London

Well, it's been much to long since I've posted. I'm sure at least some of you are wondering what happened to me (I know because I have gotten several emails asking exactly that). Nothing really, I just got distracted getting my bearings in Europe.

As I said in my last post, I went to catch my bus for London that Thursday night, the 2nd of February. The bus was set to depart around 11:30 p.m. (or 23:30 as they say in Belgium). It was unclear where I was supposed to catch my bus. I just knew it was in Leuven. I figured it would be leaving from the closed Eurolines office which is near the train station. I showed up about 5 minutes early and no one was there. I waited. And waited. And waited. No one showed up. About 5 minutes after my bus was supposed to have departed, I started getting worried. Then I noticed a very small sign on the door to the office almost obscured by shadows. "The bus will leave from terminal 12 of the Leuven train station". I ran across the street to the station and quickly found terminal 12. The only person there, a Polish guy waiting for the same bus, said the Eurolines buses were notoriously late and that the bus that brought him into Leuven was over 4 hours behind schedule. I heaved a sigh of relief that I hadn't missed the bus, and began to worry I would have to wait in the gusty, subfreezing temperatures for hours. The Polish guy had another bus to catch in Brussels so he gave up after about 10 more minutes of waiting and took the train. Luckily, I only had to wait another 5 minutes for the bus to arrive.

The bus wasn't as bad as I was worried it would be. It was surprisingly uncrowded. Everyone who wanted there own seat had it. The seats were close together, but no worse then on an airplane. I reclined the seat hoping to get some sleep, but this was nearly impossible. At every city we stopped in, maybe 4 or 5 in Belgium and France, the driver announced the city and then turned on the harsh overhead lights, waking me up without fail. Then, we reached the coast and had to exit the bus for customs. The French had to look at my passport and visa. Then the British had to look at my passport and visa. Then we got to climb back into the bus for 30 minutes. After pulling onto one of the massive ferries lining the terminal (shown here), I thought I'd finally get to have some rest. However, unlike in Seattle, passengers aren't allowed to remain in their vehicles during the trip. So, we all had to go up to the passenger deck. At this point it was about 2 in the morning and I had managed about an hour of sleep total. I had an expensive and revoltingly greasy breakfast on the ferry and then found a seat to pass out in until the ferry crossed the channel and we could get back on the bus.

When we finally did arrive in Dover and I got back on the bus, it was about 5 a.m. I got on the bus and immediately fell asleep. The next thing I knew I was in London. The bus arrived around 6 a.m. Just walking from the bus to the terminal made my muscles knot from the cold. The inside of the terminal wasn't that much warmer, but I thought I better wait for a little while before I ventured out in the city. After about 45 minutes a small shop in the bus station selling hot cocoa opened up. Hoping it's heat would help me tolerate the cold outside, I bought a cup and headed onto the streets of London.

I had thought that the grey light begining to filter through the clouds would help me find my way, but I still made a wrong turn immediately outside the bus station. I could have sworn the sign said Buckingham Palace was to the left, but I was wrong. After a lovely, if frigid, 30 minute detour, I ended up at the Starbucks across the street from the bus station. I must say Starbucks caramel lattes are just as delicious and warming in London as in New York or Seattle. Leaving the Seattle embassy behind me, I went the correct way down the street towards Buckingham Palace.

I had seen the Palace when I was in London in 1998, but it was at night and I remembered it poorly. The Palace and the parks opposite it are surrounded by cast iron gates with touches of gilding. It makes for a splendid affect that the distance of this picture does not do justice. Another thing that's hard to see in this picture are the guards next to the open arches on either side. These aren't the ones with the big black hats, they have guns and look ready to stop any intruders should they try to overthrow the powerless monarchy.

Outside the gate lies one of the best monuments I saw in the city. In the front, a queen (perhaps Elizabeth???), sits on her throne, scepter in hand. Intricate sculptures line the three other sides and a gilded angel alights on the top. Sculpted bronze fountains, not shown here, poured at the base of the monument despite the weather, and, to top it off, the whole thing is framed by the hulking Buckingham Palace in the background. Though it was before eight in the morning, the sun was dim behind the clouds and it was freezing, it was a thing of beauty that energized me for the next several hours.

On the way to my next stop, I passed through St. James Park which was breathtakingly beautiful. The park itself easily beats anything in New York, including Central Park. It was more sculpted than the parks in Seattle, but equally beautiful if in a different way. A number of birds I had never seen before in different sizes and colors played in the pond giving the park an air of life that New York's parks lack (rats and pigeons don't count).

After crossing the park, I walked up Whitehall, the road lined with many of the buildings housing the British government. I passed Downing Street hoping to see Tony Blair's current residence, but the small street is now closed to the public and massive gates have been erected to keep the tourists and, presumably, the terrorists at bay.

After a couple more blocks of drab government buildings, I went through an archway back towards the park. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I realized there was a motionless guard in the shadows. He was wearing a golden helmet and resting his sword against his shoulder. I'm not sure what he was guarding. The place is called Horse Guards Arch, so maybe horses. Interestingly, Princess Diana's funeral procession passed through this arch, a privilege only allowed to members of the royal family. In 1540, the parade ground in front of the arch, shown in the picture, was the site of a huge tournament held by Henry VIII that attracted knights from all over Europe.

I walked up the road and through yet another arch and found myself in Trafalgar Square. None of my pictures of Trafalgar Square really capture it in its entirety. It's a feast for the eyes, but the table is just too big to get in one picture. A giant column, Nelson's column, crowned with a bronze (I think) sculpture of, you guessed it, Nelson juts out of the South end of the square. It is guarded by four humongous, carved, black lions. Two fountains spray water into the air on either side of the column. Their source is refreshed by mermen perched on both sides of the fountains spurting water from the mouths of dolphins. Various other statues litter the square, including an unfortunate modern sculpture of a torso with women's breasts and a man's head. The North side of the square is marked by the columned facade of the National Portrait Gallery, and across the street to the East sits the beautiful-on-the-outside, hideous-on-the-inside Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields Church (that was a lot of hyphens).



From here, I walked up through Covent Garden. For much of it's history it was the largest fruit and vegetable market in England. Now it's just a fancy mall. I think I would have liked to see it as a produce market better. I did get interviewed by a TV crew that was interviewing people for a Valentine's day bit. They asked me which celebrity I'd most like to go on a date with (Prince William), what the worst date I ever had was (went to a movie with a guy who wouldn't stop trying to grope my leg despite my obvious lack of interest) and what the worst pick-up line was (Nice shoes wanna f!#$). I thought my last answer was a bit cliche, but they loved it. Apparently that joke is not as big in Britain as it is in the States.

After that quirky interruption and a failed attempt to find the Royal Opera house, I hurried to the British Museum. It was good to get out of the cold and the museum has an amazing collection. The museums walls hold the Rosetta Stone, one of the Easter Island Statues, the Discus Thrower, plenty of Greek and Egyptian statutes (including one Ozymandius affair complete with broken forearm the size of a tree trunk), several of those Assyrian sphinxes like they had in the Neverending Story, a large collection of Islamic and Asian art, numerous mummies, and much more. Those are just the highlights. I took a ton of pictures, unfortunately, I'm not really supposed to post them on the web. I'll just my favorite, at least until I get a cease and desist letter. They stole it from Turkey anyway. This is the Nereid Monument, so named for the female figures between the pedestals. Nereids were believed to be personifications of the waves of the ocean and friendly towards humanity. Here, though chiseled from stone, you can almost see the breeze from the Mediterranean blowing across their tunics. If you click on the picture to view the larger version, you can see that each of the stones making up the monuments foundation was also carefully sculpted.

I spent the rest of the day at the museum. When I was done, I was exhausted, but I had managed to see almost the entire collection. I met up with my friend Gary and we went out for dinner and a couple of drinks. Then we went back to his place where I'd be staying for the weekend. Gary lives in Essex, which I had thought was a suburb of London. In a way it is, people do commute everyday to London, but it's a long commute, almost an hour by train. It was further away than I had expected, but the price was unbeatable and it was nice to see Gary. We didn't get to his place until around 2 a.m. I quickly went to sleep and didn't wake up until almost 2 p.m. After Gary and I got breakfast, the day was pretty much gone so we just decided to stay in Essex. We went and saw what was once the longest pier in the world at 7080 feet or 1.34 miles and wondered through the town. It wasn't as old or as picturesque as Leuven but did have that small town feel that was a nice change from London.

Sunday, we again got up late, but we were determined to get into London. We walked by the tower of London, but neither of us were excited about paying the high entrance fee and I had done the tour on my last trip.

Here's a picture of Tower Bridge down the Thames, not to be confused with London bridge (one incarnation of which was bought by an American and moved to Arizona).


After a little bit of site seeing, Gary and I went to Tate Modern, London's modern art museum. I'm not as big of a fan of modern art as I am of older art, but the museum had several nice pieces including a large collection of Rothko paintings. There were also a few of Monet's Water Lilies, though I'm not as big a fan of these as I know many are.

Right next door to the museum was the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theater.


After this, Gary and I grabbed dinner at a touristy place near the Tower of London and headed back to Essex. I got up at around 7:30 the next morning. I had to take the train back to London, the subway (tube) to the bus station and then catch my bus. Unfortunately, the subway was running really late because of an earlier breakdown. I was 10 minutes late for my bus. Luckily, my bus was running late too. I was the last passenger on board before it departed. After that lightning visit, I didn't have any trouble getting sleep on the way back to Leuven. In fact, I could barely keep my eyes open.