Semana Santa Parte Tres - London

The last morning of our stay in Paris both of us remaining from the group woke up and ate our last authentic crepes and promptly caught the metro to the airport, which took 30 min. We then caught a flight to London which lasted maybe a couple hours at most. Upon landing in London it was stereotypically grey and chill. We also didn't realize that while London has four different large airports they aren't necessarily all close. After a one hour bus ride we then arrived at the "tube" as London calls its metros, and took the lines to the stop where the apartment rental company said they would meet us. Three of us had looked online and found a site that rents apartments in flexible amounts and we chose a week for $45 each a night. By London standards this was a steal, as the nearby dirty hostels that were available cost about the same a night. The reason we were staying the longest in the most expensive area of the trip so far was that we were going to a concert of some pretty big names the last night of the week.

So we finally got off at our stop and it was raining now, which furthered no doubt in my London preconceptions so far, and waited for the representative to meet us in car. After a little we met with the rep and were driven on the wrong side of the road about 4 mintues down the road into this neighborhood of little brick 2 floor developements that looked pretty well kept, which was reassuring because for the price we were paying we theoretically could have very well been placed in the ghetto. Fortunately we were not in the ghetto.




This is the whole thing, except for the bathroom which was back behind me. True London style it was "quaint". At least it was new looking, spotless, and fully furnished.

Including this kitchen as well which was stocked as well thank god. We used this kitche the whole time in order to save money. There were many halal markets around us because we apparently were in a predominantly arab/muslim section of the outskirts of London, so groceries were often not far away although sometimes strange in nature.

We had a lot of time to explore this massive city, a week to be exact, so we took it casually and saw a couple things a day or so, seeing many important landmarks. One was the London museum.

Here's an example of one of the many artifacts the museum had. It was mainly London history but it went quite far back in time.

Another historical building we went to was St. Paul's cathedral.

We entered the front and were greeted by a very british, older "fellow" standing beside felt rope cordoning off the rest of the interior of the church. I snapped this picture quickly without a flash after I read the 10 pound entry fee sign. $20, no thank you, I'd rather eat. After I took the photo the dour "fellow" by the felt rope gate warned "no photos please!" in a condescendingly polite british manner as was customary.

This is none other than the house of God this is the gate of Heaven -and it costs $20 to enter said gate apparently.

The next day we decided to take the "tube" as the british call their metro, or subway station, to central London to explore part of the city. As you can imagine, like the heart of any major metropolis, it's where the money is at. That grey car pictured there is a new Rolls Royce Phantom, worth around 350,000 euros last I saw in a magazine.

It was parked down the street from the Bentley dealership we came across as we continued on. That there is a Bentley sedan, I forget the model name, but I believe it's in their mid range section of only 250,000 euroes.

I decided to sum up the nerves to enter the dealership after I looked inside and saw this is well.

Price tag: 1,100,000 euro.

Yes, 1.1 million euro, or $1.7 million american if you want to put it that way. What is it you might ask?

This is the Bugatti Veyron.

There are only going to be 300 total in the world. It has an 8.0 L, 4 turbo, W16 engine with about 1,000 hp and a top speed of 253 mph. You do get a 24 hour available mechanic to be flown in included with the deal at least.

That made me quite desensitized to the petty Porsches I walked past at the next dealership and mildly impressed by the Rolls Royce dealership next to that. After that we hopped a double decker red bus and took it back to the apartment to eat. The next day we decided to see Big Ben so we looked up the location and figured out the "tube" and bus routes to get there and got it done.

Here is said Big Ben.

A close up.

On the walk down the street from Big Ben we walked by a row of sculptures. Here is the famous General Monty. All I could think of was the movie Patton and laugh at his stern figure with its goofy moustache.

Not to be confused with this Monty of the Python type however, whose sign I saw farther down the street.

A couple days later we decided to see the royal palace. On the way we found we could go see the London Tower bridge as well, which is not to be confused with the London Bridge which we didn't get to see but were mislead to believe was this one based on it's popularity in photography. The plaque on the support of the Tower Bridge let us know where we actually were. Nonetheless it still looked cool.

Later on we saw the royal palace. This shot was taken with my hand placing the camera through the fence that protected the outer perimeter. I'm not sure what side of the palace I'm on in the photo but it was not as impressive as I imagined so I hope this wasn't the best side of it. It was quite large and we were quite tired so we did not circumnavigate the landmark to find out otherwise.

The guards did change posts while we were there however and do their funny march with the hand swinging and awkwardly high leg movements. Their assault rifles dont look so funny however. This also had to be the back of the palace or something because these guards, while they marched silly, were not dressed silly, like I had heard about, with the giant furry hat/helmet thing and bright red garb.

The day before we were to go to the concert we got an e-mail from the ticket provider that the event got rescheduled to April 15th instead. Wonderful, the whole reason we stayed in one of the most expensive areas of Europe for so long was we were at least going to go see some of the member of Wu-Tang, a hip hop group, perform at the end of the week. Oh well, at least we can just get our money back if we don't want to go, which isn't the problem, it's that we don't live in London. All in all each spot of spring break was amazing and each had certain distinct characteristics that made for some memorable times. If only I had picked warmer places to visit instead, oh well, maybe next time I'm back in Europe.