Day 3: Day Tripper, yeah...

For some reason... for some reason... I don't know what the reason was... but for some reason, there was a pack of men outside on the street playing soccer (or football as they call it in England) until 2AM.
Because my grandma and I were sharing a room next to the streets, and because the windows and walls weren't that thick... well, I didn't get such a good night of sleep.
We had a busy day planned and therefore, I had to get up early to take a shower. No sooner was the shower taken, than I was besieged with a migraine. Thankfully, it wasn't the most severe of migraines - only threw up twice, woohoo! - and we were on the road by noon.

Our first stop was The Sherlock Holmes Museum, 221b Baker Street.

The Museum is first come, first serve, so you have to wait in line until the nice guardsman at the door lets you in. (Meanwhile, you can take pictures with him!)

Also, conveniently located next to the line was The Beatles Shop!

Inside, all things Beatles... CDs, books, postcards, socks (!!!), bookmarks, luggage, and, of course, t-shirts!

Lots and lots and LOTS of t-shirts! Across from the ones I'm looking at above, there were even more! I got one that has this picture on it:

Finally we reached the end of the line and were let into The Sherlock Holmes Museum!
On the ground floor is a tasteful little hat rack for guests (and a view into the gift shop). Then you ascend seventeen steps (yes, they got the number right from the books; I counted) and you are on the First Floor which includes the sitting room where so many of Holmes and Watson's adventures begin, and Sherlock Holmes' bedroom.

In the sitting room, opposite a couch for clients, and next to the fireplace, are the two familiar chairs where Holmes and Watson have often reclined. There are props available for your use as you pose as The Great Detective and his Conductor of Light.

(Notice the Persian slipper on the mantlepiece?)

(Striking a Sherlockian pose. Though for the life of me I couldn't remember if Sherlock Holmes [in the books] put his steepled hands under his chin or not! I know Benedict Cumberbatch made a comment on how his Sherlock didn't do it the right way... but I couldn't remember which way was right.)

(Who knew the Great Detective wore a blue rain jacket? [And a deerstalker, for that matter...])

On the next floor was Dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson's rooms. Dr. Watson's room was full of memorabilia and furniture of the Victorian era, while Mrs. Hudson's room was full of display cases containing articles and clues from the books including but not limited to...

The next level was my favorite. Wax scenes from the books!

(Excuse my poor editing skills of the above picture. The room was too small and too full of people to take the full picture so I had to smush it together.)

Tintin had lots of fun with the waxwork as well...

(From 'The Man With The Twisted Lip')

("Oh, darling, what is that thing you're carrying?!" "I don't know, darling! I can't get it off me!")

(What's that in her veil? From 'Charles Augustus Milverton')

Tintin also got to meet The Hound of the Baskervilles...

At this point Tintin was having a flashback from our trip to the East Coast two years ago...

(Dinosaur at the Creation Museum in Kentucky)

One of the creepier wax figures was...

JAMES MORIARTY! 

The museum is a wonderful place to go! Especially if you are a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Next up... lunch! We went across the street to a restaurant decorated with murals of Sherlock Holmes. I had a pancake. It was very good. But I missed my cousin, whom I usually eat pancakes with. 

Baker Street is a really fun place to go!

After lunch (which we ate around 2:00) my dad and I split ways with my mom and grandma. Grama wanted to go back to the Westminster Abbey gift shop to buy a few things, so Mom decided to go with her.

Daddy and I, on the other hand, went to Abbey Road!

And on Abbey Road... Abbey Road Studios!

You walk along a low, white wall, filled with tributes to The Beatles and then find yourself in front of...

 

And across from that...

Strangely enough, this was one of my favorite parts of London! For some reason, it just made me very, very happy. 

One thing I was not expecting was how many people there were crowded around, trying to take pictures! You had to wait your turn. And if you had four people, and no one to hold the camera, men were there in green jerseys that said HELP and they would take your picture for you!

My dad and I were supposed to go to Westminster Abbey to meet my mom and grandma after this... but we made a few stops along the way.

Our associate pastor at church, when he found out we were going to London and not going to see the British museum, was outraged. "You HAVE to go and see the Rosetta Stone!" he said.

So we popped in just for him.

I am DETERMINED to go back to London so that I can spend a good few days sifting through the British Museum. It's free and it's HUGE and it has SO much cool stuff! We only walked through a corner of the Egypt section, but I wished we could have stayed longer!

Man, can you believe that thousands of years ago, someone carved all those symbols on that rock? And they knew what it all meant too! And that it survived all these years! It really is truly amazing.

(Pigeons on the glass roof.)

Our plan was to take the tube from the British Museum to Westminster Abbey. We were alright for the first half of the trip, but then we had to change trains. So, we walked (underground - how cool!) quite a good ten minutes or so only to find out that the line was being worked on... so we had to walk all the way back.

We asked a kind gentleman what the quickest way to get to Westminster would be and he said we could either take the bus over the Thames (for we were on the wrong side) or walk across one of the bridges.

We decided to walk so that we could get some pictures of Big Ben.

Tired though we were, we walked along the waterfront, passed the London Eye (whoa! LONG lines there!), and then over a bridge, RIGHT passed Big Ben!!

Once across the bridge we were only a hop, skip, and a jump away from Westminster Abbey. But we couldn't go over there without getting a picture with this guy...

As I said before... You gotta love Winston Churchill! (Once, a woman who was upset with him came up and said, "If you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee!" He replied, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it!")

Finally we found my mom and grandma. We had worried them because we were so late. Sorry Mom!

One of the things my grandma was adamant about seeing in London was the Tower of London, so we took the tube there.

 

And nearby, the Tower Bridge...

And quite close by all this, part of an old Roman wall that has been standing since the year 190 AD!!

Incredible, incredible, incredible to stand next this old, old artifact. Absolutely amazing. It's situated next to a posh hotel, with some houses behind it.

The end of the wall is near the tube station, and there is a nice Roman statue there as well.

 

We were getting hungry by this time (though some nice, fresh honey-roasted peanuts did tide us over) and it was getting dark... but there was one last stop that we had to make...

A real police box!!! In the 1960's, police boxes were common sights on the streets of London. It's basically a "mini-police station." It has a phone on the inside for the police, or just regular people, to call the police from in case of emergency.

The police box was made famous because of the British sci-fi show Doctor Who, where a mysterious time-traveling alien, well, travels through time and space in one of these police boxes! (Don't worry, it's bigger on the inside).

It was pouring rain by this time, though we had had nice weather earlier in the day. This was in a part of town that we really hadn't researched. We knew the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) was around somewhere... but where? We didn't know. We were trying to decide whether or not it was worth it to wander around looking for it, when we asked someone if they knew where it was. Low and behold it was about twenty feet away to the tube station (on the right)! So we popped over for a few pictures.

 

Finally we arrived back in the neighborhood of our hotel, nearly weak from hunger. Of course, the obvious place to eat dinner was the Dicken's Tavern!

 

That's where we ate the bangers and mash. 

Tintin! What would Captain Haddock say?

There ends our third and final day in London! Next, on to the Netherlands!

Slaap lekker! (Good night, have a nice sleep, etc.)

Day 2 (part 2): Westminster Abbey

When we got outside of the Globe, it was pouring rain! Luckily, we brought an umbrella with us.
In London, when it rains, it RAINS. I live in an area where it rains pretty consistently; but it's more of a persistent drizzle. In London, even the individual rain drops seemed bigger than the ones where I live.
When it rains where I live, it's almost a sign of weakness to pull out an umbrella. Instead, people run for cover like rabbits. In London, when it starts to rain, umbrellas pop up everywhere. Every different type of umbrella imaginable! Every shape, every color, every design.

(And, evidently, everyone wants to cross the Millennium Bridge at once...)

On our way to lunch, we walked past the house the Benjamin Franklin lived in when he was in London.

Pretty exciting! But why is there a skeleton in the third floor window on the right...?

Next, lunch at...

The Sherlock Holmes pub! This is where I ate fish 'n chips.

What a cool restaurant! Downstairs, they had a bar, where they were playing Sherlock on TV. Upstairs, there was the restaurant! They had a display in one corner, modeling the sitting room at 221b Baker Street complete with the bust Sherlock Holmes made of himself for The Empty House story (to trick Sebastian Moran into thinking he was in the window, when he really wasn't. Tintin uses the same trick in Tintin in America)

 

 

It was like playing Spot the Sherlock Holmes Reference. In the corner stood a harpoon, on the chair sat his violin, on the table were visiting cards from Lestrade and Dr. Mortimer and Charles Augustus Milverton and several other familiar names. The correspondence was stuck into the mantlepiece with a knife. Science equipment was lined against the wall, and above it the initials "V.R." had been shot into the wall. On the sofa was the key to The Dancing Men, and on the table two ears, packed in salt, were waiting to be investigated. 

After that, we took the bus to Westminster Abbey for an Easter service; Lessons in Carols.

There was one place that I wanted to see in Westminster Abbey, and that was the Poet's Corner (with monuments honoring those such as The Bronte Sisters, Jane Austin, George Frederick Handel, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser, and others). Because it was Easter, they weren't doing tours, and weren't letting anyone wander around. Seats were set up everywhere for the services. Do you know where they sat us? Us in the Poet's Corner!

I must say that now that I think back to the event, it's quite amazing, but at the time, I was too awed to notice. 

Westminster Abbey is the first big, regal cathedral that I've ever been in. Being in such an old place of worship, where thousands of believers over the centuries have gathered - and were gathered that day! - to worship our Creator overwhelmed me with emotion. All I could think was, Who wouldn't want to worship our God? 

Some people in the church just wanted to get a look at the inside, and when the service started, got up and left after the first song or two. My thoughts changed to, How can they just walk out like that? Why aren't they falling to their knees in submission to God?

Those architects who built Romanesque and Gothic style buildings believed that people could be converted just by walking into their churches and seeing the splendor of them. In a place like Westminster Abbey (which, I believe, is Gothic... but I'm not sure), I can believe it!

The service was very interesting. The priest would read some Bible verses, and then a men and boy's choir would sing a beautiful song to accompany it. At one point they lit incense, which only happens at special services like on Easter. I thought that was pretty cool.

It was especially nice because I've been studying church history and I know the history behind the church now. I have so much more appreciation for services like this. While I think that having a personal relationship with Jesus is the best way to go, there is something to be said for giant, mass services like that in Westminster Abbey. It was really quite amazing.

Even though technically you aren't allowed to take pictures inside... my dad sort of sneaked a few on his phone.

(The ceiling, which makes me think that maybe this church is build in the Romanesque style. All the old church in Holland have this sort of ceiling. It's really beautiful!)

 

(Part of the Poet's Corner. See Shakespeare in the middle? He's sticking his calf out to show it off!)

We were going to go and see Big Ben, but since it was pouring when we got outside, we decided to just go back to our hotel.

We passed Nelson's Column...

 

And a big blue chicken...

And many a red phone box.

Name that Tintin book!

The weather turned nice - and even a bit sunny! - late in the afternoon/evening, and my dad and I decided to walk to find the Allies Bench.

In World War II, the three major powers fighting against Germany were Winston Churchill and England, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United States. They were called "The Big Three."

(You gotta love Winston Churchill. You just have to.)

There's a bench dedicated to "The Big Three" in London and my dad and I went and found it. 

Only it's missing someone...

After that, we walked to where the Embassies are, to find the American and the Canadian ones.

The Canadian Embassy (and all the other countries) is really nice... it's just like a house with a Canadian flag on it... it even has a nice little balcony...

And then you turn to the American Embassy and it has electric fences surrounding it, and those things that come out of the ground to stop cars (in National Treasure 2, Ben drives over them to get away from the police in the parking lot of the Library of Congress), and there are guards posted every few feet. And not just nice guards. Guards with HUGE GUNS. Though one did nod at my dad as we passed. 

You'd think we were the world's most hated country or something...

After that, we took a detour through Hyde Park to get back to our hotel. We walked passed Speaker's Corner, where people gather of a Sunday and speak about whatever they want. We didn't stop to listen too long. As we were walking away, we heard this guy say to his girlfriend, "I mean, really? Don't those guys have a life or something? They should go get a life!"

Hyde Park is really gorgeous - and HUGE! It would be fun to go back and explore it. 

Thus ends Day Two of our adventure!

Stay tuned for Day Three...

Live long and prosper.