Day One - Londinium

So, first day in London.

I got off of the plane at London Heathrow at 7:40 pm. Customs was a breeze, but I think there were many racial and/or nationality issues that influenced that brevity. I had prepared to document my travels up to when I check into my dorm in Wuerzburg, but the question was never asked of me. Now, the people who were in front of me? Totally different story. Their bags were taken and “randomly” inspected, they had to prove financial independence, and their visa required a supervisor’s approval. Granted, the US has good relations with UK’s customs and immigration in that we don’t need to apply for a visa beforehand. I guess that could have played a role as well.

I walked for what seemed to be an eternity of walking, I finally found the London Underground station, Piccadilly line into Central London. One of the plagues of London is its underground system; much like many other benchmarks of the modern world, London has had the misfortune of being first. The trains are surprisingly small. I’m 6’2-ish, and I could not have laid down end to end of the narrow end of the train. Needless to say, as the train progressed into the city, the problem got worse and worse. Of course, it didn’t help that some middle-aged man reading the Metro, a free newspaper, was obstinate in his very unaccommodating stance in the middle of the doorway.

When I finally got out of the Tube at Mansion House Station, I got lost. I was an idiot and forgot to print out my rather detailed itinerary with turn-by-turn directions, so I relied on my memory from Google Maps. I made a few wrong turns, wound up next to the London Stock Exchange (the wrong side of St. Paul’s Cathedral), and was saved only by the grace of London’s “Go This Way” signs pointing to attractions and districts instead of streets (which, by the way, change names every few blocks.)

Eventually I found the very narrow street adjacent to my hostel (see picture.) I walked past the entrance once and had to turn around to find it again. This turned out to be the story of my day – getting lost and turning around.

After I threw my stuff into a locker, I went off to explore the touristy-stuff to get it out of my system. Naturally, this means that I went straight to Westminster. The thought that imbues my day is London and its history. The Westminster is the one of the richest areas of London, in both cultural, historical, and economic assets. It is home to Westminster Abbey, Westminster Palace (where the Houses of Parliament assemble), and just some really cool-looking streets. Among these incredibly wealthy areas is Mayfair. It reminds me of Amsterdam.

Afterward, I saw Buckingham Palace, St. James Place, and took a walk along the south bank. About halfway across Westminster Bridge, I realized that I had slept about 45 minutes in the last 36 or so hours. A wave of narcolepsy came over me, so I went to my hostel (at 1:30 in the afternoon) and went to sleep. I slept until about 6pm, at which time I was hungry. I noticed a lot of restaurants on the South Bank, so I made my way across the Millennium Bridge and restarted my walk. I found a pub with a reasonably-priced menu, went in, ordered a beer and a meat pie (hopefully not of the Sweeney Todd variety…). The pie was delicious, the beer, not so much. I guess there was a reason it was the evening’s special – nobody would buy it otherwise.

After a rousing observation of crowds (and noticing that all of the cigarette cartons had stickers that said “US Duty Paid” and “Smoking Kills”), I walked a bit more. I meandered across the re-built London Bridge, peeked down into the Tower of London’s Traitor’s Gate, and spent an entirely too long time trying to find my way back to the hostel (because it was dark outside – my circadian rhythm told me it was time to sleep, even though I had awoken from a 4 hour nap a mere 3 hours earlier.) I got lost, found myself at the Guild Hall, meandered a bit more and discovered St. Paul’s Cathedral as I crawled about the winding medieval streets. My hostel doesn’t have internet connection (or at least not free), so I have to bum it off of the ubiquitous American food chains, which do offer free internet: Starbuck’s and McDonald’s.

I’ll write more about my adventures at the National Portrait Gallery and whatever else I find tomorrow.