Britain Trip, Day 2

Saturday 6 March 2010

We didn’t do much today since I wanted to sleep.  I’ve been under a lot of stress at work lately, and I’m exhausted.  Plus  it’s warm in my hotel room and cold outside.

We did the houses of parliament and big ben.  It was rather odd because we came out of the tube station and climbed the steps to street level and there right in front of us was a sort of back yard fenced in by high iron fence.  There was a building and as I followed the lines of the building up I realized what I was looking at–big ben!  I found if you stare at it while clouds are moving behind it, it looks like the clock is moving, not the clouds.  They’re doing some kind of construction work on the building–the entire short side next to the clock tower was covered in scaffolding.  The parliament building is also right on the river.  There’s a bridge you can stand on and look at it.  The side facing the river has a kind of outdoor cafe.  In warm weather members of parliament can sit outside and watch the river go by while enjoying a snack or lunch.  (I would say cup of tea, but they drink coffee a lot here too–I was informed by a local that they drink everything.)

The whole Parliament building is inside a high iron fence, so no going inside.  I think though, they do let people go inside to observe sessions of parliament, but according to the guide book we bought you have to arrange tickets through your local British embassy.  It wasn’t in session on a Saturday, though, so it didn’t matter anyway.  So we wandered around and saw Saint Margaret’s Church, the church of the House of Commons and Westminster Abbey.  We couldn’t go inside either one because both were closed for the day.  Maybe we’ll go back some time.  We also wandered around this park outside that had statues of parliamentarians.  I thought the old ones were a better workmanship than the newer, modern ones.  We also saw a statue of Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln.  Who’d of thought Honest Abe was in London?

After this we wandered along a street and saw a lot of old buildings that had been the seats of government during the British Empire Days.  It looked like a lot of them were still being used as government office buildings.  Along the way we saw Downing Street.  It’s easy to recognize because it’s blocked off by a tall black iron fence, has policemen guarding it, and has tourists gawking around.  We were among those tourists for a bit.  I don’t know which of the buildings along that street is THE building–there were no house numbers visible.  But it was kind of interesting.  We saw a delivery vehicle arrive–apparently the prime minister was getting some new furniture.  We left shortly after that.  As I told Jeremy, we’ve seen vehicle inspections before–we’ve been in vehicle inspections before.

Shortly onward we saw another crowd of tourists.  It turned out the Horse Guards were doing their changing of the guard ceremony.  It was really hard to see as there were too many taller people in front of me and more pushing and shoving their way to the front all the time, but I did see a little.  What I saw looked like a uniform inspection.  Been there done that, too.  Never did it with a horse involved though.  They don’t stand at attention well like people can.  When the horses got bored they started tossing their heads.  They could have broke ranks but they didn’t.  They were well trained enough that they didn’t lift one hoof up until told to do so.

We also saw a street that called itself Scotland Yard.  It didn’t look remarkable though.  In fact it looked little more than an alley.  Don’t know if that’s the Scotland Yard of the board game, but I was remembering that game as we walked down that street.

We ended up in Trafalgar Square.  What we just finished, according to the guide book, is called the Whitehall Walking Tour, only we did it backwards, starting in Parliament Square instead of finishing there.

After this we walked on towards Piccadilly Circus, home of the Eros statue.  Turns out it’s just a cupid with bow and arrow, nothing erotic.  But one building behind the statue was covered in LCD screens.  The buildings to the left and right were old buildings which had obviously been there a hundred years or more and just as obviously the LCD building was the same, with the screens put over the stone facade.  This juxtaposition of old and new is everywhere in London.  If you want to get a picture of this, check out Jeremy’s facebook profile picture.  That picture was taken on the steps of the Eros statue in front of the LCD building in Piccadilly Circus.

After this we wandered into the West End and saw a show: Avenue Q.  The theater it is in is called Gielgud Theater, but I thought they were saying Guilded Theater, because the inside has a lot of decorative goldwork.  It’s a small theater but cozy and pretty and definitely old-fashioned with all those gold roses on the ceiling and the cherubs holding up the light fixtures on both balcony rails.

After the s

And we also did a lot of walking and took in one of the shows on the west end.  Chinatown is right next to there.  We wondered into it before we realized where we were.