So this is my London post. I was in London for a week. I originally was going to stay for 5 days but after meeting a girl in Florence, we decided to go to Cardiff together which caused me to extend my trip in London but I am very happy that I did. London has so much to do and see as well as the fact that I used the extra days for some day trips for my own personal want.
What I liked about walking around London was the statues that they had. Not only did they have statues of general English people I have never heard of, royalty or something strange but they had statues of important people from all over the world. The influential people, JFK, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, etc. I thought that was really cool. They also had statues commemorating the women of the wars, the animals in wars that lost their lives and I thought that was kind of cool to remember everyone.
I forgot to mention that when I saw the Changing of the Guard, advice for the future. My friend advised me to get their early but without a real time frame. I got there about an hour and 15 minutes early and there was already a crowd gathering. If I could go again, I would stand up on the Queen Victoria statue as high as I could to see the parade of soldiers walking into the Palace and see the whole process on a grander scale than from where I was.
Although I walked by Westminster Abbey when I first arrived I didn't go inside. When I went back to go inside I was so surprised at how expensive it was and saw that there were evening services and I heard this tour guide recommend coming back to it. So one day, at 5, I went in to the service at Westminster Abbey. It was pretty cool. Almost the entire thing is sung by a choir. I did not get to see the Westminster Abbey choir despite my best efforts of trying to go back and see them but I saw a choir from Ohio. And since England withdrew from Catholicism I imagined a little bit of a different service. Yes it was primarily sung by the pastor and the choir, but the order of events and the prayers were very Catholic. Luckily I had been to enough services in my life to kind of understand the rhythm of events. But to be quite honest, I would say seeing that service at Westminster Abbey was one of my favorite things I did in London and maybe the entirety of my trip.
Because I am a nerd, I went to the Science Museum too. They had an exhibit on the growth and importance of the steam engine which wasn't all my style but still interesting. They had this awesome space exhibit though which I totally loved. And it was cool to see it in another country because they were talking about the space race, and the battle between the US and USSR and how the English gave money to the US to help finance the moon landing and etc. Less egocentric and more global. I loved it. They also had exhibits on the growth of the planet's population and pollution and the next steps toward green energy. One of the floors was dedicated to the overall growth of technology with Google at the center of it all and how when you see an image online that you think its in one part of the world but the actual fragment of that image is somewhere else and how it gets routed to you. And with the underlying message that Google is going to take over the world. That's what I got out of that one cause it was all Google operated and sponsored. The top floor had an exhibit on genetics, and irrational phobias and the five senses. It was mostly geared to children but I am a kid at heart and totally found it really interesting on how they broke it all down.
I also went to the Tower of London. I think it was my sister's favorite place, not really mine. I mean the history of it all is fascinating and the layout is pretty cool but kind of depressing. And I imagined ONE tower, because it is the "Tower" of London right? It implies one but its not. There are many. I would say the coolest thing about the tower is the tour guide that shows you around. He was very funny and witty, very British humor which I always like. But the other cool thing I thought was the inscriptions on the tower walls from the people leaving their marks. Some of the inscriptions had very detailed and ornate carvings definitely showing people had been there a long time. But also at the Tower of London you can see the royal jewels. I'm not the biggest fan of jewelry but DAMN now we are talking. The detail on the crowns was beautiful as it was all laid out and how they have been recycled and passed down. I think the saddest thing is that the original jewels were destroyed when England decided to not have a monarchy for a period of years but then they went back to their monarchical ways and recreated the crowns.
London post to be continued!
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