London

I went to London from Thu Sept 11th to Sun Sept 14th to have a touristy weekend. I have been to London lots of times before, but usually for business, so I have never had time to see the sights properly. The last time I had a touristy visit to London was when I was 15, so I didn't remember much.

I flew in on Thursday evening, going by tube to Earls Court where I had booked a very cheap hotel. It looked really seedy from the outside, with the hotel sign in blazing pink neon letters also proudly announcing that they had a night club on the premises. The hotel turned out to be not that seedy, just really poorly maintained and cleaned.

Friday morning I headed out to look at the London Eye. I had initially planned to go get tickets for Saturday, as I had read in guide books that tickets were usually sold out days in advance. For some reason there wasn't a line at all, so I walked straight in. The view was fairly good, but it's nothing I would like to do again. Been there, done that.



I rushed across the bridge to try to catch the changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace. I came a bit late so I didn't get a good spot. Managed to get some pictures, but there were always pushy tourists squeezing in front of me whenever I was about to get a good shot. I was amused by the music...they played classic British soldier tunes together with popular culture songs like "Eye of the tiger" and the Star Wars theme. It seemed like an odd combination, especially with the fancy uniforms and all the rituals surrounding the ceremony.



Next I went to look at St. Paul's Cathedral, going up into the "whispering gallery" to have a good look at the big dome. Maybe I'm jaded from looking at so many nice churches in the last couple of years, but I found the church worn and not that interesting. Also, they charged a lot for entrance so I felt slightly ripped off. Usually the fee for entering a famous church is more of a symbolic fee, entering here was 10 pounds.

I moved on to the British Museum. The museum is huge, but so are the crowds, so I didn't care to stay very long. I just checked out the mummies and the Babylonian stuff (the wall paintings are so brutal...it's very fascinating). After leaving I went shopping for books in the specialty bookstores of Bloomsbury. It was good fun browsing around in the shelves of strange books..not at all like the bookstores I am used to.



In the evening I went to see Spamalot - the Monty Python musical. It was essentially a musical version of "Monty Python and the holy grail" with some scenes from the flying circus thrown in. I managed to get a seat three rows from the stage at half price, so I had a very good view of the show. The first act was OK, but some of the non-Python stuff in the second act was not all that great. Still, it was a good way to spend the evening.

Saturday I went to see Tower. I went on a beefeater-led tour, which was more fun than I expected, because the beefeater was making a show out of it, making jokes in a burly voice while explaining the bloody history of Tower. I spent two and a half hours there walking around, before taking the tube to Knightsbridge to go shopping at Harrods. It is a very expensive store, and I spent way too much money there...

in the evening I went to the movies. I watched Pineapple Express - the latest Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow-film (enjoying these types of films is a guilty pleasure of mine). I spent some time walking around Soho after the movie ended, looking at the people partying and giggling at some of the impossibly drunk people in the streets.

Sunday morning I went walking along the bank of the Thames, having breakfast at a cafe with a view to St. Paul's and city. Next I went to see the Tate modern art gallery. It turned out to be not really my thing. Some of the art was fairly disturbing...



I strolled across the across the pedestrian Millennium Bridge, the most recent bridge across the Thames.

I finished off my London visit by seeing the Imperial War Museum. It was a fairly nice museum, air conditioned, with good displays, and some special exhibitions to make things more interesting...like "The Trench Experience" where you walk through a WW1 trench with complete with soldiers, and appropriate lights and sounds, and the Blitz experience where you sit in a bomb shelter listening to the bombs falling and smelling the smoke coming in, before venturing out into the burning ruins to see the damage.

It was a good weekend, but London is an expensive city, so I spent way too much money...

Pictures are here