London Day Trip

So I unintentionally tricked you all into reading the boring account of our past week thinking London would be in there somewhere but alas I decided to make it its own entry and forgot to change the subject. After the week's end we decided to wake up early Saturday morning for breakfast and then head out on the Oxford Tube to take a day trip to London. The day was incredible. After an hour and a half journey on the double decker coach playing a strange karaoke game for all the bus to hear we made it to London. We left the bus with 15 minutes to get to BUckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. So we booked it a few blocks before running into what can only be described as a gigantic human road block. Now in this planning half of us had taken the coach down while those with train tickets took the train and would meet up with us...at the palace. This was quickly turning out to have been an incredibly naive idea. What you have to consider is that:

1. They only do this once a day so if people want to see it they are all there at the same time.
2. It is a Saturday and no one is working.
3. It is the middle of July when everyone takes vacations to places like...London.

There had to be at least 5,000 people there. It was a massive sea of heads. So we dive into the masses as a group and head as close as we can to the palace. In this mess is where a true miracle occurs. Literally not five minutes into the palace grounds amidst thousands of people we literally run into Sarah and Amy, our train people. THe odds are incredible but it happened and we were all so excited that we had found each other that we started squealing and jumping around hugging each other. I am sure that any onlookers thought we were nuts. At this point Lindsey and I kind of broke off to go try and get closer and were semi-successful. It was an incredible procession of music and guards and horses. I cannot imagine doing that everyday. You really get the immersion of being around royalty there. After this Kristiyan, who is London visiting his mom, found us and took a few of us all over London. We started out going to Chinatown, via Hyde Park and a bus ride, for lunch. Then went walking around all over the area seeing the cinema and theatre district where all the world premiers are. Then on through many different markets and squares. We ate dessert pastries at an amazing French bakery in Picadilly Circus where everything was made to look like artwork. Then we walked to Trafalgar Square which was probably one of my favortie sights. The square is huge and full of beautiful fountains and monuments. It is then surrounded by incredible buildings with every kind of architecture you could imagine. From there we hopped on the subway and went to Oxford Circus which is one of the biggest shopping districts. I am pleased to say I did no shopping though. Self control is a must in a country where everything is double the price it shows and already was pricey to begin with. A can of coke here is easily almost $4 in a restaurant because there are no refills. We then hopped on the subway which is incredibly efficient even despite the events of the 7th and went to Westminster. We came out of the subway to the view of the Westminster Bridge over the Thames, London Eye (a giant ferris wheel), Big Ben and Westminster Abbey all right there. It was like walking into the pictures of your history book. Our group had to tear me away to go anywhere. We walked all around seeing the aforementioned sights and going to a park. The sheer size of the buildings was incredible. Washington D.C. has huge buildings but the Houses of Parliament here are so massive I could not believe it. Then you add the incredible detail in every inch of the building and you are truly shocked. Every time you look you see something you did not see before. Westminster Abbey was the same, though we only saw the outside that day. We then headed to Victoria Station to catch the subway again, but got side tracked when Kristiyan told me of a cathedral down the road. We decided to go take a closer look at the outside and then were so amazed we went in. Now I have been to my fair share of Catholic churches and even a few cathedrals, but I have never seen anything like this. They were about to start mass so we decided to stay for a while. The detail was incredible, room after room on the sides for private prayer adorned with gorgeous gold leaf and marble and stones. The ceiling was phenomenal with at least three massive domes over the main congregation. The front of the cathedral was enormous with an incredible altar that had the biggest crucifix I have ever seen over it. The style though was not Roman at all really it looked more Greek which made it even more surreal. So then the organist starts to play and you literally feel like you have walked into a strange symphony. He was eccentric to say the least and emotions evoked by his playing were something I have never seen before. I owuld not have described it as talent for it sounded so crazy but you got the mood more from that playing then any I have ever heard before. From here we finally made it to the station and left to meet up with Kristiyan's sister for dinner at Chili's. I know, American food but it was so good. We looked around the area known as Canary Wharf and then headed home. The day was incredible and I cannot believe we saw so much. I was so glad we had Kristiyan to help us around because I doubt we would have found it all ourselves. The bus ride home we sat on the top level in the front where it looks like you are running over everything. Kind of trippy if you ask me.