Farewell to London

London has been amazing. The amount of sites we saw only scratched the surface of what is available in this town. Being a city girl, I feel in love almost immediately. I will definitely be back.



This city has such an intriguing mix of old and new. From the art, to the architecture. To their very form of government.












Some helpful tools we used (they became our best friends in the city):









A (well-worn) map of the Tube









A (well-worn) map of London














Our Oyster Cards that got us easily onto and out of the Tube. Charged up with 3 days worth of pre-paid ticket funds.




Farewell for now, fair England. Hope to see you soon.

Modern

With the Chelsea game finished, it was my turn to pick an activity. The Tate Modern Art Museum was in the middle of my list of things I wanted to still see, and since it was the only thing on the list still open after the soccer game, it quickly became number one. The walk to the museum from the Tube stop was amazing. We crossed this little foot bridge that had a view of St. Paul's Cathedral on one end and a view of the Tate Modern on the other end. The admission was free (my favorite word in expensive London) and it is the most amazing Modern Art museum I have ever stepped into. It is separated into sections, not by artist or chronologically, and not quite just by style either. More by movements.
If there is a famous artist from the last century, they were represented. A few I remember (it was overwhelming to take in all at once): Picasso, Miro, Monet, Rothko, Pollock, Bacon, Rodin, Warhol, Klee, Matisse, Rousseau, the list goes on and on! The was an amazing exhibit about a Japanese Manga character that was going to be retired and forgotten. She was a very minor and insignificant Manga. Two artists bought her for @$400. They teamed with other artists to give her context and life and create her world. I have never seen anything like that ever. Every medium imaginable was used to do this. Films were made, music was written, pictures were formed, furniture was built. This exhibit challenged me to understand. I love when I get a chance to think that way. It was late when we left and we didn’t have enough time to really soak it all in. Bill was a great sport and let me stay as long as I could.


We ate dinner in the cafe at the museum and it was there I got my favorite photo of the trip. I only had Bill’s point and shoot with me. They wouldn’t let us take bags into the soccer game, and that left me with only Bill’s pocket sized camera. In the cafe the inside of the advertisement they place on the table had the coolest print in it and the place mats had a small section of the same print. I set one on top of the other and and shot down into it and I love how it turned out.




After I had worn Bill out at the museum, we walked along the river and back over to St. Paul’s cathedral one last time. I was able to enjoy the moon hanging over the famous church while holding onto the one who means the most to me. It was just like heaven and I am not ready to let it go.

Chelsea (part II)

The game was about to begin and so was our English soccer experience. Bill was the happiest I have seen him in a long time watching the teams kick off. Within 56 seconds of the game starting, Chelsea had scored the first goal of the game. A good sign that Bill was in for a great game.

The mood of the stadium was exuberant, until a few seconds later that goal was matched by the Fulham team. There was a father and three little boys sitting next to us. The cutest thing was watching these little boys (about 8 - 10 years old) singing at the top of their lungs all the different Chelsea stadium chants. (And boy do they have a surprisingly large number of them, and every one seem to know them all.) Chelsea soon was up 3 to 1 where the score would stay for the remainder of the game.

It was interesting to see the soccer be such a big part of their culture. They had a section in the stadium reserved for Fulham fans to keep them separate from the Chelsea fans. That section of Fulham fans would sing their chants while facing the section next to them of Chelsea fans. The Chelsea fans would let them sing and then when they were done they would sing at the top of their lungs the Chelsea chants while facing the Fulham fans. I told Bill it looked like a scene from West Side Story where the two rival gangs sings their threats to each other.

After a thrilling game (Which I slept through 20 minutes of even in a stadium of 42,000 screaming fans. Boy, I must have been so tired!) we waited for some of the crowds to clear out and made our way to the stadium "Chelsea Mega-Store" for some Billy shopping action. We had to wait in a giant line even to get into this store. It was two levels of Chelsea gear madness. I could not believe the size of this store! Nothing but Chelsea fan gear inside. We bought all 3 of the Barber boys some Chelsea shirts (William ended up with a jersey that was on clearance) and some soccer socks. We even picked up a key chain for Bill's brother, David, who is also a true blue Chelsea fan.

After making such a giant effort to get to Chelsea for a game, the team made Bill and honorary member of the team. (or not.) It was a total English experience that I am glad I was able to experience. Of course, Bill would definitely say it was the highlight of the whole 10 day trip!

Ole, Ole, Ole, Chelsea

The major highlight of the trip, and the only thing we planned to do in advance, was the Chelsea vs. Fullham soccer game. Bill's favorite soccer team playing in their home stadium during our trip seemed to be like it was destined to be and Bill a full month and a half ago, set about securing himself some tickets. This was no easy task, mind you. Apparently, it is not so easy to buy a ticket for a Chelsea home game, as the stadium only seats 42,000 fans. (Many other local stadiums hold 80,000 fans--incredible!)

Bill mentioned to a couple of guys at the pre-trip meetings at school he was going to go, and they wanted to go as well. Luckily for Bill, one of them knew a co-worker in his company's London branch who was a season ticket holder. Season ticket holders get first dibs at buying extra seats for the home games. Without this connection, I doubt that Bill would have managed to secure 4 tickets all together for this game. After paying what I think was a crazy amount of money for a soccer game, we had our seats and the fun could begin!



The train ride to the stadium was an experience in and of itself. The sheer number of humans packed onto the tube trains was staggering. We made it onto one and helped protect a little boy from getting smothered by the crowds getting on. His poor grandmother was taking him, and she was having a hard time protecting him. Even I, had my full body strength pushing people off of me and was leaning against another person so hard, that if they were to move I would have fallen down. As we exited the station I took a second to snap a photo of the volume of people all coming up the station stairs.

We followed all the blue jerseys and found the stadium quickly. We made our way past security and into the stadium where we climbed at least 5 stories worth of stairs to our seats. Our seats were two levels above what I would call "nose-bleed" section only a few rows away from the very top of this giant stadium. It was still a great view of the entire field and I looked over to see Bill with a grin from ear to ear on his face. All of sudden I was happy to be there with him to watch him have so much fun.

We meet up with the two other guys from school at the seats and had one snap a quick photo of us to prove we actually made it there!

Westminster Abbey

Our last day in London and the final leg of our trip. I am so incredibly sad to leave. I am ready to sell our house and move to Europe, paying rent as we go and Bill working from home. I would home school the children and visit historic sights for the bulk of their education. Perhaps, I am getting ahead of myself as I am still in London. But, I think that may become our plan, instead of our dream.



The day started early with a visit from a marketing director of a heavy trucking company coming in at 8:00 to do a presentation for the group. Bill was the leader of the group that arranged this visit or else I would have be happy sleeping in while he attending the visit. Bill’s group did an amazing job finding someone willing to come in on their weekend to do this presentation. I was so proud of him for taking the school aspect of this trip very seriously. He was one of the few.



After the visit and a giant breakfast, we headed out to see Westminster Abbey. (It seemed a fitting stop since we are on a Westminster College International Business trip, no?) I have seen a lot of old churches in my travels, but this one is by the far the most impressive of any I have been to. The sheer magnitude of the history that is held in those walls. The things they have seen. The people they have held. The events they have hosted! Coronations of Kings and Queens. The tombs of those same people. Authors and Musicians that have graced those halls and/or are buried inside of them. Chaucer, Austen, Kipling, Handel, Dickens. Queen Elizabeth, King Henry(s), The Queen Mum. . . The list is virtually endless.


We spent at least 2 hours wandering the halls, exploring. The Abbey provides an audio tour that runs on what looks like a cell-phone. It is a long weekend this weekend (called a Bank Holiday) and the Abbey was packed shoulder to shoulder in some parts. Bill asked the question what is more annoying than a giant group of tourists stopping and gawking up at things? Those same tourists doing that while on cell phones (ourselves included).


What one does notice is the fact that this impressive abbey that was built as a monument to God has over the centuries been filled with monuments to (dead) humans. Each tomb seems to try and outshine the others in the building and they are massive, impressive objects that do compete with the purpose of the abbey, which I assume, is to bring the thoughts of those inside to ponder heavenly beings. I know I was concentrating on where all the famous tombs were and how big they were. Also, to be noted, no photography was permitted inside the Abbey. That is always disappointing to the girl with a teflon brain, who will forget what it looked like without a photo to refer back to.

Buckingham Palace

After a nice long walk up the streets of London, we arrived at Buckingham Palace. After seeing the magnificence that is Parliament and Big Ben, Buckingham Palace was smaller and less imposing than I had imagined. It is still lovely and much too large for one family to inhabit, but not as big as I had mentally pictured.



We weren't there for the changing of the guard, but I had already been talked out of sitting through that by Bill who has seen it and said it is a lot of marching for a very long time and can be quite tedious. We did get to snap some fun photos of the guards along the side of the building. That was very much as I had pictured. Bill joked that if we walked through the open gate, he was pretty sure we could get a reaction out of those guards. He decided against it, as he was afraid that being arrested may interfere with his ability to get to his Chelsea soccer game the next day.

The Palace was a definite must see, but after shooting some quick photos, there wasn't much else to do there. Our feet seemed to be holding up ok, and it was getting late enough to be past closing time for the museums and churches, so we decided to walk to Harrod's to do some shopping and get a look at that very famous department store.





Harrod's was quite impressive and imposing. The outside of the store looks like it could be a castle itself. That is until you walk in, and then it turns from a castle into a pyramid. Very Vegas like. It was almost like going from the Excalibur next door to the Luxor, but with much more expensive things to shop for. Every major designer and brand was represented. Also they had a "Toy Kingdom" with every possible toy in several different toy "wings". We bought them a beautiful book from the 1950's called "This is London" to let them see a bit of what we experienced London town. It was then that I missed the kids. They would have been in toy heaven.



Bill was also in his own little heaven when he found the team gear and picked out a very sharp looking Chelsea zip-up jacket. Can you believe it, we found a way to make Bill a happy camper in a department store. We also learned about the VAT tax and what is was and how to use it at the Harrod's tax free area. After spending more money than we meant to, we decided it was time to get back to the hotel. I was creeped out by a couple of Polish men eyeing us in the elevator (or should I say "lift") in the tube station. I told Bill about it and then told him again when I saw them waiting on the dark street for us to come out of the station. One started following us and then the other and Bill and I took off walking super fast and jogging back to the hotel. It was the only time either one of us felt even a bit unsafe the entire trip. Sorry, no pictures of the large and small polish thugs.

St. Paul's Cathedral

After the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge, we headed over to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was also the meeting point to head over to the International Accounting Standards Board business visit. (If that sounds boring, you should have been there. It was a giant 2 hours long snooze fest of accounting dryness). We had just enough time to snap some photos and take off for the snooze fest.
After we woke up from our IASB visit, we walked back over to see the Cathedral. They charge a hefty admission fee to get inside, and I was a bit burned out visiting churches after Dublin, so we peeked around the foyer and left. This is the cathedral where Charles and Diana were married and has had a church on the grounds (not the current cathedral until the 1600's) since 600 a.d. It is impressive from the outside and has lovely grounds surrounding it. After deciding to skip the cathedral, we thought we would put that money into riding the London Eye and walked over to do that activity. When we arrived the crowds scared us off and both Bill and I decided we didn't want to waste 2 hours waiting in lines and took off again to see St. James' Park and walk to Buckingham Palace.

Tower Bridge

Next to the Tower of London is the Tower Bridge. It is amazingly impressive a fabulously beautiful. We enjoyed lovely views of it while touring the tower and after the crowds grew to heavy for us at the Tower, we walked over and across that famous bridge.






It was totally amazing to realize that we were at that moment on the bridge I had seen described in countless books and photos. We paused to share a kiss and look over the river and just let it all sink in.





I am not sure it has sunk all the way in that we were just there. We walked along that bridge over the river and across the other side to catch the tube.

Tower of London

Another wonderful and long day full of as much sightseeing as our 4 feet could handle. We woke up early and got out of the hotel as quick as we could. Our first stop was the Tower of London. A bit pricey admission almost made us reconsider going inside. We hemmed and hawed for a moment before just going ahead with our plans. Thank goodness we did. It was an amazing tour inside the old city walls.


The Tower of London first was a palace and was later used as a jail, and now hold the crown jewels. I didn’t think I really cared about seeing the crown jewels, but I have to admit, I was totally blown away by them. Even Bill thought they were impressive. There was a diamond the size of my fist. It looked like glass. It was hard to fathom that anything that giant was a treasured stone. The crowns adorned with their fur and rubies and emeralds and sapphires and diamonds and gold were very amazing. It also made me realize how incredibly useless those things are and how many people have wasted or lost their life in pursuit of them.

We didn’t want to walk around with a giant tour group on a yeoman’s tour. (We had definitely had our fill of big groups.) We simply wandered from room to room to see the sights and read the signs. Most rooms were not furnished with period furnishing, but one bedroom was sparsely furnished to show what it may have looked like. A number of the rooms were down to the timbers and some of the stone rooms of the tower still have graffiti from famous (and infamous) prisoners that were housed there.

There were a number of places where taking photos was not permitted. The crown jewels being one of those places unfortunately. Another one of those places was inside a room with the names of royals and their crests around the room. I am really good at following rules, but this was one that had to be broken for our William IV, who was very excited to find out he has a royal name. Bill pulled out his phone and made like he was making a call and snapped this one just for William off of the front of his iphone. Well done for not being able to see what he was shooting!


We spent at least 3 hours wandering and enjoying soaking in all the history. It still is overwhelming to think back to how many people have wandered those very halls and the impact they had on world history. At times it felt like a theme park and I had to keep reminding myself this was not the “disney” or “vegas” version, it was the real deal. I wanted to capture and savor every moment.

Strange and Wonderful

Here is a small smattering of things we have encountered on our visit that we found either funny, interesting, bizarre, odd, strange, or just plain weird.

First we ran across a sure sign it rains too much: An Umbrella Dispenser on the wall before you walk outside from the underground mall. We had some time to kill before the first of the London business visits (at Citigroup) and we were stuck in the financial district with not much to see. So, we did what any hungry, tired traveler would do-- we went to lunch and went shopping in a strange, giant underground mall. That is where we ran into this little gem. Here is hoping we won’t have to use one!




Next on our travels, a babysitting service outside of a large clothing store. This was also found in the strange underground monstrous mall. We were walking by and I didn’t think anything of it (Remember, we were really tired!) Then it clicked. There was a line of babies with only two women near by. The women would make a face and goo-goo sounds at one baby and then move to the next on down the line. It was hilarious. The babies were all just hanging out waiting for Mommy to finish her shopping. Wish they had those in the states!





Third on my strange and unusual sights list is the Bobby and his ferocious dog-- or not. This police man had a Irish Setter (or cocker spaniel, who can tell?) on a leash while on patrol. This was just outside the monstrous mall (a virtual gold-mine of weird stuff). He was protecting all the enormous office buildings (more in that square than all of downtown Salt Lake). If I were a terrorist with a bomb strapped to myself to kill all of the capitalist pigs, I would be terrified of that dog. Or not. It kept laying down in front of the policeman like it was laying in front of a relaxing fire at the end of a long day. Not terribly threatening. It looked more like national bring your dog to work day, than hard working, loyal police dog on the beat.





After our whirlwind tour of Parliament square we headed over to Piccadilly Square for some more sight seeing. We picked up a post card for the boys and I just loved the postcard of Princess Diana next to the postcard of Prince Charles. It just some how made me smile. She past away quite a long time ago and these people seem to adore her even more than they did when she was alive.





Last and probably least on my list of odd sights was a bunch of waving, shiny, metal, souvenir chinese cats. Because really, what says “I went to London” more than a shiny, metal chinese cat statue? I can’t wait to see what weirdness awaits us tomorrow.

Transported

We had a lovely, short flight from Dublin to London and arrived well ahead of schedule and had no customs to go through before heading out into the city. The past week seems to have been a long series of airplane and bus trips, tied together with some long breaks of walking. London will be a nice break-up of the routine, by adding Tube trains to our transportation list.







Our first day in London and I am already getting into trouble. A lot of us had our cameras out in the Underground stations to catch photos of the trains. I had set our little camera to “no flash” (Or so I thought, it is a camera I really never use) and took a photo as the train came into the tunnel. This camera has a lot of shutter lag (which I dislike and am not at all used to. At least that is the excuse I am sticking with.) so I took the photo earlier than I needed to. The flash went off (I really have to learn how to set that thing to off!) and I got a totally crappy shot of the train (shown here).













A couple of others did the same thing, and after we boarded the train, the driver got on the intercom and told us that we could temporarily blind the driver or give him an epileptic fit. The person who had the biggest fit, was Bill laughing at me for getting a shout out on the Tube intercom. No one wants a tube driver who is having an epileptic fit from seeing flashing lights coming into the station. I guess he knows how it feel to be a star chased by paparazzi now. Perhaps the only time he will feel that way in his whole life. He should be grateful, right? He wasn’t and it was just terribly embarrassing!







Good news though, I have been very careful to mind the gap and have not fallen onto the tracks (yet)! Hopefully, I will be better on the Double Decker bus when we board it. I am hoping not to harm the bus driver in any way.

Parliament Square

A whirlwind day of travel, business and sightseeing. We had a couple of free hours in the evening right before dinner and Bill, master Europe navigator, got us to Parliament and Big Ben in no time.









We came out of the Underground and landed right at Big Ben. It was pretty impressive to walk out of the Tube and have it right at the top of the stairs waiting to greet you. We walked along the bridge for a better view.












The London Eye is on the other side of the river. I am sure the view is amazing of the entire city, but I am pretty sure we will skip actually riding on it this time around.











Since we had not yet checked into our hotel, we still had our carry on bags with us, and I only had Bill’s small point and shoot camera. It really was frustrating to not be able to get the shots I wanted, but having it was much better than going without anything.













Westminster Abbey is on the opposite side of the parliament building and across the street. We walked over and looked at one side of it. I am hoping we will have another chance to get back to the area before we leave on Sunday to get some more photos and time in the area. But is was a great quick run through.