Losing Myself in London: March 24, 2013

On the boat

Big Ben and Houses of Parliament



Westminster Abbey from a distance

Yesterday was our second day in London, and quite an eventful one at that. We started off the morning with a boat tour that came with our on/off bus tour passes. We rode the boat down the River Thames and got to see a lot of things from a different angle than on the street. It was rainy and cold again, but I can't complain too much because I'm here. We got off the boat near Parliament Square, which is where the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey are located, as well as a bunch of other beautiful buildings. We took some pictures, and then we were on our way to see Buckingham Palace for the first time.

View of The Shard from the boat

Something interesting happened while we were waiting at the bus stop. We were waiting there with a family from Germany when a police car pulled up. The daughter in the German family, who looked about 13-15 years old, started jumping up and down excitedly and taking pictures of the policeman and his car. Stefinie and I, as well as the bus tour guide, were all extremely shocked by this. We expected the policeman to get mad, or at least drive away. She was what would be considered to be harassing him in the U.S. Not to mention that it seems pretty disrespectful, at least by most social norms, to take pictures of a cop car without permission or at all. The girl's mom was taking pictures of her taking pictures of the car. It was very strange. Then something unexpected happened--the policeman gave her his hat to try on and take a picture with. It was a pretty funny incident. It's a good thing he turned out to be good natured and friendly! That's something I would have never seen in the U.S.


Buckingham Palace Guard

We took the tube (the subway) to Buckingham Palace. This was my first experience with a subway because back home we don't have one where I grew up. Even when I have travelled to bigger cities, I've never used it before. I have to say that I like the system. It's pretty efficient, although we did encounter some parts of lines that were shut down. It makes me wish that this system was available in the Madison area. I feel that it would be a nice way to get around without driving and many people would make use of it. It was also pretty easy to navigate if we knew our destination. The only thing I didn't like was that not all stations had elevators. Because so far my experience had been that the whole city was pretty accessible, I was not expecting that one of their major public transportation systems would not be. The major stations were mostly accessible, but it was some of the smaller ones that may have been closer to our final destination that were not. Overall, however, it was an interesting experience.


Buckingham Palace



Buckingham Palace Gate

We got to Buckingham Palace via Green Park station, which is actually located in Green Park, which is connected to Hyde Park. There were many walkways through the park that led to some tourist destinations, including a path that involved about a five minute walk to Buckingham Palace itself. It was a pretty park to walk through, although it would have been better if the weather was nicer. I got my taste of the park since Hyde Park, which I had initially wanted to see, is all torn up because of the Olympics and the weather. On a side note, there were waffle stands in the park, which is something you don't see in the U.S. but I believe is common in Europe. When we got to Buckingham Palace, we took a lot of pictures. I got to see the palace guards, although I couldn't get a very good picture from the gate. I did not expect them to move as much as they did, although they were mostly marching back and forth, probably because it was cold. I felt like a crazy tourist when I was snapping pictures of those poor guys. The gates of the palace were painted with gold at the tops because of the jubilee. It was very pretty. One item crossed off my bucket list!

Sketch by Leonardo DaVinci

After we went to the palace, we stopped at the Queen's Gallery, which had part of the royal family's art collection. The theme, which they change periodically, was the Northern Renaissance. It was nice because I got a student discount, but then something else also came as a surprise. Because I had a disability, Stefinie, my companion, was allowed to get in for free in order to "assist" me. It had never even occurred to me to ask as this would have never been suggested in the U.S. I also noticed that cars on the street stop for me more than they do for other people, which is interesting (and also nice!) because pedestrians only have the right of way in certain crosswalks here. If you jaywalk here, you will probably die! That's definitely different than in the U.S., and especially Whitewater, where many students cross the streets on campus without looking to see if cars are coming. The art exhibit was interesting. I didn't recognize many of the pieces, but I did see work by Albrecht Durer, Hans Holbein the Younger, and Leonardo DaVinci, as well as some rare books written by Erasmus and Thomas More, all names I recognized from AP Euro in high school. It is really nice to be in a place full of so much history, so different from home.

Walk through Green Park

And then we got lost. Stefinie and I were by ourselves for the first time in the city, and we lost our way trying to get back to the hotel by tube. It was an honest mistake--there were two stations by the name we were looking for, one was the street of our hotel, but the other was a neighborhood north of central London. We would have realized that we were going the wrong way if the line we were on had not been shut down. As it was, we had to leave the tube station without knowing where we were, and we got on a bus headed toward the neighborhood instead of our hotel. On the bright side, we got to see a lot of London we hadn't seen yet, especially some residential areas. When we got to the bus station in the neighborhood of the same name as our street, the bus driver very kindly pointed us back in the direction of the correct bus. We caught the right bus from the station, and the next driver was very helpful to us to find which one to transfer to in order to get back. We finally got back to our hotel after quite an adventure. Luckily people were very helpful and friendly, and it was mostly during the day which helped. The downside of course is that we lost a few hours of sightseeing time, but it worked out in the end, and I can chalk it up to life experience. It was a good thing we had day passes for all public transportation though! The whole experience got me thinking about how public transportation represents how well a society can function. When all the lines and routes are up and running things flow very smoothly, but when something goes wrong, whole sections or parts can shut down and affect everything. And, as it turns out, I got to see pretty much everything that was on my list for London.