London Day Four

Today's been a long day and it isn't even over yet! We got up at 7:45 to get ready and have breakfast before we headed over to Westminster Pier for our Thames boat tour. We made our way over on the tube without any hiccups (there was a lot of work being done this weekend on a few lines), and we got there early. Suddenly, tons of student groups started appearing saying they were also Arcadia people? It was really strange, because a huge portion of the group here for orientation was moving out today and weren't on the boat tour. Apparently there are high school groups and student groups for winter break that come? It was still really weird and confusing.

The boat was extremely late- we were supposed to board at 9:45, but the boat didn't arrive until 10:20. And it was quite windy and chilly on the roof of the boat- thank goodness for wool socks. I did get a lot of nice pictures though. The co-captain ended up doing a lot of commentary for us because some of the passengers asked him to, even though there was a recording, and he was very funny. We got to see a lot of the major sites in central London- the Eye, the Tower, etc.- as well as Shakespeare's Globe. Once we got out by the East End and the dockyards, the Thames got wider and it got way colder. The recording talked a bit about the London Blitz in the area, as well as the Jack the Ripper story.

Westminster Bridge by the pier

The London Eye from the boat

Cleopatra's Obelisk

The bridge from Harry Potter and Love Actually with St. Paul's in the background aka 3 things I love in one place

The Shard, the tallest building in the EU

The Tower of London

The real London Bridge

Canary Wharf, part of the old East End and now a successful business district outside central London

We got off at Greenwich (we could have gotten off at the Tower) and Arcadia had hired tour guides for us. We were all freezing and just wanted hot chocolate, but we went along on the tour anyway, which was a good decision. Our tour guide was Richard and he was fabulous. He started by talking about London in general, and how the actual, proper city of London is only one square mile, and 6,000 people live there, but 300,000 work there every day. The city of Westminster is a completely different city, and back in the day, there were fields between the two and the seat of government (Westminster) and the economic and residential sectors (London) were completely separated into two cities. He also talked about Canary Wharf and how it wasn't rebuilt from the bombings of WWII until the 1980s-1990s and now it's a new economic center of the city.

Next we looked at Cutty Sark, which is a tea clipper (ship) that was on display. He told us the tale of the name of Cutty Sark, which comes from a famous poem about Tam trying to get away from a witch who tries to cross a river but the witch grabs his horses tail and yanks it out. The witch is very attractive and is a young voluptuous woman wearing a skimpy cotton shift (also known as a cutty sark) and the hull of the ship has a carved woman in a skimpy shift holding a real horse's tail.

The Cutty Sark

We walked through the Royal Naval Academy, which has been the site of a few different royal palaces over the years, and was an especially important location for the Tudor family. So we pretty much got a (rather entertaining) history lesson, while learning about the evolution of the space. Today, the remaining structures are the Queen's House, the Royal Observatory, and the Royal Naval College. It's a stunning campus, and despite the cold, it was nice to get to see so much of it. The area is used to film movies and tv shows all the time, especially period pieces. The fourth Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed there, and Les Miserables was filmed there most recently!! Oh, I found a list of things filmed there, you can look at it here!

A cold statue?

We stopped in the National Maritime Museum for a brief minute, and then went into the Queen's House, which was pretty cool as an art history minor, because the architect, Inigo Jones, did some pretty awesome stuff with neo-classicist and other styles in his day. Like really cool stuff haha. We then went out behind the Queen's House to see the ball rise and drop at 1 pm for Greenwich Mean Time. We didn't go up to the observatory and the line between the hemispheres because it costs 7.50 to go in.

The Queen's House

View from in front of the Queen's House- the campus was organized to allow a view of the river from the front steps of the Queen's House between the Naval Academy buildings

Greenwich Mean Time, when the ball was at the bottom

And with the ball at the top. It drops at exactly 1 pm.

This is where the equestrian events were held during the Olympics! 

The Painted Hall of the Academy- it was stunning!

After that we were all quite frozen, so we headed into the village for some lunch. We stopped into a noodle bar, which was quite good and warm. Funnily enough, all four Americans going to York are vegetarians! So we all got nearly the same thing haha. Britain is actually extremely vegetarian friendly, more so than the US in some ways. Every menu (even ones in pubs) have items marked with a "V" to indicate that it's a vegetarian option, and all the cafes I've stopped in have at least one vegetarian sandwich and soup everyday of the week. My catered accommodation also has a vegetarian option at every meal! So I'm very happy.

We walked through the market, and then decided to head back to central London. There was a walkway that went under the Thames to get to the other side so we took that option to say we had done it haha. Then we hopped on the DLR and took the train back into London, switched at Bank (we had quite a walk at Bank station the other day to switch lines, it was heinous), and made it back to Bloomsbury.

Greenwich Village

Haha

The tunnel under the Thames!

Emily and I went to the British Museum, which was WONDERFUL. It was insanely huge and confusing though. But I got to see the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon friezes and the Lewis Chessmen and the Sutton Hoo exhibit and the Assyrian carvings so I was extremely, extremely happy. I didn't actually cry, but I came close. My art history and archaeology sides were completely freaking out. There were so many amazing other things in the museum as well! It could take days to actually go through and appreciate everything. We were both kind of overwhelmed by everything and our feet were killing us, so we didn't spend too long in the museum. We headed back to our hotel where we both collapsed and had some tea before we went to the theatre to see a show in the West End.

British Museum lobby

The Rosetta Stone!

Parthenon sculptures!!!

The Lewis Chessmen!!!!!

Sutton Hoo shoulder buckles!!!

We thought the Enlightenment room looked like Dumbledore's office

I went out to grab some food from Tesco Express so I would have something in my system (we had HUGE lunches), so I grabbed some yoghurt with "chocolate covered biscuit bits" to mix in (it's way better than it sounds haha) and some orange-lemon water, which was seriously the most amazing drink I've ever had. What's so nice about the UK and the EU is that they have super strict laws about what kind of things can go into food products, so there are like no additives and preservatives and all those gross chemical things, and no high fructose corn syrup! And everything really is much better for it. So the water was just spring water, and a pressed orange and lemon, with some natural sugar.

About 12 of the Arcadia students who are still around ended up going to the show tonight. We all walked over as a group to the West End, which was really fun at night while it was all lit up. We went to go see Chariots of Fire at the Gielgud Theatre. It's based on the film of the same name, which is about two British runners at the 1924 Olympics. It was FANTASTIC. And they used the soundtrack from the movie, and incorporated the 2012 London Olympics into the staging. The choreography was brilliant, they somehow made all the races different and they had a spinning central stage (it was a "theatre in the round" so there were people sitting on all sides of the stage). We were up in the nosebleed section, but we could still see very well. Seriously, it was fantastic.

Our view from the balcony- you can see how beautiful the old theatre is!

You can get a sense of the theatre in the round set up as well, and the moving stage

Afterwards we walked around the West End and Picadilly Circus, and we walked through China Town on the way back, so we got some last minute sightseeing in. I've only even seen Picadilly during the day from a bus, so being able to walk through it at night while everything was lit up was exciting.

Covent Garden Christmas lights

Les Mis was in the theatre right next to ours

Picadilly Circus!

Picadilly Christmas lights

I think I might need to go back and see this, it's a Beatles musical :-)

We walked back and considered going to the pub round the corner, but we all needed to pack and get ready for our trip to York tomorrow bright and early! I'm very excited to get to unpack and get settled, I really hate living out of a suitcase. And it all feels like I'm going to Hogwarts, since I'm taking a train from London up to a school in the north haha.

The essential tourist photo haha