Wednesday and Thursday - YEAH we're caught up!

Gayle: Well, looks like we’re still a day behind and want to make this one quick to enjoy a quiet evening.

So yesterday (Wednesday) was to be our second full day in London, but the length and pace of this trip was really catching up with us. Thus, we altered “THE PLAN” yet again. This morning we were first headed to the Tower of London. The real reason for this inclusion was the Tower of London houses the Crown Jewels. I definitely wanted to see these and here’s a quick synopsis of why…. The mascot of my HS is a King, but we really use a crown in all of the logos, graphics, etc. The crown is an important symbol in my life, not really from the HS as such, but rather from our state championship marching band. (Read: “Geek” at your leisure.) And this crown is apparently modeled after a very famous crown.

Luckily, we arrived just after opening and finally had no line to get a ticket. We browsed the gift shop first since it was not busy. And oh there were crowns everywhere! (I think I heard a whimper from my credit card!) And so we were through the gate where we were lucky enough to join one of the official tours.

Kara: Tours at the Tower of London are conducted by “Beefeaters” who are known for being gregarious and funny in their story telling. We followed this particular Beefeater past the Bloody Tower and Traitor’s Gate and a couple of other story-telling spots about the (numerous) deaths and dismemberments that happened here at the tower before we headed off to see the Crown Jewels.

The exhibit at the Tower of London for the Crown Jewels is well done with three or four different films in queuing areas – although we didn’t have a need to queue. Then you proceeded into pretty narrow passages to see several of the royal scepters and swords before finally going into the vault – a real vault with VERY thick walls and doors – and getting on a moving walkway that takes you past the crown jewels. No lollygagging here.

We purchased a few items in the gift shops, walked along the tower walls to take a few more pictures, stopped to read more of the history of the tower, snapped a bunch of photos including a couple of good shots of the Tower Bridge. Apparently most people think that it is London Bridge that is one of the iconic symbols of London, but it’s really the Tower Bridge that is featured in most pictures, movies, and post cards.

Gayle: VERY sadly, we were not permitted to take photos of the Crown Jewels. :-( So, just as they planned, I purchased several momentos, including a book on the history of them. Next, we were off to St. Paul’s Cathedral. But first we needed lunch. Needing some beef (!), we popped into the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Apparently we arrived just in time, as soon the line was too the door. Nothing really special here.

So this morning I was feeling sorry for St. Paul’s. After visiting Westminster, I thought “St. Paul’s better bring it.” Well, it really didn’t. St. Paul’s is the location where Charles and Diana were married. It’s much lighter than Westminster, making for a better positive location. But otherwise, that’s about it.

Kara: Gayle’s right that St. Paul’s had a lot to compete with in Westminster Abbey. I appreciated the lightness of it and truly believe that the ceilings in St. Paul’s must be seen in person to be truly appreciated. One of the special memories I’ll have from this trip though are the “worship” experiences we had in both Westminster and St. Paul’s. One other at Westminster we’ll get to momentarily. However, at Westminster they pause once every hour for a moment of silence and to say a prayer. We arrived at Westminster just in time for this and were actually seated right in front of the older altar at the time of the prayer. While we visited St. Paul’s they were holding noon time mass which was coming to an end when we arrived. We sat down until the mass came to an end and prayed the Lord’s Prayer as a part of the mass. Both were memorable experiences as was another we had a Westminster later in the day, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

We toured St. Paul’s on our own – no audio guide here. The tour ends in the crypt area with many beautiful plaques and monuments. There seemed to be more honor paid to military veterans in St. Paul’s than in Westminster. We stepped back outside and sat on the steps in front of St. Paul’s to figure out our next stop. And, of course, being girls no vacation would be complete without a little shoe shopping.

Gayle: We next arrived at Oxford Circus and immediately understood the “circus” part. The tube station had access on all 4 street corners, which was a bit disorienting. Strangely, Kara got us headed in the right direction. However, it was so busy with slow service, we decided it wasn’t worth the time or effort. So, we headed home.

Kara: We rested a bit and read for a while – both of us now well into our books we brought with us to read on vacation. I had wanted to go to an Evensong service at Westminster to hear the choir sing and since we didn’t have plans for the evening we decided this would be a good night to go. We headed over to Westminster about 40 minutes before the service started and when we turned the corner to the gate where you enter for worship there was a HUGE line of young people – some sort of school group. The usher stopped us but we told him we were there for worship and he let us pass. We took the last two seats in the back row. It was standing room only. Unfortunately the choir doesn’t sing on Wednesday nights but it was still an interesting and unique way to close the day and we did get to hear the pipe organ being played and even sang with it. I wasn’t really a “moving” experience but it was certainly was memorable.

Gayle: At first I wasn’t real keen about going back to Westminster for the service, but the more I thought about the more I’m glad we did this. It wasn’t so much the service, but the significance of the place, its history & meaning, and all it has been through – how God has been there each step of the way – and how this tourist site can make people stop and think about their relationship with God, no matter where they are from or what brought them here. I’m really glad we did this.

Then we headed to the Westminster shop, which we’d just browsed previously and picked up a few more momentos. Finally we had supper at an Italian restaurant located right at the back exit of our hotel. An early night was to be had, as we were headed to Oxford on Thursday – or so we thought….

Kara: So that brings us to this morning. We had planned, as Gayle said, to go to Oxford today. We knew we wanted an early train in order to get out to Oxford in time for the possible tour at Christ’s Church – the real reason we were going out there. We got up, headed out in plenty of time, and went to the ever confusing Waterloo station to get our train tickets. We had to take the tube from Waterloo up to Paddington to catch our train. With train tickets in hand we headed down to the tubes and immediately found that getting to Paddington this morning was going to be nearly impossible as every line headed in that direction had some sort of signal failure. That meant every line that was operating was jam packed. At this point, we both decided that we’d rather spend a relaxing day in London and actually take a vacation day on our vacation than try to stress ourselves with subways and busses and trains to try to make a tour that we weren’t even sure was going to run. So, the helpful train information office cashed in our tickets for us and we headed back to the hotel to regroup and figure out what we wanted to do with a free day in London.

Gayle: I have a slightly different version of this, but will spare the minute details. Let’s just say there is usually one meltdown per trip and today was it for me. The introvert in me screamed, “ENOUGH!” I was tired of planning tube transfers and being packed in a subway train like a sardine, etc. So this turned into “American Day” in London. We scrapped Oxford altogether & I’m hoping Kara won’t regret this. We headed back to the hotel and simply lounged for an hour or so.

Kara: I don’t regret it and enjoyed the day today regardless of where we were. I had attended a worship service the Sunday before we left in which the pastor talked about John Wesley’s original church in London. I had Googled it before we left and brought information with me on the church in case we happened to make time for a visit. So, we headed out on the metro which was operating better by this time and went up to the John Wesley Church and Museum. It wasn’t much to see, but I got some interesting photos and gifts for my folks which I think they will enjoy.

We left and headed back down to our area of town to have lunch at The Wellington. We arrived a bit before the kitchen opened, but enjoyed drinks while we read through a few brochures for things going on in theatres on the West End. Lunch was absolutely delicious – we each had baked potatoes and shared a “starter” plate called – rightly enough – the Statesider platter which featured a lot of VERY good American style fried appetizers. An absolutely delicious lunch!!

Gayle: Lunch was awesome! The platter included garlic bread, fried mushrooms, onion rings, chicken fingers, potato skins, and nacho chips! We then headed back to the hotel for some relaxed reading time before Americanizing the day even more. We learned early on our hotel is quite near the London IMAX, apparently the only IMAX in England. So we took in the new Star Trek movie, which was pretty good. By now it was supper time and still feeling a bit lazy and “American” we grabbed Subway sandwiches to bring back to the room and watch an episode of NCIS on the laptop!

Tomorrow we’re headed out to Windsor for our final full day of the trip…. (And yes, we will actually go out there!)