Minding the gap

Hectic. adj. characterized by intense agitation, excitement, confused and rapid movement, etc. Yes, that is a pretty accurate way to describe the past three days. Um WOW! So I got back last night from a 3 day two night trip to LONDON BABY!!! Maria, one of my teammates, and I left early Monday morning on a train to Västerås to catch out flight to London. Even before we left, we knew that we really only had Monday evening and Tuesday to see the city so it would be a busy day and a half of site seeing. Well, as it turned out, we only really had Tuesday. The flight itself was good. It was just under 2 hours, and Maria and I made a new friend haha! I also learned that smoking is ok on planes as long as it's a certain type of cigarette... ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?! I was so baffled by that. Anywho... We were set to land at 4pm Monday afternoon, which would have given us sometime to do some exploring. While we landed actually 5 minutes, I don't know that we had factored in the possibility of it taking 2 hours for me to get through customs. At Stansted Airport, and in other EU nations, the customs line is split in to two different lines. There is the European Union citizen line (Maria's line) annnnnnd everybody else (my line). When we got off of the plane, there were actually more people in the EU line than the other line, so I was thinking "ok no problem, we'll get out at the same time. Great!" Not the case... Maria made it through in a matter of 5 minutes... two hours later I walk through the gates I had been staring at for what felt like days. Next we had to figure out where the Stansted Express was. After a 45 minute train ride to Liverpool St Station, we had to figure out just where exactly our hostel was and the best way to get there. After navigating the tube (yes, they call it the tube) like pros, we made it to our hostel... Of course by this time, it's dark out. hm. Instead of letting that discourage, we opted to do a bit of shopping so we could focus on seeing the major sites of the city Tuesday.

We hopped on the tube and rode it to Picadilly Circus. This is kind of London's equivalent to Times Square although muuuuuch smaller in size. It has the bright signs and a ton of tourist shops. Here, we were search of some books and cds for Maria. You may wonder why in the world my friend would want to shop for books while in London. Books in Sweden are actually incredibly expensive in comparison to what they are in the States and in London, ESPECIALLY books written in English (which is what she was looking for). Cds are also very expensive in Sweden. So while Maria searched for her books, I set up camp on the 4th floor of Waterstone's: the Language and Culture section. You can take the girl out of linguistics, but you can't take linguistics out of the girl. It was actually really nice to just sit there and read some Jennifer Coates and Judith Butler. In one book I picked up, I actually found an article by one of my grad school professors, Dr. Janet Bing. Thousands of miles away from home, it felt like I was sitting back in the ODU library preparing for class. It was a great feeling!

After we had finished looking in the bookstore and Cd store, we made our way back to the tube and headed toward Big Ben. It was so bizarre climbing the stairs out of the tube and suddenly seeing one of the world's most iconic clock towers. Ok, I'll admit I actually didn't see it at first. I was the tired idiot who was taking pictures of one of the buildings behind it... but that was only because i was literally right in front of it... wait, that doesn't make it sound any better haha! Then Maria directed my gaze from straight in front of me to up and there it was! BIG BEN! :) It was such a spectacular sight to see all lit up at night. The gorgeous gothic architecture was lit up by a light that made it look gold. The touch of green at the top of the tower was also spectacular. Sigh... Next we walked across the bridge, oh you know on of the bridges that crosses the Thames! and got a great look at the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament all lit up :) We had to hustle since the tube stops running at midnight and it was already 11:15. Before we wentback into the tube, we stopped to see Westminster Abbey all lit up. It was gorgeous, although in stark contrast with the buildings immediately surrounding since it looked silver while the other buildings looked gold. I just LOVE the architecture!

Our first full day in the city started very early! We were up at 645 to get ready for breakfast at 730. We didn't even bother to sit and eat it at the hostel. We took our toast and jam sandwiches with us and hopped on the tube. We went right back where we had left off the night before. I now had the opportunity to see the same landmarks just after sunrise. My uncle, who has offered some awesom critiques of my photos, told me that I should try to shoot more at sunrise and sunset since it's a softer light. I think he's on to something. These buildings looked so amazing in the morning light! After what can only be called an insane number of photos of the London Eye, Maria and I made our way to Westminster Abbey. Even though she had been to London twice before, she had never been inside the Abbey. This church was amazing. Walking into it brought a tear to my eye. Since we were there so early, there weren't too many people which was great. We were able to experience the church on a more intimate level without as many people to dodge and walk through. After we had walked into one of the chapels, Maria and I decided to head back to the front desk to pick up one of the complementary audio guides... yes, we were those people! Even though we looked like little old ladies with our maps of the churches and our guided tour phone looking things, it was GREAT! I learned so much about not only the church and it's history, but also about those who are buried there and who have visited there.

As we walked around the church, we saw the graves and tombs of some of the most noted kings, queens, priests, scientists, and writers in English history. We saw the tombs of Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, Henry the VI, James I, Richard I, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Rudyard Kipling... and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head! One thing that I thought was really neat about Poet's Corner (the place where most of the writers and composers are buried) was the fact that in some cases the autor's own words appear on their headstones. Also, the tombs the monarchs are buried in were so beautiful. It was so interesting to hear the care and effort put into creating these final resting places. We also were able to see the residence of the monks who currently live there as it is still an active church.

After we left the Abbey, we made our way to Buckingham Palace... Sadly, Mommom, I didn't see Harry so I couldn't tell him 1.) that you say hello and 2.) that ou want him to marry me. Oh well, maybe next time. Haha! For everyone else reading, that is honestly what my mommom told me to tell him! Is it any wonder why I love her so much?! I was rather disappointed by Buckingham. Here I was thinking I'd be able to keep up my series of awkward photographs with guards of royal palaces only to discover that the guards are kept fenced in! LAME! Oh well... I got a decent picture of a guard, looks like I'll just have to photoshop myself in, haha. After only a visit long enough to snap a couple of photos, we were off to our next destination: HARRODS!!!

Ok, being as neither Maria nor myself have money to burn, we avoided buying anything here. In fact, as we walked through the antiques section of the store, Maria whispered to me: "Don't touch annnyything." HAHA! Good looking out teammate! When we got to the glass section of the store she whispered a bit louder, "Don't even look at anything. It might break." BAHAHAHA! Awesome! Thanks Maria :) In all honestly, this store may be the most confusing place on earth. No really it's worse than a house of mirrors. Maria and I could never find what we were looking for and when we finally did we realized that we had been just a doorway away from what we were looking for 10 minutes prior haha! Anyways, after our grand Harrod's adventure, we made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral, but in traditional Maria and Casey fashion: we got lost in the courtyard and walked arrrrooounnd the church to find the entrance haha!

Another amazing church, this was the church the late Diana of Whales and Prince Charles were married. Looking around this church, I cannot imagine being married in this cathedral. It was so grand with all of its mozaics and domes. Again, Maria and I opted to be little old ladies and listen to the guided audio tour. This time we had headphones attached to an IPOD! it was crazy! We sat in the wonderful church and listened to all of the incredible historic moments that occurred here and even got to see some videos taken from inside the church during these moments. I appreciated that because it gave you an idea of how the church appears during formal events. For instance, I could imagine myself in attendance of Diana and Charles's wedding or Sir Winston Churchill's state funeral. We decided to skip ahead and forgo the crypt for the time being and head up to the whispering gallery and then eventually the roof... The whispering gallery overlooked the main dome of the church just above the high altar. It was an amazing view. When we got to the whispering gallery the attendant told us that if we wanted to go up to the next levels that we should do so soon since the church was closing to tourists in half an hour. Maria and I figured we had climbed 200 stairs already, what was another 358? So up we went! The stairs wound and wound and wound up progressively getting more and more narrow. We did get to see a crucial construction within the church. The main dome above the high altar is situated under a second arch. In order to support this second dome, a cone was constructed on top of the first dome. On the way to the top, we got to see this cone. Ok it's nerdy cool, but still cool haha! When we got to the top, it was the most amazing view of London. From this spot we could see EVERYTHING! The London Eye, Big Ben, the Globe, the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London... everything a tourist could dream of seeing! After snapping away furiously that high up, it was time to head back down. The trip down the stairs was TERRIFYING! I didn't remember the stairs being that narrow. Even my baby feet had trouble hitting the stairs just right. Once we reached the ground, we made a beeline for the Millenium Bridge and then the Globe.

Since neither one of us were really interested in going into the theater, we snapped a few photos here and moved on. It was right about this time that my feet started screaming. Boy was I an idiot for not wearing tennis shoes. At this point in the day, I had been on my feet for 9 hours and felt every minute and every step. We made our way along the Thames (still so cool to say!) passing the London Bridge heading toward the Tower Bridge. By now, the sun was starting to set so the light on the Tower Bridge was IDEAL! Seriously, Uncle Harry is totally on to something haha! The pictures here turned out SO beautifully!!! After the Tower Bridge we stopped by the Tower of London and had a quick look around. We headed back to the hostel for a brief second so I could change my shoes, thank gosh! After that we headed back to picadilly circus to find something to eat. We ate at a Mexican restaurant, I guess my American eating habits are starting to come back full force! haha!

The next day started earlier than the one before. We headed to the tube, navigated our way to the airport where we did some light shopping. Maria found the book that she had had trouble finding for the past two days, and I found a gift for a family member and a book for me to read :)

When we got back to Sweden, we had a couple of hours to kill in Västerås before our train arrived. What did we do? We ate and shopped, haha!!! Gosh I'm going to miss small trips like this. You know, just going to another European country for a couple of days haha! What a great get-a-way!!! :)