London calling

Happy St. Andrew's Day!

Final trip of the semester!  London was lovely.  Tina and I went down Friday afternoon via train.  We were serenaded for the first two hours or so by a group of increasingly wasted 30-somethings, but fortunately they got off at Newcastle, leaving us in peace.  We arrived safely at London King's Cross, and after an unsuccessful attempt to see Platform 9 3/4 (it's actually there now, complete with a luggage cart half-stuck in the wall), made our way onto the famous Underground.  Our hostel was in South Kensington, a really, really nice area of the city, particularly for a hostel - it's home to a bunch of international embassies as well as the Natural History Museum.  We were quite pleased.  So after a short break, we went to Hyde Park, where they were holding a German Christmas market.  It turned out to be quite disappointing - German Christmas markets, according to Tina the German, are supposed to have lots of little stalls selling Christmasy trinkets and stuff, in addition to all the food.  This one was basically a glorified carnival, with lots of ridiculous rides.  The food was good, though.  (Fortunately, Edinburgh has a legitimate version currently on, which I get to go see tonight!)

Saturday was our biggest day.  We started at Tower Bridge (the classic one, that everybody thinks is "London Bridge") and the Tower of London, home to the crown jewels.  We didn't go into the Tower due to price, and we didn't climb the towers of the bridge due to frigidity (it was FUH-REEZING the entire weekend), but we did walk a little way across.  It was kind of funny how, like at the Arc de Triomphe, people just drove over the bridge like yeah, it's an international landmark, nbd.  So then we scurried back to the warm Tube and went to Covent Garden.  Covent Garden has a really great market all the time, and on weekends it's devoted to craftsy stuff.  Yay Christmas presents.  ;)  From there we walked through Trafalgar Square, past Downing Street (where the Prime Minister lives), and down to the square where Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster, aka the Houses of Parliament, stand facing each other.  We met up with one of my friends who's in London this semester and has an internship in Parliament.  He let us in with his VIP pass and we got basically the greatest tour of Parliament ever given.  Example: See that secret door behind the statue there?  That leads to the secret Parliament pub.  And now we're going to slip past the guards and check out these back hallways and awesome places that no one else sees.  What up.

From there we did a quick fly-by of Westminster Abbey (closed for the day even though it was only 3:30...??) and Buckingham Palace, and then went to Harrod's to check out the unaffordable splendor.  Home for a nap and out to dinner.  End Day 2.

Side note: a hilarious protest group just passed my window.  All the British students have been diligently protesting for the past month because their tuition has been increased to like £2000 or something.  Sorry, no pity.

Sunday we saw the British Museum, home to all the stuff the British Empire stole off their various colonies and/or everyone else and refuses to give back.  Examples: the Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra's mummy, and basically all the decorations from the Parthenon.  Classy.  It was really interesting.  For the rest of the afternoon and evening we walked along Oxford Street, home to lots of London's high-end stores as well as a really spectacular display of Christmas lights.  We got to see them come on, which was lovely.  Tina, who had to be back earlier than I did, left from there for the train station and I was on my own for the rest of the trip.

Monday was definitely the most exciting day.  Exciting not necessarily being good.  Three words: London Tube Strike.  The Underground services were patchy at best, and way too much of my limited time was spent navigating roundabout ways to get from one place to another.  I would have just taken the awesomely classic double-decker buses; unfortunately London is so (rightfully) proud of its Underground system that it doesn't well promote the workings of its bus system.  Also, so many other people were trying to figure it out at the same time that the website crashed.  Sweet.  I did get to see St. Paul's; unfortunately time limitations meant I then had to choose between the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham and going into Westminster Abbey.  I chose the Changing of the Guard.  Should have gone to Westminster, I know, I know.  But it'll (knock on wood) always be there, and I'm certainly going back to London sometime in the future.  And anyway, it was the Scots Guard that day, and I was feeling a little adopted Scottish pride and wanted to see them.

Train chaos continued when I got to King's Cross and discovered that due to snow in Scotland my train had been flat-out cancelled.  OH CRAP.  Fortunately I got on one half an hour later and it wasn't a big issue.  Aaaaand now there's snow here.  It's even a legitimate amount of snow, which is good because if my train had been cancelled due to half an inch I would have been mad.  Nope, it's legit - three inches, minimum.  And it is soooo beautiful.  Seriously.  This is what Christmas is supposed to look like.  I can't even tell you.  And there are Christmas lights everywhere...ohmygoodness.  The downside is that A) it's REALLY COLD and B) they have NO IDEA how to handle it.  There is seriously not a snowplow to be found in the entire city.  There are zero cars on the road and everything is being cancelled.  The airport is closed.  It's kind of hilarious, actually.  We've decided that instead of Scottish Studies today we should have a "How to Deal with Snow" class.  I'll teach it.  The Canadians can back me up.

On the bright side, this brand of cold has taught me the true meaning of the word "layering".  It is not the diehard jeans+tshirt+sweatshirt combination my dad has been promoting to me for the past twenty years.  It is not the recent trend in fashion to wear a couple of shirts on top of each other.  No, no.  Layering actually means, how many different articles of clothing is it physically possible for me to wear simultaneously?  I'm getting really good at it, too.  Today's total was solidly in the double digits.

All right, enough from me.  18 days left!

Love,
Melody