My troubles with BT continue, so you get another megapost. Actually, saying that I have troubles with BT is like saying I have troubles with SU football coach Greg Robinson. Despite my every effort to the contrary, I doubt he even knows I exist. Regardless, I wrote these posts over a couple of days, but they are all separated by the proper dates. Enjoy!
9/14/07
Today was the school tour of the Tower of London. At least, that’s what I thought it was when I signed up for it. After I got there, it turned out that it was a tour of the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey!
Now, admission into the Tower of London alone is quite expensive, and I was saving a pretty penny by letting Syracuse University London pick up my tab. But admission to Westminster Abbey has also been known to drain the wallet. So it was almost like I hit the jackpot when I found out I was getting twice the fun for the same refundable £5 deposit.
Norman Reuter, who typically runs an architecture course at SUL, was our tour guide. He’s taking the semester off from teaching, but he sure has thrown himself into his continued involvement at the school. Our group met at 10:30 a.m. at the Tower Hill Tube stop, and we didn’t finish up until around 4:30 in the afternoon. We did spend some time waiting for students who showed up late and we had a break in the middle of the tour, but there was still a lot of information to take in over a relatively short time.
The Tower of London
The Tower of London is not as tall or as compact as you might expect from popular perception. Although we didn’t go to the highest points, it seems to sit a great deal lower then you’d expect. This is in part because the grass around the outer wall is eight feet higher than the water level of the moat used to be. It is also because the tower was built when buildings were a lot shorter – five or six stories meant a lot more hundreds of years ago.
Even so, the tower is quite impressive. It’s a hodgepodge of different fortifications and towers built at different times over several hundred years. At the center is the large cube that is the “White Tower.” Interestingly enough, the entrance to the White Tower is on the second story and has only been accessible through a wooden staircase. That is so you can burn the staircase to further fortify your position if need be. At the bottom, the stone walls are something like 14 feet thick.
Another interesting thing about the Tower of London in general is that something like 200 people still live there. The Governor of the Tower of London is a position of prestige, and prisoners were held in the same tower that makes up the back part of his house. The last prisoner to be held in the Tower of London was Adolph Hitler’s secretary during World War II. He was held there throughout the war until he faced trial for war crimes.
A final interesting fact about the tower: Ravens are kept there by royal decree. It has to do with a great fire that burned the West End of London but spared the east and the Tower of London. Ravens, flew into the tower to avoid the fire, and the King (I honestly don’t remember which one) declared that ravens should always be in the tower, the thought being that as long as ravens were there a member of the royal family would still be in power.
Finally, what we saw of the Bloody Tower was pretty disappointing. They had one example of a torture rack and two other torture devices, but we didn’t find any elaborate walk through the infamously named tower.
We also saw the Crown Jewels, since they keep them in the Tower of London. It might have just been the way the splashed light on the jewels, but they sparkled more than any gems I’ve seen. They were quite nice, though I’d imagine they were quite heavy to wear at your coronation.
Overall, the tower was fun, and I’m glad I saw it. (Especially considering I only had to pay Tube fare.) It still didn’t live up to it’s portrayal in the infamous Goosebumps book, “A night in Terror Tower.”
Westminster Abbey
After we saw the Crown Jewels that kings or queens wear during coronations, we got to see the place where they kings or queens get coroneted.
First we got an hour to eat lunch. I managed to find a little shot selling fish & chips with a can of soda for just £2.50! Five bucks might seem like a lot for fish & chips, but by London standards, that is like getting a three-course meal for free. Even better, the food was pretty good. I expected the fish to be dry and the chips to be cold, but both were hot and juicy. The only real complaint I had was that the mayonnaise was a bit sweet, but I just added a little more vinegar to fix the problem.
One lunch was finished, we popped onto the tube and into Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately we were only allowed to use cameras in the cloisters and not the inside of the abbey.
This is where we started to hear a lot about architecture from our guide. I won’t go into all the details, but we did see a majestic room called the “Chapter House” which is where the House of Commons was born.
Inside the actual abbey, we saw the burial sites of many illustrious people. Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, several kings and queens, Isaac Newton and, perhaps most interestingly, Charles Darwin were buried there.
They abbey was quite impressive, although the attendants, who wear red cloaks over their suits, were a bit gruff. I didn’t have to deal with them personally, but they seemed to be a bit condescending and sometimes downright rude. I guess you can do that when you have a limitless number of tourists paying to see your Abbey.
Arching ceilings, beautiful decorations, a cross-shaped design: you know the drill with cathedrals and abbeys. I would share more with you, but you really need to see pictures of the interior to understand how nice it is. Use Google to find some, since the attendants and their red cloaks looked ready to smash my camera if I took it out of my pocket.
All of this translates into a very tiring day. Tomorrow I plan to show up at the “Open House” tour of Parliament in hope that someone who signed up won’t show up and I can take their spot. I’ll let you know how that goes.
9/15/07
Open House London
Early to bed and early to rise might make a man healthy and wise, but it is also a fact of life on Stourcliffe Street on Saturday. Apparently Saturday is rubbish day here, because this is the second week in a row I’ve been jostled awake by the sound of crashing and the burning clutch of a garbage truck.
That was alright by me, though, because I had to head over to Russell Square to meet yesterday’s guide, Norman Reuters, in hopes that I could tag along on the “open house” tour. As you no doubt know from your careful reading of yesterday’s writing, this was an architectural tour that was advertised as including a walk through the houses of Parliament – something that you can’t always do.
Long story short, I did get to go on the tour, but the Houses of Parliament weren’t open until Sunday. Deb and I plan to try to get in tomorrow. In the mean time, we got to go around London with a well-informed (and entertaining) guide on London’s Open House weekend – a weekend when buildings of high profile open their doors to the public.
We started off with a few places that I won’t bother describing. I have some pictures of the more interesting ones, so head over to my photo album to check those out. The highlights include a quite impressive sculpture and the fifth-most prestigious university in England.
After about an hour’s tour, we tried to take the #24 bus from the University of London to Parliament. The only trouble was that the #24 bus didn’t come, didn’t come, and didn’t come. Eventually we got on another bus with the intention of changing buses at Trafalgar Square. As we drove off on the bendy bus, we saw the double-decker #24 bus pull in behind us.
This was distressing for a few reasons. First, I haven’t been on a double-decker yet, and I would rather like to ride one. Second, we waited a long time for the bus, and now we were going to have to pay double the fare to take two buses where before we could have only taken one.
Alas, neither of these problems ended up being a real thorn in my side. The bus driver got on the loudspeaker and told the packed bus that there were severe delays due to heavy traffic from the open house events, so we would probably do better to walk. This is after we paid £1 for a ride of about 4 blocks.
Well, we got off and walked anyway. A girl convinced Mr. Reuters that we should just walk, and that proved to be both a blessing and a curse. That man moves. We all had a good deal of trouble keeping up with him, but we did get to see a few sights that weren’t advertised on the tour, including the market at Covent Garden and the Royal Opera House. I’d actually seen most of the sights before, but our guide gave me some new insights into their history and architectural foundation.
Then we walked by Downing Street, where security didn’t allow us to get anywhere near Number 10 and popped into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is the equivalent of the U.S. Department of State. After walking through there, I want to be a diplomat. “Lavish” and “posh” don’t even begin to describe that building.
We also managed to sneak to a window where we caught a glimpse of Number 10. Mr. Reuters tipped us off that we could see if through a certain window. The only problem was that there was a large display and strategically placed table blocking people from the window. We went by it anyway, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Prime Minister’s residence. Margaret Thatcher had, after all, just been there for tea with Gordon Brown this week! Just as we started looking at it, one of the attendants ushered us off, claiming there were snipers that wouldn’t like it if we started rustling the curtains. I have a feeling they told our guide that, too, but he told us to go have a look for ourselves.
Eventually we reached parliament to find it closed. This crushing blow was alleviated slightly by the fact that we were able to get in to the Portcullis House, where many members of Parliament have their offices. It’s quite a depressing black metal structure from the outside, but it is also very modern and nice inside. Sadly, we couldn’t take pictures inside for security reasons, so you’ll just have to ask me if you want to hear more about what it was like.
After that it was time to take the Tube over to the Lloyds Insurance building. It seems Lloyd’s grows so fast these days that they needed four new buildings in a span of 100 years, so they commissioned their architect to give them some flexibility for their new building, which was completed in 1986. It is fifteen floors, but Lloyds only uses four. They lease out the remaining floors right now, but plan to just move upwards as their needs expand. If the necessity arises, the building has also been designed so that they can actually build more floors on top.
The style of the building itself is very interesting. From the outside, it reminded me of a skeleton and muscles – just the important parts of the buildings. All the elevators were visible outside, as were the staircases. It was quite interesting. I would definitely recommend looking at the pictures of this one.
The tour finished up in St. Stephen’s Walbrook church, which was rebuilt in the late 1600s after the Great London Fire. It reminds me a lot of Howard Roarke’s church in The Fountainhead, although the parts that reminded me of that weren’t originally part of the design. Pews circle the altar, which is a piece of modern art created by an agnostic sculptor. There is no stained glass, so light comes in and makes the whole church seem very bright and welcoming. The design of the church is square, but it has a large dome, and the pillars supporting the dome make the shape of a cross on the floor plan.
Out guide explained that these design elements all mean something. The dome represents heaven, the square earth, and the cross, of course, represents Christianity. Pretty fancy, really.
All this added up to a pretty tiring day. It looks like we’ll be headed to the Thames Festival tomorrow, making for what should be a busy day. Tonight is for grocery shopping and sleep.
9/16/07
Parliament and the Thames Festival
There were two more exiting activities this weekend: Parliament’s open house and a visit to the Thames Festival, which is held at the end of summer. If you’ve stuck with the rest of this weekend’s blog post, you’ve got to be tired by now, so I’ll make this bit quick.
Since we were turned away from the doors of Parliament yesterday after learning that it was open Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday afternoon, Deb and I decided to hike right back down there and enjoy a free glimpse at the famous building.
And we did get in. There was quite a line, but it moved quickly, and after a trip through a metal detector and a pat-down from a security guard, we were walking into the oldest part of Parliament.
They didn’t actually open the chambers of the House of Lords or House of Commons, but the good people running the show were quick to inform us that for £12 we could come back during the next two weeks and get a guided tour that included those areas. That’s almost tempting, but I’m pretty sure we’ll have to be satisfied with the free tour of Westminster Hall, which is the oldest part of the building.
The literature says it is over 900 years old, and although it’s pretty dark and empty, it’s still impressive. Huge doesn’t even begin to describe the place, and there is no doubt that it’s old.
We also got to visit the Parliament gift shop, which had such exciting items as House of Commons or House of Lords key chains for £4.15 and House of Lords Scotch for £28. And while I was tempted to put down £3 for House of Commons Orange Marmalade with Champaign, I decided to save my money in order to try the food at the Thames Festival.
It was a good move. The festival was filled with lots of craft vendors and even more performers begging for a little change. There were singers, mimes, a girl who rolled glass orbs around on her arms, and even break dancers. A lot of people would stand or sit stone still and pretend to be statues or motionless machines. Whenever someone put a coin in their cap or tin receptacle, they would perform for a few minutes, as if they were a machine. There were at least 15 people who did this.
The festival stretched along the south bank of the Thames and was quite crowded. We had to wait awhile for food, but eventually secured some. I picked up a coconut with the top loped off to drink, and had some Creole fish patties to eat. I had never seen fish patties in the states, so I didn’t feel as if I was sticking to my American culture by eating them. Besides, they were delicious and relatively cheap.
A bit later we moved to the north bank to watch the parade, which was about 2 hours long and mostly filled with dancers, and then we took in the fireworks. They shot them off from boats in the Thames, and it was quite an impressive display.
And that concluded a packed weekend. I’m glad I can go to class tomorrow to get some rest. I don’t know, I might need it. Next Friday is the Stonehenge trip.
9/14/07
Today was the school tour of the Tower of London. At least, that’s what I thought it was when I signed up for it. After I got there, it turned out that it was a tour of the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey!
Now, admission into the Tower of London alone is quite expensive, and I was saving a pretty penny by letting Syracuse University London pick up my tab. But admission to Westminster Abbey has also been known to drain the wallet. So it was almost like I hit the jackpot when I found out I was getting twice the fun for the same refundable £5 deposit.
Norman Reuter, who typically runs an architecture course at SUL, was our tour guide. He’s taking the semester off from teaching, but he sure has thrown himself into his continued involvement at the school. Our group met at 10:30 a.m. at the Tower Hill Tube stop, and we didn’t finish up until around 4:30 in the afternoon. We did spend some time waiting for students who showed up late and we had a break in the middle of the tour, but there was still a lot of information to take in over a relatively short time.
The Tower of London
The Tower of London is not as tall or as compact as you might expect from popular perception. Although we didn’t go to the highest points, it seems to sit a great deal lower then you’d expect. This is in part because the grass around the outer wall is eight feet higher than the water level of the moat used to be. It is also because the tower was built when buildings were a lot shorter – five or six stories meant a lot more hundreds of years ago.
Even so, the tower is quite impressive. It’s a hodgepodge of different fortifications and towers built at different times over several hundred years. At the center is the large cube that is the “White Tower.” Interestingly enough, the entrance to the White Tower is on the second story and has only been accessible through a wooden staircase. That is so you can burn the staircase to further fortify your position if need be. At the bottom, the stone walls are something like 14 feet thick.
Another interesting thing about the Tower of London in general is that something like 200 people still live there. The Governor of the Tower of London is a position of prestige, and prisoners were held in the same tower that makes up the back part of his house. The last prisoner to be held in the Tower of London was Adolph Hitler’s secretary during World War II. He was held there throughout the war until he faced trial for war crimes.
A final interesting fact about the tower: Ravens are kept there by royal decree. It has to do with a great fire that burned the West End of London but spared the east and the Tower of London. Ravens, flew into the tower to avoid the fire, and the King (I honestly don’t remember which one) declared that ravens should always be in the tower, the thought being that as long as ravens were there a member of the royal family would still be in power.
Finally, what we saw of the Bloody Tower was pretty disappointing. They had one example of a torture rack and two other torture devices, but we didn’t find any elaborate walk through the infamously named tower.
We also saw the Crown Jewels, since they keep them in the Tower of London. It might have just been the way the splashed light on the jewels, but they sparkled more than any gems I’ve seen. They were quite nice, though I’d imagine they were quite heavy to wear at your coronation.
Overall, the tower was fun, and I’m glad I saw it. (Especially considering I only had to pay Tube fare.) It still didn’t live up to it’s portrayal in the infamous Goosebumps book, “A night in Terror Tower.”
Westminster Abbey
After we saw the Crown Jewels that kings or queens wear during coronations, we got to see the place where they kings or queens get coroneted.
First we got an hour to eat lunch. I managed to find a little shot selling fish & chips with a can of soda for just £2.50! Five bucks might seem like a lot for fish & chips, but by London standards, that is like getting a three-course meal for free. Even better, the food was pretty good. I expected the fish to be dry and the chips to be cold, but both were hot and juicy. The only real complaint I had was that the mayonnaise was a bit sweet, but I just added a little more vinegar to fix the problem.
One lunch was finished, we popped onto the tube and into Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately we were only allowed to use cameras in the cloisters and not the inside of the abbey.
This is where we started to hear a lot about architecture from our guide. I won’t go into all the details, but we did see a majestic room called the “Chapter House” which is where the House of Commons was born.
Inside the actual abbey, we saw the burial sites of many illustrious people. Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, several kings and queens, Isaac Newton and, perhaps most interestingly, Charles Darwin were buried there.
They abbey was quite impressive, although the attendants, who wear red cloaks over their suits, were a bit gruff. I didn’t have to deal with them personally, but they seemed to be a bit condescending and sometimes downright rude. I guess you can do that when you have a limitless number of tourists paying to see your Abbey.
Arching ceilings, beautiful decorations, a cross-shaped design: you know the drill with cathedrals and abbeys. I would share more with you, but you really need to see pictures of the interior to understand how nice it is. Use Google to find some, since the attendants and their red cloaks looked ready to smash my camera if I took it out of my pocket.
All of this translates into a very tiring day. Tomorrow I plan to show up at the “Open House” tour of Parliament in hope that someone who signed up won’t show up and I can take their spot. I’ll let you know how that goes.
9/15/07
Open House London
Early to bed and early to rise might make a man healthy and wise, but it is also a fact of life on Stourcliffe Street on Saturday. Apparently Saturday is rubbish day here, because this is the second week in a row I’ve been jostled awake by the sound of crashing and the burning clutch of a garbage truck.
That was alright by me, though, because I had to head over to Russell Square to meet yesterday’s guide, Norman Reuters, in hopes that I could tag along on the “open house” tour. As you no doubt know from your careful reading of yesterday’s writing, this was an architectural tour that was advertised as including a walk through the houses of Parliament – something that you can’t always do.
Long story short, I did get to go on the tour, but the Houses of Parliament weren’t open until Sunday. Deb and I plan to try to get in tomorrow. In the mean time, we got to go around London with a well-informed (and entertaining) guide on London’s Open House weekend – a weekend when buildings of high profile open their doors to the public.
We started off with a few places that I won’t bother describing. I have some pictures of the more interesting ones, so head over to my photo album to check those out. The highlights include a quite impressive sculpture and the fifth-most prestigious university in England.
After about an hour’s tour, we tried to take the #24 bus from the University of London to Parliament. The only trouble was that the #24 bus didn’t come, didn’t come, and didn’t come. Eventually we got on another bus with the intention of changing buses at Trafalgar Square. As we drove off on the bendy bus, we saw the double-decker #24 bus pull in behind us.
This was distressing for a few reasons. First, I haven’t been on a double-decker yet, and I would rather like to ride one. Second, we waited a long time for the bus, and now we were going to have to pay double the fare to take two buses where before we could have only taken one.
Alas, neither of these problems ended up being a real thorn in my side. The bus driver got on the loudspeaker and told the packed bus that there were severe delays due to heavy traffic from the open house events, so we would probably do better to walk. This is after we paid £1 for a ride of about 4 blocks.
Well, we got off and walked anyway. A girl convinced Mr. Reuters that we should just walk, and that proved to be both a blessing and a curse. That man moves. We all had a good deal of trouble keeping up with him, but we did get to see a few sights that weren’t advertised on the tour, including the market at Covent Garden and the Royal Opera House. I’d actually seen most of the sights before, but our guide gave me some new insights into their history and architectural foundation.
Then we walked by Downing Street, where security didn’t allow us to get anywhere near Number 10 and popped into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is the equivalent of the U.S. Department of State. After walking through there, I want to be a diplomat. “Lavish” and “posh” don’t even begin to describe that building.
We also managed to sneak to a window where we caught a glimpse of Number 10. Mr. Reuters tipped us off that we could see if through a certain window. The only problem was that there was a large display and strategically placed table blocking people from the window. We went by it anyway, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Prime Minister’s residence. Margaret Thatcher had, after all, just been there for tea with Gordon Brown this week! Just as we started looking at it, one of the attendants ushered us off, claiming there were snipers that wouldn’t like it if we started rustling the curtains. I have a feeling they told our guide that, too, but he told us to go have a look for ourselves.
Eventually we reached parliament to find it closed. This crushing blow was alleviated slightly by the fact that we were able to get in to the Portcullis House, where many members of Parliament have their offices. It’s quite a depressing black metal structure from the outside, but it is also very modern and nice inside. Sadly, we couldn’t take pictures inside for security reasons, so you’ll just have to ask me if you want to hear more about what it was like.
After that it was time to take the Tube over to the Lloyds Insurance building. It seems Lloyd’s grows so fast these days that they needed four new buildings in a span of 100 years, so they commissioned their architect to give them some flexibility for their new building, which was completed in 1986. It is fifteen floors, but Lloyds only uses four. They lease out the remaining floors right now, but plan to just move upwards as their needs expand. If the necessity arises, the building has also been designed so that they can actually build more floors on top.
The style of the building itself is very interesting. From the outside, it reminded me of a skeleton and muscles – just the important parts of the buildings. All the elevators were visible outside, as were the staircases. It was quite interesting. I would definitely recommend looking at the pictures of this one.
The tour finished up in St. Stephen’s Walbrook church, which was rebuilt in the late 1600s after the Great London Fire. It reminds me a lot of Howard Roarke’s church in The Fountainhead, although the parts that reminded me of that weren’t originally part of the design. Pews circle the altar, which is a piece of modern art created by an agnostic sculptor. There is no stained glass, so light comes in and makes the whole church seem very bright and welcoming. The design of the church is square, but it has a large dome, and the pillars supporting the dome make the shape of a cross on the floor plan.
Out guide explained that these design elements all mean something. The dome represents heaven, the square earth, and the cross, of course, represents Christianity. Pretty fancy, really.
All this added up to a pretty tiring day. It looks like we’ll be headed to the Thames Festival tomorrow, making for what should be a busy day. Tonight is for grocery shopping and sleep.
9/16/07
Parliament and the Thames Festival
There were two more exiting activities this weekend: Parliament’s open house and a visit to the Thames Festival, which is held at the end of summer. If you’ve stuck with the rest of this weekend’s blog post, you’ve got to be tired by now, so I’ll make this bit quick.
Since we were turned away from the doors of Parliament yesterday after learning that it was open Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday afternoon, Deb and I decided to hike right back down there and enjoy a free glimpse at the famous building.
And we did get in. There was quite a line, but it moved quickly, and after a trip through a metal detector and a pat-down from a security guard, we were walking into the oldest part of Parliament.
They didn’t actually open the chambers of the House of Lords or House of Commons, but the good people running the show were quick to inform us that for £12 we could come back during the next two weeks and get a guided tour that included those areas. That’s almost tempting, but I’m pretty sure we’ll have to be satisfied with the free tour of Westminster Hall, which is the oldest part of the building.
The literature says it is over 900 years old, and although it’s pretty dark and empty, it’s still impressive. Huge doesn’t even begin to describe the place, and there is no doubt that it’s old.
We also got to visit the Parliament gift shop, which had such exciting items as House of Commons or House of Lords key chains for £4.15 and House of Lords Scotch for £28. And while I was tempted to put down £3 for House of Commons Orange Marmalade with Champaign, I decided to save my money in order to try the food at the Thames Festival.
It was a good move. The festival was filled with lots of craft vendors and even more performers begging for a little change. There were singers, mimes, a girl who rolled glass orbs around on her arms, and even break dancers. A lot of people would stand or sit stone still and pretend to be statues or motionless machines. Whenever someone put a coin in their cap or tin receptacle, they would perform for a few minutes, as if they were a machine. There were at least 15 people who did this.
The festival stretched along the south bank of the Thames and was quite crowded. We had to wait awhile for food, but eventually secured some. I picked up a coconut with the top loped off to drink, and had some Creole fish patties to eat. I had never seen fish patties in the states, so I didn’t feel as if I was sticking to my American culture by eating them. Besides, they were delicious and relatively cheap.
A bit later we moved to the north bank to watch the parade, which was about 2 hours long and mostly filled with dancers, and then we took in the fireworks. They shot them off from boats in the Thames, and it was quite an impressive display.
And that concluded a packed weekend. I’m glad I can go to class tomorrow to get some rest. I don’t know, I might need it. Next Friday is the Stonehenge trip.
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