London is a series of tubes

Our hotel was up in the Regent Park neighborhood northwest of the downtown area. It’s a very residential area that is peaceful to walk through as it wound its way up towards the hotel. Being the one who planned out our time in London, I was eager to get going into the city to get a guided tour of St. Paul’s Cathedral, recommended to me as the best place to see all of London from above. Of course, when it comes to trips, it’s impossible to always plan everything perfectly, and people wanted to do silly things like “take a shower” or “eat food” first. And so, our first meal in the marvelous cosmopolitan international city of London was….McDonalds.

We did make it down to St. Paul’s eventually, although too late to get the guided tour. It is an absolutely beautiful place, with a towering dome covered in vast murals and the typical gold-painted, well, everything, often found in Catholic churches. Words can’t quite do it justice, however photography was not allowed, so words will have to suffice. Our main goal there was to get to the top, however, and so it was time for a bit of stair-climbing. 528 stairs to be exact, I believe. It started off easily enough, with the first 267 or so being wide, shallow stairs in a circle. That led to the whispering gallery, which is a balcony around the inside of the dome, and at which point I was yelled at for wearing my hat indoors (sorry God). The next set of stairs was considerably more narrow and more steep. This led to an outdoor area where we were able to see some of the cityscape, but with some obstructions in the way. Finally, we headed up the claustrophobic part of the stairs, where even I with my considerably, er…average, stature, had to duck to avoid smashing my head into the ceiling. At last, at the top, we had a full view of the city, albeit one in which the width of the balcony was roughly 1 person wide. It led to lots of shuffling around as we squeezed past one another in order to get our photographs before descending all the way down to the bottom. My calves think otherwise, but it was certainly worth it.

Next on the agenda was a walking tour of the city provided by London Walks, a company that will take you all over the city of London discussing a variety of specific things, such as the Beatles, Jack the Ripper, or Harry Potter. I decided we should take the highlights tour of the city, having only a day and a half to see it all. From the cathedral, it should’ve been an easy Tube ride to get to the meeting point, however, as I had mentioned above, iron gates were the theme of the day. Transfering between lines in the tube is not quite like Chicago, where you stay on the same track or maybe go upstairs to switch lines. In London, you walk. A lot. Also you go up and down stairs. In our case, we walked from one station, through a second unrelated station, and as we were headed towards our actual destination, found yet another iron gate blocking us, at which point we needed to walk the entire way back to get out of the underground. We were in a bit of a time crunch, so we grabbed the nearest cab. Our cabbie, smoking a Sherlock Holmes pipe and having teeth numbering in the single digits, got us to where we needed to be in time.

Our tour guide was a boisterous woman named Judy with the requisite dry British sense of humor. We began at the Tower of London, where we boarded a boat to take us down the Thames river towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The boat was a bit late picking us up, because, as our luck would have it, today was the Queen’s birthday, and a 42-gun salute was being performed on the river, delaying all traffic. Our guide on the boat was an extremely sarcastic guy who was quick with the jokes while giving us some mostly correct facts about various buildings we passed along the way. I say mostly correct, because, as he told us, “I’m not part of a professional tour company, I’m crew on this boat, so don’t correct me on my facts because, well, I don’t care.” After disembarking, we began our walk around the Houses of Parliament and swung past Westminster Abbey, where all things royal (weddings funerals, etc) take place. We made our way around to St. James’ Park, which has a view of Buckingham Palace, then winding around to a large square where the Royal Horse Guard was being changed. Earlier in the day it had been the site of the processional surrounding the Queen’s birthday events. At last we walked up to Trafalgar Square, commemorating the battle of the same name and Admiral Nelson, who led the British troops. By this point, our legs were feeling pretty tired, and it was time to find some dinner before heading off for the US match.

We happened upon a small place that was showing the football match and had fish and chips. These were our 2 qualifications. As luck would have it, they also served Amstel Beer. Mind you, this is not Amstel Light, but regular Amstel. 4 years ago in Amsterdam on a 90+ degree day, Ryan and I had some Amstel in a bar and declared it the greatest beer ever. While the fact that it was so hot that even Budweiser would’ve tasted good probably swayed our opinion, the point is that it had been 4 years since we last had it and we were eager to try it again. The verdict: still decent beer, however, not the greatest in the world. With the required fish-n-chips meal devoured, it was gametime.

Following even more Tube difficulties, we made it to Stamford Bridge, home of the Premier League-winning Chelsea. While we had thought the stadium was going to be open with a big screen to watch the match, instead it was being shown in a suite. There were probably a few hundred people there to watch, and there may have been 3 other Americans aside from the 4 of us. Did I wear my US jersey? Yes. Did I stand up during the national anthem and turn around while holding up the crest on the jersey? Yes. Did I get roundly booed by everybody? Absolutely. As anyone who watched the match knows, the US got off to a horrible start in the 4th minute, and I feared we would be crushed. The team stiffened up and played much better after that though, and redemption came in the 40th minute at the hands of Robert Green. Lucky goal? Sure, but I’ll take it. Ending in a draw was most likely the best possible outcome of the night, as it kept the English fans from ragging on us while simultaneously preventing them from wanting to kill us had we won. Out on the streets, we were congratulated on the US’s performance and told to be safe on the streets by a guy who, in a random group of 15 people, would be selected as the man most likely to stick a knife in our side in anger. He had scraggly hair, tattoos all up and down his arms, and may have been missing a few teeth, but he was representative of the people we would see throughout the night.

Ryan and I decided to check out the bar scene following the match, expecting to see tons of people out and about, commiserating or celebrating the result. Maybe we went to the wrong part of the city, but it was decidedly quiet. We settled on a pub, had a drink, talked to a very drunk kid who spent the whole time telling us how he was going to root for the US and that England “was shit”. He repeated this many times. At that point, I was completely drained and it was time to head home.

I have to say though, that London went completely against all expectations I had in terms of soccer. I was expecting England jerseys everywhere throughout the day, people ragging on us for wearing US gear, and loads of people out drinking after the match was over. It was not to be. The most we ended up seeing were lots of car flags and one or two drunk people giving us a hard time, but mostly in jest.

More London tomorrow.

written by  nucappy on June 12, 2010 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: London and South Africa - World Cup 2010!
tagged London and WorldCup
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