More pictures of the Tower:

Some house fronts inside. I think this is where the royal family would have stayed while here at the Tower. Now, I believe this is where the beefeaters live with their families. If anyone knows differently, feel free to pipe in. Don't you love the bright blue doors?

Our beefeater tour guide, Peter. The E II R on the front of his outfit means Elizabeth II Regina. Beefeaters are also body guards of the queen.

A view of the outside. The grass is where the moat used to be. So much history here!

A page from my picture book life

Picture:

Charm, thatched roofs, sunshine, green fields, walking through narrow paths, huge gardens, old church, cute B & Bs, Shakespeare, and a different colored door on every house.

Let me introduce you to Stratford-upon-Avon:

Lauren and I were in the attic room. Small, but worth it for the charm factor. Such a cute Bed & Breakfast. It was called Forget Me Not Bed & Breakfast. I tried the Full English Breakfast which includes sausage, tomato, bacon, egg, toast, hot chocolate, hashbrowns, and beans. My body is definitely not used to all that food for breakfast. I've been a little off all day. Lunch time came around and I was still stuffed.

Just a street. I'm sure it's been tourist-ized, but look at it! It looks like a postcard.

We saw cute little school children walking down the street like a scene from the picture story book Madeline. We're pretty sure they were headed to this school, which had these rain boot plants in the playground. Perfect.

Just a little lane that runs behind the B & Bs.

A sample of the different colored doors we saw. The full rainbow is represented on the Stratford Streets.

Everything here is named after something Shakespeare. These boats on the Avon river (by the way, that's why it's called Stratford-upon-Avon) are named after heroines in Shakespeare's plays.

My favorite place we visited: Anne Hathaway's cottage. (She married Shakespeare). Above is a picture of some of the accompanying grounds. So so green! Sidenote: I've noticed that they don't have sprinklers here. Unnecessary.

Non-Foggy Days in London Town

Observation:

Sunny days in London must be rare. On such a day, the reaction of the people here is to run to the park with a picnic and take off their most of their clothes.

It's very convenient that there are so many beautiful parks here.

Here are some pictures from Regent's Park. Most of these were taken the day Jenny left. We were both in thoughtful, nostalgic moods. But that makes for the best pictures:

Some things you should know about running in Regent's Park:

1. It's beautiful here. You just might turn a corner and find a beautiful fountain shooting water into a pool. Or breathe in and smell a floral aroma you've never smelled before.

2. There are A LOT of people who like to exercise in the park. Research the proper protocol on running around and past other runners or walkers. Also, know which side of the street/path to run on. These are things I still don't know.

3. There are many many many trees. Most of them are tall, obstructing your view of such things as Regent's College, where I live. Make sure you know where you're going unless you enjoy long cool downs while you try to find a map.

4. In case you don't heed the warning in #3, don't be alarmed when the person you ask for directions answers with a British accent. Remember, you're in England.

I figured that you should know these things I didn't know before. I learned numbers 3 and 4 this morning. Regent's Park is BIG.