Friday I left work a little early to get home in time to finish packing and catch the Aircoach to Dublin Airport (while I was there I scoped out the duty-free stores for gifts!). The gate for my plane didn't open until just under an hour before take-off, but as soon as I got to the gate I found out the flight was delayed by about 45 minutes. I tried to figure out how to use country codes and my pay-as-you-go phone to let Elaine know I would be late but I had to use 10 minutes of free wi-fi because I couldn't figure everything out :/ the flight was a little bumpy on the way over but it was short and I arrived in London Gatwick Airport around 11:15. The lines to get train tickets out of the airport were wild and I was at least 20 people back when some guy started yelling that if you had to get to London Bridge, you could buy your ticket on the train or at your destination. Since that was me, I found the platform and jumped on a train - but no one came around asking to see a ticket and when I left the train the turnstiles were all open so I got a free ride! I met Elaine at around midnight to get on the Tube (aka subway) to Canada Water then a bus to the wharf on the Thames where Elaine lives. You can see the financial district just across the river right in front of her flat! It's pretty crazy. All of Elaine's flatmates were really nice - one of them roomed at VT with another Franklin Regional girl - and we spent about half an hour or so figuring out what our plan of action was for Saturday since Elaine would need to leave to babysit by 5:30pm. Finally went to sleep around 2 am with a 7:30 wake up.
Saturday started early with a tube ride to Knightsbridge near Chelsea to have a full English breakfast at the Knightsbridge Cafe (toast, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and beans + freshly pressed apple juice!). We went to Harrod's first - a crazy big, fancy, famous department store. Elaine had actually never been so it was fun to experience it for the first time together. It was amazing! Everything is ornate and over the top. There is an Egyptian themed escalator that runs up and down to all 5 floors (see pictures on Facebook) plus an amazing food hall full of everything you could think of, plus designer clothing and jewelry and gifts and furniture, plus a PET store and spa with lots of puppies, plus a HARRY POTTER shop. We spent an hour there just walking around and ogling. Hyde Park is right in the same area so we walked through part of it to see the Prince Albert monument (very cool). The weather was honestly great the whole day - partly sunny and about 50 degrees F. The Harry Potter shop at Harrod's got us a little sidetracked for our plans for the day because we added in King's Cross! Got to see Platform 9 and 3/4 and it definitely was worth it. We went to see Tower Bridge next and it was amazing. Honestly it's kind of crazy to see all of the modern buildings and then right next to it is a building that is hundreds of years old. We walked past the Tower of London too - definitely will have to tour that someday!
Next stop was Trafalgar Square complete with a huge Christmas tree! The cold weather is worth it to visit during the holiday season. I'll probably butcher some of this so if you want more info go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square but basically the main things of note in the Square are the National Gallery, Nelson's Column, the four pillars or plinths, and the entrance to The Mall. Admiral Nelson fought at the Battle of Trafalgar during the Napoleonic wars and his column is surrounded by four lions made from the melted down cannons used in the war. The four pillars were built to hold four statues but only three statues were completed in the 1800s before funds ran out so the fourth pillar stood empty for many years until it was decided to allow a local artist to exhibit some sort of art for a period of time on the fourth pillar. Right now the fourth holds a replica of the HMS Victory in a bottle. The Mall leads to Buckingham Palace but we didn't go to see it (Elaine said it's not that impressive and since I wasn't going to do a tour inside that was fine with me). We walked down to Westminster Abbey - the detail work is crazy - and you could see the London Eye from the bridge we walked across. The Eye is a giant Ferris wheel with large pods for people to stand in and see the whole city. After crossing the Thames we walked along the South Bank through the Christmas Market that was very crowded but smelled delicious. Honestly the street vendors selling roasted nuts almost had me a few times until I looked into the gross metal bowls they roasted in. Yuck.
More walking brought us to The Globe Theatre - closed in the winter since it doesn't have a roof. We took the Millennium Bridge (a footbridge) back across the Thames to see St. Paul's Cathedral, also with it's own Christmas tree. By this point it was around 4pm and we hadn't eaten since our big breakfast so we stopped to warm up, rest our feet and get some food. Elaine left after dinner to babysit and I continued back across the Millennium Bridge to go into the Tate Modern museum of art. I'm a little iffy on modern art sometimes - I either think it's really cool or really lame (like "Hey, I could do that, it's not art"). There was definitely some of both at the exhibits but some of them were really cool. My favorite were the family trees, the floating staircase, and the sunflower seeds. Pictures of the staircase and sunflower seeds can be seen below. The family tree exhibit was by an American photographer and it had 18 chapters - each chapter was comprised of three large frames - in the first one on the left were plain pictures of people that were numbered and represented a family tree. The middle frame held the names and relations of the people as well as about two paragraphs on the main story line - from a family affected by thalidomide to the first female hijacker to a family practicing the Druze religion that believes in reincarnation. The last frame held a few pictures of items that were important to help tell the story of that bloodline. For more info go to http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/tarynsimon/default.shtm or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBatctT7iFo (the second one is better - this clip was playing on a screen at the Tate and helps explain the exhibit really well). It was a really moving and interesting exhibit and I actually read all of the blurbs which never happens. I started looking at the pictures of the family first and trying to guess what their story would be but I was usually wrong (except thalidomide was kind of easy to guess). The staircase exhibit I liked mainly just because it looked really cool. The sunflower seed exhibit was sweet because the seeds are actually not seeds but instead hand-crafted porcelain - read the description in the picture included.
So all in all a great and busy day. I spent about two hours at the Tate before taking the Tube back to Canada Water, then had a black woman ask me if I was feeling okay since I looked really pale (thanks a lot lady), then took the bus back to Elaine's place. I relaxed and looked up the best taxi/train route back to Gatwick for early the next morning and then went to sleep for about 4 hours. The taxi I had scheduled didn't show and I must've given my phone number incorrectly but we used Elaine's phone to call another one and I made it to the train station 5 minutes before the train to Gatwick, then got to the airport and through security about 15 minutes before boarding my flight. Thankfully I didn't have any further hiccups or I might've missed the flight! I took a three hour nap once I got back but it was definitely, definitely worth it and thanks again to Elaine for taking so much time to show me around!!
More for this post - today was a big day in Ireland because half of the new budget is being rolled out over three days. Almost every fee or tax is going up and almost every subsidy is going down. Relevant stuff: family max for prescriptions per month - increased from 120 euros to 132. Student contribution to college/university - increased from 2000/year to 2250/year. Child benefit stipend - remains at 140 euros for kids 1 and 2, any subsequent kids reduced from 160-something euros to 140 (i.e. only have two kids). For more info go to http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16124201 or http://budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2012/2012.aspx .
In other news, I learned about some really crazy superstitions today. Well, Nichola (who was telling me, Tony, and Catherine at work) seems to believe them because she's seen the cures work but it's really far fetched. Okay so basically there are some people who are "blessed" or "healers" or have "The Cure" for strange diseases or conditions. The first one we heard about was The Cure for burns. If you get a burn - hot water, picking up a hot pan, etc - you would go to see someone who has The Cure and they would lick (yes, lick) wherever you've been burned and it will take away the pain plus increase healing and the burn will not leave a scar. How does someone get The Cure, you ask? By licking the belly of a lizard. A bog lizard. So, the next time you're in a bog, lick a lizard's belly and you will then be able to lick various body parts of friends, family, and strangers to heal them. Sounds absolutely ridiculous I know but I'm just reporting what I heard. Another cure is for thrush. If a girl (or maybe a boy too, but Nichola's friend who has this Cure is a girl so I'm not sure if it's gender specific) anyway if a girl is still in the womb when her father dies, she will have The Cure for thrush. THANKFULLY if you have The Cure for thrush you DO NOT have to lick someone where they have it (sdjfwoeitenjrgim ew the thought makes me want to vomit worse than the idea licking someone's burn) but instead you can bless water, thus making the water holy, and when the person drinks the water they will be healed. So. Interesting. Tony, Catherine and I were very intrigued by these stories but I think we all thought they were a load of crap, but Nichola has seen people who have been "treated" by someone with "The Cure" and says they're fine now, so....believe what you will.
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