Living the Dream

I have boarded a train at King’s Cross Station and navigated the London Underground successfully. I have seen Buckingham Palace and witnessed the guards in tall hats marching between stations. I have heard Big Ben chime the hour and walked through Westminster Palace. I have been inside the Chambers of the Houses of Parliament and seen a show in Piccadilly Circus. I have eaten in Chinatown, London and taken a picture with a red telephone booth. I have ridden on a boat down the River Thames, under London Bridge, Millennium Bridge, and Tower Bridge. I have been inside the Tower of London, I have stood in front of the Tower Green, seen the carvings on the walls of Beauchamp Tower, visited the Line of Kings inside White Tower and hurried through the torture chamber  underneath Bloody Tower. I have heard the organ play in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and I have been to the very top of the dome of that same cathedral and looked out over London. I have seen a Shakespeare play performed inside the New Globe Theater and I have been through the Museum of London. I have discovered markets and malls, riverwalks and rotundas, and many people and places in London–it was an incredible weekend.

Tower Bridge from the Thames

The Tower

I can’t even begin to describe how I felt or what I was thinking while doing all of these incredible things because honestly, I’m not sure what I was feeling or thinking, just that  I honestly couldn’t believe it. These are places I’ve read about and dreamed about and wanted to see for so long that having the reality right there in front of me was inconceivable. It didn’t feel real, certainly. The vastness of the historical significance of the city I was in was enough to overwhelm me the very minute I saw Buckingham Palace. Despite the rain and the chill and the slight irritability of all of us on the trip (it involved a longish train ride and we were all rather tired after getting up and leaving the house all before 7am), the city was beautiful to me. Walking toward Big Ben may be a moment I remember for the rest of my life, simply because having that iconic structure come into view, right in front of me, in real life, was just… it was indescribable.

My Chinese chicken noodle soup. Yu

The Houses of Parliament are where we toured after seeing Buckingham and Big Ben. The tour guide took us along the route the Queen follows when she opens Parliament (about every five years or so, if I remember right). The building Parliament is housed in was originally a royal residence (Westminster Palace) and the richly decorated rooms show that. There were frescoes of Arthurian legends, portraits of the current monarchs as well as the original Tudors from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and carvings and engravings like you wouldn’t believe. It was so impressive that at one point, as I was entering a room, I just whispered, “Oh my god,” because I couldn’t handle how ornate and beautiful and downright incredible it was, and one of the guides walking past me laughed and said, “That’s the right reaction!” I was standing there wondering what other reactions were even possible. I mean, really. It was amazing (I’m running out of adjectives…).

The gates of Buckingham Palace

After Parliament, we walked toward Piccadilly Circus. I’m not sure what all we saw on our way there, but I took a couple of pictures anyway. At the Criterion Theater, in Piccadilly Circus, we saw a play called The 39 Steps. It was really funny and engaging, although I’m still not 100% sure what it was about besides spies and people with only half of their pinkie finger. The show ended around 6:45, and then Jin (my roommate) took us to Chinatown London, which was really cool. We at at a rather large Chinese restaurant down there, one that she deemed ‘authentic.’ She then told us which food was the best, which was most authentic, and ordered for us all in Chinese. It was pretty cool. Finally, exhausted, we headed back to the hostel to sleep.

The hostel was… interesting. I’ve never been to a hostel before, so it was eye-opening for one. I mean, I knew how hostels supposedly worked, what with a whole bunch of people sleeping in the same room and having lockers to store your stuff in and such, but I don’t think I really got it until I got there. The biggest problem for me that night (the only problem, really) was that somehow, my pillow had gone missing. The hostel had blankets and pillows on all the beds, but mine was missing the pillow part, for some reason. I thought I saw one of the other girls in the hostel futzing around with TWO pillows on her bed, though, so I think it might have been pillow-napped from my bed. Point is, I slept without a pillow that night because I was too tired to go all the way back to the reception desk and ask for a new one. I did, however, get a pillow the second night I was there, which made that sleep much much MUCH better than the previous one.

Big Ben. So gorgeous

The next morning, we had to be at Westminster Pier by 11 am.We took a riverboat from the Pier to the Tower Bridge, with the boat driver pointing out various landmarks and points of interest along the way. This was incredible to me not simply because it was cooler to be on a boat (which it was) but also because this was the river so many people had seen as a lifeline, as a trading highway, as a multitude of other things that I can’t really comprehend. The River Thames, in my mind, is something you read about or see pictures of, not somewhere you actually get to go. But I did get to go, and that was unbelievable.

The next place we went was the Tower of London. Now, I’m not sure I can describe this place in such a way that does it justice, because I was having a full-on history freak-out over it. I am a huge lover of the Tudor story, and especially of Elizabeth Tudor, so the Tower is a place I’ve read much about, heard many stories about, heard many rumors and superstitions about. A lot of the people in our group thought that the area was almost too ‘amusement park’-like for its true historical significance, but to be honest I didn’t even notice. I was too enraptured by the sight of the stones Henry VIII saw before he murdered his wives, the engravings Robert Dudley and John Seymour made before they died, of the very place where famous people were beheaded. I was locked in my little historical world as I walked through the Line of Kings, seeing the armor of Henry VIII and Prince Charles and William the Conqueror. I walked the walls where guards stood in Elizabethan times, and I saw the tower room where Richard III kept his nephews and most likely killed them as well. The sheer importance of this one structure boggled my mind, and I was unable to take in much more for a couple of hours after that.

The New Globe Theater

Of course, I only had four hours to wander London and recover from my mind being blown before it was blown yet again. We went to see Henry VI Part One performed at The New Globe Theater, designed to look as close to the original home of Shakespeare’s plays as possible. I can’t even explain how cool this was. To sit in the lower gallery and see more people standing on the yard in front of the stage, to have the players coming from all directions and interacting with the people in the yard, to hear Shakespeare’s words performed where they were meant to be performed was stunning. Those of us here who are English majors were having minor freak-outs periodically throughout the show. I also met a very nice English couple who sat next to me during the show. It’s been fun to talk to people here, to explain where I’m from and what I’m doing here and to ask them in return.

The next day, we had to check out of the hostel. Then, we went to the Museum of London, which was really cool. Their history began so long before ours did, it’s almost impossible to get through it all. We tried though, in the hour and a half we had. There was one part, called ‘A Walk Through Victorian London,’ that reminded me of the “Streets of Old Milwaukee” exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum, which my cousin and I love. I had fun comparing and contrasting the two exhibits in my head… and they weren’t quite as different as you might think. After the museum, we walked to St. Paul’s Cathedral. This place is absolutely amazing, but they don’t let us take pictures inside. I got a couple from the top of the dome, but that was it. Oh yeah, I climbed up to the very top of the cathedral. I’m not necessarily scared of heights, but that was a bit frightening. The view, however, was worth it. To see London spread out in front of you like that, it all felt unreal and intangible yet again.

St. Paul’s was our last stop before heading to King’s Cross to come back home. To be honest, I don’t remember the train ride because I slept the whole way. Our whirlwind weekend in London was absolutely exhausting, but it may have been the most incredible weekend of my life so far. I’ve seen things I never thought I’d get to see, not in person at least, and I’ve been places I’ve been wishing to go since I could read Harry Potter. I realize, as all this was whisking around me and happening so quickly, that I am incredibly lucky to have this opportunity, and to be making it the best it can be for myself and all those who support me. So, if you’ve helped me get here in any way, be it monetarily or spiritually or physically or emotionally or otherwise, I want to thank you. This trip, even though it’s only been a week, has already meant the world to me and more. It’s literally the trip of a lifetime, and I’m so thankful for everyone and everything that has let me live my dream.

With exhaustion, love, and happiness,

Bryn