Turns out hostel DOES charge for wifi (boo!) so I am writing this now to post later. Currently it is Friday night and I just got back from quite a busy day.
I suppose I should start off with a recap of yesterday. I left my house for the airport in Hamburg around 11:30. Man, I was glad to get out of Hamburg! It was a humid day and I was really hot and sweaty carrying my stuff to the train station and around the airport! On the way to the runway our plane went past the new big Lufthansa plane, which is named for Hamburg. It was kind of a big deal for the city and for the airline, I think.
Anyway I got to London early afternoon (not quite sure what time, I keep getting mixed up because London is one hour behind Hamburg) and had to go through customs and passport check. I'm glad I speak English, because I had to go through all the questioning and stuff, and that would have been super hard in another language! Mainland European travel is way more relaxed, at least as far as border control goes.
The Underground from Heathrow took a while to get all the way into the city center. It was so bizarre to hear almost everyone speaking English on the train! I've gotten so used to not being able to understand people that I kind of tune them out in public places. Even British English kind of sounds foreign to me--it takes a minute to realize I can actually understand what they're saying!
My hostel is in a great spot. It's literally right next door to St. Paul's Cathedral! The building is really cool too--it used to be the boys' choir school for the cathedral a long time ago. I love that I can walk around the corner and have St. Paul's and a bunch of little food market places right there. London doesn't have bakeries like Paris--it has food-to-go places where you can buy ready-made sandwiches, salads, sushi, fruit, and stuff like that. The one you literally see every one or two blocks is Pret a Manger, but there are a couple others, such as Eat and Abokado, that are all over the place too. You can also get this kind of stuff at the mini-supermarket chains like Tesco Express and Sainsbury's. Central to East London is definitely a business zone--skyscrapers going up everywhere and towering above the older buildings--so everybody utilizes the food-to-go shops during the workday. There are also the pubs, of course, and all the business people go there at the end of the day (there are literally big crowds standing around having social hour with their drinks), but the food there is more expensive. I've been buying sandwiches from the to-go places because they cost only a couple pounds each. After Paris, I need to cut back on my spending!
I went for a wander after I finally got settled in my hostel. Walked to the Thames first, because I've noticed that all the major cities I've visited in Europe are on a river, and the river is kind of the lifeblood of the city. In Prague and Paris, especially, I felt like I got a comprehensive view of the city as a whole when I walked along the river. Oddly, though, I didn't get that with the Thames. I crossed Blackfriars Bridge to the South Bank and started walking east along the river pathway, and I felt extremely confused. The skyline (and the bridges and the buildings along the water) is such a jumble of old and new that I wasn't quite sure what to look at. It's like the city is in the middle of transitioning from centuries of history to a very modern future, and right now it's stuck somewhere in the middle. It was a tad disorienting.
Anyway, I walked east along the river path towards London Bridge. There were loads of people out walking, running, or socializing at the pubs and restaurants. I was hungry so after I passed the Millennium Bridge and the reconstructed Old Globe Theatre, I went into an Eat store and got a tuna sandwich. I walked a little further, and at Pickford's Wharf just past the Clink Prison Museum there was moored the full-scale replica of the Golden Hinde, the little sailing ship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world. It was a cool spot and a ton of people were walking through that area, so I sat down on the wall at the edge of the docking inlet and did some drawing. A really good spot to people-watch! (In my case I'm usually observing people in order to draw them. Or at least that's my excuse.) I also ate my tuna sandwich, which wasn't super fancy but tasted good.
When it got to be 6:45 or so, I walked across London Bridge (which now is actually a really boring bridge--the one of Oliver Twist days is long gone) and back to St. Paul's. I got there a bit before 7:30, which was the time I had agreed to meet Richie (the Londoner that Marni and I met in the hostel in Prague). He showed up by 7:35 and we were off for our jaunt to Camden. We walked down the Strand and then caught one of the famous buses to Camden Town. It took a while to get there with all the traffic, but we had a nice talk in the meantime and Richie pointed out some buildings and other locations along the way.
The place in Camden we went to was a little hole-in-the-wall bar called the "Spiritual." It had funky art and all kinds of drawings and notes on the walls. I got a white marker from the bartender and wrote one of my favorite Needtobreathe lyrics in a blank spot: "When there's nothing we can't afford to sacrifice, there's no way they can put out your fire." Oh and Myles, if you're reading this, I also had a virgin mojito! It was yummy. Richie was laughing at me because I actually tried to eat all the fruit out of the bottom of it. Guess most people drink the alcohol out and leave the rest . . . but in my case it was all about the fruit! I paid £3.50 for that thing, and I wasn't letting it go to waste! Though I've gotta say, even at that price it was definitely much cheaper than all the other drinks were. Perks of not buying alcohol!
Anyway, the music started up around 9. There were three acts: the first was two girls playing guitar and cello and singing (they sounded really pretty together!); the second was a solo guy who played blues guitar and sang (his cover of "Got My Mojo Working" was classic!); and the last was a friend of the first two girls who played banjo while they sang along and accompanied with washboard and cello (that was some seriously good music, though unfortunately a couple songs had some very harsh lyrics). Overall I enjoyed it a lot. The place was small enough and we left early enough that it didn't get too crazy or loud. The music ended around 11:15 and Richie and I left shortly after that. It was a fun evening, if a bit different from what I would normally do. I liked the music for sure--it's always fun to hear indie artists play live, and I haven't really gone to one of those hole-in-the-wall places for music in a long time. It was cool to see Richie again too. We compared notes on Paris because we both took trips there within the last few weeks. Sounds like I got better weather when I was there than he did on his trip!
Today (Friday) was definitely a tiring day! Weather was super nice though. I woke up at 9 and started the morning with a walk across the street past St. Paul's to the Sainsbury's mini grocery in Paternoster Square. Bought some apples, a pint of milk, and (of course) a box of Weetabix! The hostel charges for pretty much everything, including breakfast, so I decided it was cheaper to get my own food and then just eat that in the hostel dining room (they don't mind if I use a bowl and spoon). Breakfast routine here has become: walk to Sainsbury's, buy a pint of milk and whatever other lunch food I'll need, then zoom back to hostel and eat. Seems to work well.
Decided to do the self-guided walking tour that Mom so helpfully found online for me. (She's been jokingly caling herself Mommie's Travel Agency and sending me all these links for the cities I'm planning to visit.) The guide said it was a long walk, because it hit most of London's major landmarks, but I wanted to do it to help me get my bearings. Boy, they weren't kidding about it being long though! I didn't even do the whole thing, and I kind of deviated from it in places.
The guide told me to start at London Eye, but I cut off the first couple stops since they were just modern tourist stuff and started at Westminster Bridge and Houses of Parliament. The Big Ben tower and the Parliament buildings are beautiful, of course, but that area is such a crazy tourist scene! I quickly discovered that a lot of the walk went through all the main tourist areas, which was part of the reason I deviated from the route a couple of times. Anyway, the next steps took me up Whitehall, past the street where the Prime Minister lives ( the gate is heavily guarded by police) and Horse Guards (poor horses and guards who have to stand mounted in the kiosks! Their attire must get so hot and uncomfortable, and they have people constantly taking photos and wanting to pet the horses.) Next I came to Trafalgar Square, but I basically looked and then kept going because it was the middle of the day and it was crazy. From there the guide said to walk up the Mall, but it is long and it looked kind of boring to just walk all the way up it. So I cut off to the left and paralleled the route by walking through St. James's Park. I loved it! It is a really beautiful park, more organic and natural than the parks in Paris but a tad more manicured than the Hamburg parks. I've enjoyed watching the water birds in Hamburg, but the variety of waterfowl in St. James's Park is incredible, and they're so fun to watch. The birds are so used to people feeding them that they will come straight up to you. These are seriously the most feisty and spoiled park birds I've ever seen--they're constantly squabbling and pecking at each other and they basically get fed every two minutes--but very entertaining nonetheless. I couldn't even count all the species I saw, but there were two or three kinds of ducks, at least two kinds of geese, and sea gulls, pigeons, coots, white pelicans, white swans, and even a black swan! Marni told me about black swans, but this was the first time I'd seen one. (This swan was the meanest bird of them all, by the way--it snapped at any duck who came within a three-foot radius when any food crumbs were nearby.)
Anyway, after a very pleasant detour through the park, I came to Buckingham Palace. The plaza was of course a total scene, so I just sat on a wall in the shade at the edge of it and did a watercolor painting of the palace from there. There was no royal flag flying over the roof, so I guess the Queen is away from home right now . . .
The walking tour told me to just zoom up the edge of Green Park because it was "one of London's least interesting parks," but I had to use the bathroom so I cut through the middle of the park to find one. I thoroughly disagree with the writer of the tour--Green is an absolutely lovely park! The light and shadows from the trees were falling all across the grass, and people were camped out everywhere on the lawns eating ice cream, having picnics, taking naps and tanning in the for-rent striped lawn chairs, etc. It was like a scene straight out of an Impressionist painting. I finally found the bathroom (took me a while because it was actually in the tube station at the edge of the park), but when I located it I discovered it was a pay toilet with a coin slot and turnstile at the door. I didn't have the right change, but I had to go so bad that I ended up jumping the turnstile and just going in. I felt bad for not paying, but at the same time I honestly didn't care. (Is it unethical to avoid paying for a pay toilet? Moral dilemmas of an American traveling in Europe . . .) Anyway, Green Park was so nice that I ended up having my lunch there. I found a nice spot under a tree and read my pocket Bible while I ate. It was so nice!
After that the walk sent me on a trek down Piccadilly Street, through Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square (all of which were swarming with tourists), and then took me all the way along the Strand and Fleet Street. On the Strand I popped into an office supply store and bought a new drawing pen--my old one officially bit the dust this week and I hadn't had time to replace it. I also walked through Covent Garden (pretty cool, a little like the L.A. Farmers Market) and past the Royal Opera House and the theatre on Drury Lane. When I got to St. Paul's I zoomed into the hostel to use the bathroom and refill my water, and then went east down Cannon Street to quickly see the Royal Exchange-Mansion House-Bank of England intersection. I cut off the rest of the walk there and called it quits, because I was tired and I wanted to go to the Evensong service at Westminster Abbey (you don't have to pay the rather exorbitant admission fee if you go to a service) at 5:45.
The service was not super long, and unfortunately you are basically escorted in and out so you don't have a chance to look around much, but I enjoyed it anyway. I spent most of the service just looking up at all the columns, arches, and stained glass. There are tons of famous people buried there--I saw a few people I had heard of just in the brief glances around that I took. The Westminster Abbey men's and boys' choir sang the music, which was beautiful.
After the service I wandered southwest a little and ended up looping down to Vauxhall Bridge and then back up to Houses of Parliament. By then it was definitely dinner time and I was hungry, so I bought a sandwich and a tomato ciabatta roll from Tesco Express. The sandwich was called a Ploughman's--it had a brown onion spread, nice thick white cheddar, tomato, mayo, and lettuce. And the ciabatta was good too. And it was super cheap, like less than £2. Score!
I walked back to St. James's Park to eat and found a bench near the big pond with all the birds. There was an older man, probably in his 60s, on the bench next to mine. He had a big, beautiful Belgian dog and he was brushing her fur. A family with two boys stopped to pet the dog and talked to him for a couple of minutes, and he mentioned that his dog was trained as a therapy animal, so a couple of minutes after the family had moved on and he was still sitting there, I asked him about the kind of therapy work his dog did. We ended up talking for close to an hour. He was an unusual but very interesting, and I think a very smart, man.
His advice to me:
1. No matter whether you are working with animals, kids, or employees, the key to getting them to behave properly is training. He said he never had to really use disciplinary measures on his dog, his daughter, or his factory employees whom he managed, because if they did something wrong he would simply say, "Okay, I've obviously trained you wrong. Let's go over it again!" He said that tactic worked really well--his daughter and his employees would always say, "Oh no! Here comes the hour-long RE-TRAINING dissertation!" and afterwards they would always be careful to do it right so they wouldn't have to be "re-trained" again!
2. If at the start of every year you choose one topic within your career field and read up on that topic throughout the year, over time you will become extremely skilled and knowledgable about your field and will gain an edge over others in your field.
3. Investing your money--and any money for your kids--in trust accounts that will build compound interest over time is a very wise financial move.
4. Dogs' anti-flea shampoo can cure acne because it kills the skin mites that create acne-causing bacteria (random, I know, and a little gross, but interesting).
5. Mashed potatoes can be used to cure chemical damage to skin and also to cure stomach ulcers, because they are starchy and create a coating over the damaged tissues that allows them to heal.
6. To achieve a goal (no matter how big or small), you have to be sure all your "critical success factors"--the things that will make the goal happen--are all lined up. Each success factor in turn is based on "necessary conditions"--the circumstances that will allow the success factor to exist. He drew me a diagram in my sketchbook. I remember learning this in business class, but I had completely forgotten about it until he brought it up!
6. To achieve a goal (no matter how big or small), you have to be sure all your "critical success factors"--the things that will make the goal happen--are all lined up. Each success factor in turn is based on "necessary conditions"--the circumstances that will allow the success factor to exist. He drew me a diagram in my sketchbook. I remember learning this in business class, but I had completely forgotten about it until he brought it up!
We talked a little about politics too. Obviously this guy has read up on a lot of subjects and has had a lot of helpful life experience!
After we finally parted ways, I walked back to Buckingham Palace. The crowds were gone, it was getting to be dusk, and it was sooooo nice! I spent about an hour drawing the statues on the Victoria Memorial out in front, until it got dark and the wind started to get chilly. Walked through Green Park again to get to the tube station, and the lampposts were glowing along all the pathways. It felt like I was either in Narnia or in a Sherlock Holmes story. Totally awesome!
So yes, it was a very long day. But I definitely love London. Not the touristy parts so much, but overall it's a very cool place. And as I've discovered, sometimes even the tourist attractions (like Buckingham Palace) can be absolutely amazing if you visit them late, after all the crowds have gone . . .
More to come soon! For now I'm gonna sleep!
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