There are a lot of churches in London.
No, seriously, there are a LOT of churches in London.
First, a disclaimer: this posting is dated about 24 hours, as
jet lag finally caught up to me and I crashed in the evening, unable to
do anything except stare blankly into the brightly colored walls of my
room, drink water, and try to rest. But now back to you previously
scheduled programming:
Eleanor, our guide for the day, told us that there were over 80
churches that she knew about in the Old London Area, which doesn’t
include many of the suburbs, or even most of the area that feel like it
should be London. (Why draw city borders in a random intersection?)
Our day started with an interesting breakfast: coffee (which I didn’t
drink, as I’m caffeine-averse), juice, or milk, accompanied by ham and
cheese sandwiches, corn flakes cereal, mixed fruit (the canned, school
stuff), and some stuff that no-one was quite sure whether it was gravy
or oatmeal by looking at it. Fortunately, my guess of oatmeal wasn’t
terribly far off, as I had already smothered it with granola before
someone said they thought it was gravy.
Turns out it was grits of some sort–at least that’s the conclusion we decided after we ate it.
English food is incredibly bland.
After breakfast, we were lead on a tour of London. During the tour,
in fact, Eleanor stated that we don’t really need to mention the food to
any English people because they all already know–which is why there’s
so many other nationalities’ food available in England.
We passed a number of sights, including the British Library,
St. Paul’s Cathedral – did I mention that there are a lot of churches in London?
The remains of a Roman church, containing both a public garden and a
private residence that was purchased a few years ago for 10 million
pounds, if my memory serves me correctly (where the city rejected the
buyer’s build permit to put an elevator in for the 6 stories up to the
residence)
Postman’s Park, the location where a memorial to the “everyday
heroes,” civilians who passed away doing a great service to someone,
such as saving a life, is
The London Bridge while it is allowing passage for a ship to sail through
The infamous OXO headquarters, who built their company name directly
into the window panes of their building to circumvent the “no
advertising” law
Westminster Abbey, where Kenzie and I walked around one of the smaller churches nearby (the Abbey itself was closed at the time)
James Park
and Buckingham Palace.
Afterwards, we parted company with Eleanor, and Kenzie, Hannah, Rachael, and I headed for the National Gallery.
The National Gallery. Lo and behold, every painting was related
somehow to the Christian church: whether as a scene from the Bible or a
parable or story relating to Mary, Jesus, or any of the other
individuals in the Bible. I get the feeling that churches might be kind
of a big deal in London…
After visiting the gallery (and taking photos, to the irk of the
other visitors there), the four of us split into two groups, and Kenzie
and I took our first successful subway ride (Which Eleanor said is
pronounced the “tch-ube” instead of “tube” by Londoners. We gave our
patronage to a local pub for a late lunch, where I had an excellent
turkey burger and chips. (Remember, chips in England are french fries,
not Doritos!) We then proceeded to walk in the opposite direction we
intended to and found ourselves lost in the city.
Fortunately, after walking another block we spotted a landmark we
recognized: a little park. Thus, we made it back in time to get ready to
see Les Miserables.
As luck would have it, this evening was when jet lag finally caught
up to me. I had been so busy up to this point that now that I had a free
moment, I was utterly exhausted for the performance. Drowsy from lack
of sleep (its hard to sleep in a different bed when you’re so used to
the ones at home!), exhaustion from walking all day, and the realization
that I would go about five hours without eating finally demanded my
attention.
Thus, the moment the music made its first crescendo, I had a
splitting headache. And forgot to bring an ibuprofen. Awesome. I was
really looking forward to enjoying the performance, as I have somehow
managed to go my entire life not seeing Les Mis. Not the movie nor the
play, not reading the book nor the script. My opinion of the play, thus,
was residing completely on this performance. Likely due to the
headache, I had a difficult time hearing the lyrics of the first three
songs (which also didn’t bode well, so I asked someone nearby to explain
what had happened in the first act during intermission – I must be
fearless!).
NOTE: Now that I’ve fought off the jet lag, I can say with certainty
that it was a brilliant performance. Five out of five, would recommend
to friends. Its obvious that a ton of work went into it, and the acting
was, in my humble opinion, impeccable.
Matthew is a senior studying Computer Science
at the College of Saint
Scholastica. Not content with only working with computers, Matthew also
performs in the CSS Theater, studies business, finance, economics, the
physical sciences, and loves to go ballroom dancing. He is a voracious
reader. His hobby is to learn about as many
different fields, and about as many different topics, as he can. Matthew
also enjoys writing about himself in the third person. For more from
Matthew, visit him at matthewrandolph.com.
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ReplyDeleteSo that's why we had to explain the play to you. I'm glad that after you have had the chance to think about it you decided you liked it. Eleanor's tour has been a highlight for me so far, she was so funny and learning all the history and interesting facts about these places has made me appreciate them so much more.
ReplyDeleteAwesome pictures, Matt! I love the one with Tower Bridge in the background. Here's a little more information about the inner city from what I've picked up here and in class. The City of London (inner city) is separate from the rest of London, technically called the City of Westminster for some long historical reasons about the monarchy that I don't remember. Today, the City of London is the business district and is no more than a square mile in area. Both cities have separate police forces, armies, etc. and even the Queen has to pause to "ask permission" to enter the City of London
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed going to all the different churches around London. They all have a lot of history associated with them. The wedding of Charles and Diana occurred at St. Paul's cathedral and then the wedding of William and Kate occurred at Westminster abbey. Those weddings are probably the biggest pop culture event that Americans will be familiar with. A quick clarification as well, the bridge we saw open up was the Tower Bridge. We were on the London bridge when we saw it. An old London bridge was sold to Lake Havasu Arizona, which I have been to before because my grandparents used to go there during the winter.
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