Another (not so) brief update

Let me start with a brief rundown of Katie's visit. To see some pics you can check out my last post!

Saturday 3/14:
-Katie landed a little after 9:30, emerged from the airport doors around 10:30
-Bus ride back to Royal Holloway
-Brief walk about campus, visiting the Founder's Building, etc.
-Grocery run to pick up the essentials for the week
-Staying local and simply taking our time as we walked everywhere.
-Make spaghetti dinner
-Go to the Happy Man pub off campus for sticky toffee pudding dessert

Sunday 3/15:
-Train into London
-Tower of London (and the weird former port authority building across the street from the Tower), complete with Beefeater tour and crown jewels
-Trafalgar Square to check out the St. Patrick's Day celebration and get lunch from a street vendor place. The celebration turned out to be a huge free concert of Irish bands and boy bands... the Irish boy band was really bad, but we had a good time.
-Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park. That's where are the crazy religious and political nuts go to espouse their ridiculous theories while standing on soap boxes, step ladders and buckets. Very funny to watch.
-Casual time sitting and resting on the grass in Hyde Park. It was a beautiful day. Actually, it was a beautiful week. Katie never saw rain in England.
-Buckingham Palace... as anticlimactic as the first time I was there. But a couple good pics.
-Walked over to the area around the Houses of Parliament and the Eye. Got some daytime pictures. Ate dinner (grilled cheeses... budget). Got pictures at night.
-Trained back to school and passed out!

Monday 3/16:
-Monday was a slow day because I had class in the afternoon (2-3), essentially killing possibilities of going anywhere.
-In the morning I showed Katie the absolute chaos of the computer center as I had to hand in my final paper to the Geography Department.
-Class (Katie did homework I think).
-Long walk around Engelfield Green (another town essentially touching Royal Holloway) and the Engelfield Green cemetery, looking for old graves. Surprisingly not very many.
-Night filled with homework, unfortunately. I had three classes the next day, and one I had to make a presentation for... and then he never got around to letting me give my presentation!

Tuesday 3/17... St. Patrick's Day!
-Lazy morning.
-Class 12-1. Katie used the time to go visit the farmers' market held at the students' union every Tuesday. She grabbed some apples and potatoes. Nothing too exciting.
-Lunch together... then back to class 2-4.
-Immediately after class at 4, threw a bunch of clothes in a backpack, and took off on a train for the city!
-Arrive after battling rush hour type crowds on the Tube at the Generator Hostel. They initially put Katie and I in different rooms, despite telling me when I booked that we were together in a four person. After objecting we wound up together in a 7-person. Weird. But it worked.
-After dropping our stuff we headed to my favorite pub in London, The Boot, for dinner. Nice atmosphere with St. Patrick's Day decorations up, and Irish folk music playing in the background. Made me love it even more.
-Next we headed back to King's Cross Station to take pictures with the Harry Potter Platform 9 3/4 pushcart. Mom, you'd know what this meant if you just read the books like I asked...
-From there we hopped on the Tube for a ride to the Square Mile/City of London. It is where the original city of London began, where the original London Bridge led, and where the current financial sector lies.
-We saw "The Monument" in that area, which commemorates the Great Fire of 1666 which burned down most of the city, yet ironically also killed the rats that were spreading the plague.
-We saw the inside out building (you'd have to see it to understand) that is Lloyd's of London.
-Also views of Tower Bridge at night from London Bridge.
-Snapped some pics in a red phone booth
-Hit up a pub that I had read was the best in London, called the Nag's Head. Turned out to have terrible service. Left us both with a bad taste in our mouths.
-Headed back to the Generator to attempt sleep.

Wednesday 3/18
-Started the day with a search for Greenwich Park, which is dissected by the Prime Meridian. Katie and I met on spring break last year in Ecuador, where we jumped over the equator... so we wanted to jump the Prime Meridian together too! It took us a long time to find (it's just generally a trip to find anyway...). We first wound up in Sloane Square due to some bad information. Eventually we found the park, and looked on a park map to see where the Prime Meridian cut it in half. We found the spot we were looking for, but it was not marked with a line. So we made our own with our coats, and jumped over! One of the highlights of the trip.
-We then hastily returned to the Eye in the middle of the city to hop on (we had bought time specific tickets). Another beautiful, sunny day gave some nice views, and our fellow passengers were nice, so we got lots of pictures.
-From the Eye we grabbed a quick hot dog lunch and headed towards Wesminster.
-Got confused by where we were going and wound up just behind the Houses of Parliament, but eventually figured it out.
-Found Westminster and discovered it was closed! Took some pics outside, and headed to St. Paul's, which we had been intending to do as well.
-Spent a good long time in St. Paul's exploring the art, sculpture tombs, and dome (climb lots of stairs for views from above both inside and out!).
-Stayed in St. Paul's for Evensong, a short evening service.
-Headed home for a very late dinner!

Thursday 3/19:
-Started the day with a walk to Runnymede, where the Magna Carta was signed. It's still nothing but a big field, but now Katie can say she danced where the Magna Carta was signed.
-Ate some lunch at home.
-Caught a bus to Windsor. Queen wasn't home when we got there. Explored St. George's Chapel, took pics with the funny bear hat guard, explored the State Apartments. As we were getting ready to go, we wanted to kill time, because it wasn't quite time for dinner. So we went into a couple gift shops. As we finally were choosing to leave, I was going to comment about the Queen never being around during my three trips to Windsor, and my two to Buckingham, when I noticed that her flag was flying! She arrive while we were there!
-Explored the town a bit.
-Dinner out.
-Home for a movie.

Friday 3/20:
-Slow day... class 10-12, 2-4.
-Just generally spent as much time with Katie lounging about as possible. I think she explored a bit on her own while I was in class.
-Made dinner together.
-Back to Happy Man pub for more sticky toffee pudding.
-Explore Founder's Building... find really creepy closet. Really creepy.
-Back for a sad bedtime :-(

Saturday 3/21:
-Up early to catch a bus to the airport. Super :-(


All in all it was a splendid week. More to come about what's happened since then, and what's coming up. Soon I hope, because I leave Sunday!

Katie's Here!

Just a few pics to keep you updated on what the past week has been!

Funny bear hat guard at Windsor





The longggggg walk at Windsor

Runnymede

St. Paul's Cathedral (up the stairs and outside obviously!)

Westminster... outside: it was closed :-(

The Eye

Prime Meridian in Greenwich Park (we made our own line)

London Bridge and "The Square Mile" or "City of London"

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

Buckingham Palace

Hyde Park (just after Speakers' Corner)

Trafalgar Square St. Patrick's Day Concert

The Tower of London

Royal Holloway, Founder's Building

Scotland... Almost.

As you know from the taste I gave you when I got back, I spent last weekend in Scotland. It was a tour that I purchased through Arcadia before arriving, and as such it was with 50 American students studying at various UK universities, all from random US universities, studying abroad through Arcadia like me. Three of the other people studying at Royal Holloway through Arcadia with me also went on the trip: Audrey, Jenn and Briana.

The Arcadia plan was to leave for Edinburgh by train via King's Cross at 8 am on Friday. Of course I had two classes on Friday, even though I had no other classes the rest of the week (the history department had a 'reading week' and canceled all classes). Also, it would have been a real hassle to leave from Egham trying to make it to King's Cross in London by 8 am. Instead, the four of us from Royal Holloway headed into the city on Thursday afternoon, then stayed the night at a hostel near the train station (Arcadia had actually given us vouchers for the place back in January, so it was free!).

So Thursday night began the journey. Jenn and Audrey split off from Briana and I early on, so it was just us two to figure out what to do in London on a Thursday night when we knew we had to get up around 6:30 the next morning. We decided to tackle dinner first, and set off looking for a pub. The first one we walked into was absolutely packed. Not a seat in the house. Figuring there had to be other places we continued our search. In that search we stumbled across another place. Packed. As we walked we came to a location where you could stand in the doorway of one McDonald's and look at the other McDonald's no more than 60 yards away. I realize they were separated by a bizarre intersection comprising many lanes of traffic, but I couldn't help but think Lewis Black would have something to say about a McDonald's across the street from a McDonald's. Kept walking. Found another pub... too expensive.

By now we're starting to get discouraged. As we walk down the street, headed back to the original pub to see if a seat has opened up we pass a group of people on a street corner waiting to cross. As we turn our backs to them we hear the scream of a wild banshee and turn to see a crazed rotund woman in a skirt barreling towards us, eyes wild, arms flying. Needless to say we are mildly confused. As she nears us she valiantly attempts a flying ninja kick. The kick fell short. I don't know if the near-miss was the intentional product of the fact that she did not really want to kick us, or if it was the unexpected result of the force of gravity on her large frame. Either way, I'm glad the kick was short. For some reason neither Briana nor I flinched; it was over in a matter of seconds and we were back to walking, dazed by the impact of the lunacy that had just targeted us. This is why I can't live in a city.

Upon arrival at the original pub we were relieved to find... just kidding, it was full still. Now we're really hungry and head to this pub that looked from the outside like it was absolutely packed. Nevertheless, upon entry it had seats available, and reasonable prices so we sat. Grateful to be sitting we took our time choosing off the menu, and then Briana went to order, leaving me to jealously guard our table. She returned moments later with the news that somehow the pub had run out of the food necessary to make 2/3 of the items on their menu. Essentially we could have the most expensive food they offered, or we could leave.

Outside we were now really discouraged, and were about to settle for buying some snacks at a "Food and Wine" store and moving on to our next destination. As we wandered we spotted a faint glow down a side street we passed maybe 4 or 5 times during our search that night. So we went to see. The glow was emanating from a little pub called the Boot. We looked at the food prices. Incredibly reasonable (for Britain, especially London). We knew that as soon as we opened the door we would be met by a massive crowd of people, filling the tables and crowding the bar, just like all the other pubs. We braced ourselves and opened the door. A couple groups of people were scattered around half the tables laughing and enjoying a meal or a pint, and the bartender was calmly cleaning the bar, at which nobody was waiting. There was a man, presumably the owner, in the back corner of the pub with papers scattered about him, working. A dog lay silently and obediently at his feet, untethered and undisturbed by the incoming strangers. We ordered our food and sat down at a table. Briana and I were taken aback. If we walked a city block in any direction from the Boot we would have found 2 or 3 pubs all crowded and loud, and possibly without food apparently. Yet here was this idyllic little pub in the middle of it all, almost tauntingly perfect. It was straight out of a moving... the dog in the corner just completed it!

And that is the story of my favorite pub in London.

From there we hopped on the tube and took off for the Westminster stop to see the Houses of Parliament/Big Ben and the Eye at night. I've seen them multiple times now, and at night once (during my first few days here, even), but I never had my camera. So it was time to play tourist. See pictures above!

That took a lot longer than I expected... you can see why I say writing this is going to be an epic. So that was Thursday night; the rest was occupied with sleeping. The next three days were Scotland. Which will come later, because I have to go make dinner.