Getting to Know London

 June 06  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,
Jun 062010
 

Day 1: Instead of napping we decided to use the ‘force your body to time shift’ approach to jet lag – after checking into our apartment we went to breakfast and started sightseeing.

Apartment on Curzon Street

Apartment on Curzon Street

Our apartment is on Curzon Street in Mayfair – it’s small, but nice and very convenient to the tube; it’s also across the street from Shepherd Market, a small area with shops and restaurants. The spot we chose for breakfast was okay, but we’re not really used to runny eggs and English style bacon and hash browns. Tomorrow we’ll try eating in, though we also found some nice pastry cafes right across the street.

Walking through Green Park

Walking through Green Park

Guard at Buckingham Palace

Guard at Buckingham Palace

Burning off the bacon, we walked through Green Park and past Buckingham Palace, then jumped the “Original Tour” double decker bus to get situated and oriented to the city, disembarking for the Tower of London, then rejoining for the rest of the loop afterwards.

Kevin and Eric atop the tour bus

Kevin and Eric atop the tour bus

The tour of the Tower of London was quite entertaining – they are hosted by Yomen of the Guard who live within the walls. We learned about many beheadings, mucky moats, how to become a Beefeater, and nuances of armor.

Beefeater, Yeoman Warder and Tourguide

Beefeater, Yeoman Warder and Tourguide

After the rest of the bus tour, including three loops through Trafalgar Square (where pigeons have been eradicated by fining humans for feeding them and sicking hawks on the birds that choose to stick around anyway), we returned home for a nap.

Late that afternoon a quick two stop ride in the tube took us back to the Thames for a ride on the London Eye. Even after 23 years of marriage I wasn’t aware of the depth of Sarah’s discomfort with heights until I asked her to take my picture near the top of the loop. Oops.

View from the top of the loop of the London Eye

View from the top of the loop of the London Eye

We had a very nice meal at an Italian restaurant near the Eye, then hopped the tube for home. Time to finally get caught up on some of that sleep!

Legal Tour, Part 1: Parliament

 June 07  Tagged with: , , , ,
Jun 072010
 
Parliament Building

Parliament Building

Day 2: Coffee and hot chocolate from across the street and a heaping bowl of Special K helped us get adjusted to the new day, hopefully fooling us into accepting local time at 7am. We were picked up at 8:30 by our guide for our legal tour of London – first stop: Parliament.

Upon entering the iconic Houses of Parliament, we were met by David Stollery, who is the Senior Doorkeeper for the House of Lords. As a Doorkeeper, he helps keep the House running smoothly. This includes tracking attendance (which allows the Lords to get reimbursed for their expenses!), managing the flow of messages while the House is in session and general organization and security. Mr. Stollery spent almost two hours with us, walking us through the chambers of the House of Lords and House of Commons while explaining how the Parliament of British Government operates and the role of the two Houses. He also participates in many of the ceremonies, and entertained us with very rich descriptions of the traditions behind them.

In Parliament with David Stollery and our tour guide, Oola

In Parliament with David Stollery and our tour guide, Oola

Mr. Stollery also explained the process to observe the Houses in session – something we’re planning to return to do on Wednesday.

Entrance to the Supreme Court

Entrance to the Supreme Court

In 2009, the United Kingdom created a Supreme Court, replacing the Appellate Committee from the House of Lords as a separate and independent court. We visited their new facilities in the Middlesex Guildhall, across the street from Parliament. Since they weren’t in session we were able to enter the court rooms (when they are in session you can observe the court from behind a glass wall).

Kevin in the Supreme Court Chambers

Kevin in the Supreme Court Chambers

Legal Tour, Part 2:

 June 07  Tagged with: , , , , ,
Jun 072010
 

After Parliament and the Supreme Court we visited Inns of the Court, a collection of legal encampments where students live, study and intern at law firms that are headquartered within the Inns. The Inns were originally created just outside the city walls, or “bar”, which is where the term Bar and Barister originated. There are a number of Inns, the most famous to us Commoners would be the Temple Inn, home of the Knights of Templar and location for a significant clue in “The DaVinci Code.”

We toured the Royal Courts of Justice – the Appellate Court was closed, but we were able to sit in on a portion of a hearing involving closing arguments in an estate challenge. The Baristers were in robes and wigs, though the Judge was wearing his own hair.

After a pub lunch we traveled to London’s city center and visited the City Hall, a very modern building next to the Tower Bridge. The building was designed by Norman Foster and has a unique circular design of offset layers of floors – one common nickname for the building is the “Leaning Tower of Pizza.”

London City Hall

London City Hall

Inside the City Hall is an enormous floor map of London and its surrounding areas. We were told that London City is only a square mile in area, but “if you look you can see that it isn’t really square at all.” In other math related news, we were also told that Norman Foster’s other building in London (affectionately known as “The Gerkin” because of its resemblance to a giant standing pickle) “is as wide as it is tall, though it looks much taller than that.” In fact, its height is roughly equivalent to its circumference, not its width, making it three times taller than it is ‘wide’. Width, I suppose, is a difficult concept for some to get their arms around.

Tower Bridge and Tower Keys Ceremony

 June 07  Tagged with: , , , ,
Jun 072010
 

Eric’s friend and classmate, Ian, is in London for a school project and joined us for dinner along the Thames. We needed to be across the river at 9:30pm for the Tower Keys Ceremony, and headed over at 9:00pm with a comfortable margin for the ten minute walk – then a cruise ship decided to leave port through the bridge. It was fun standing next to the Tower Bridge while it opened, and we raced up the stairs and stood by the lifted roadway as the cruise ship sailed by; the ship’s passengers even higher up waved down at us.

Tower Bridge at night, open

Tower Bridge at night, open

As fun as that was, it used up almost all of our margin time to make it to the Tower of London gate for the ceremony. The Tower Keys Ceremony is the longest continuous running ceremony in the world, having now happened every single day for over 700 years. It is a military ceremony for locking the huge gates to the London Tower each evening, and if you are lucky enough to see it, as we were, you also end up locked inside. It is near impossible to enter the grounds after that, but if you’re polite and don’t misbehave your Yeoman tour guide will let you out through a door in the gates afterwards.

London Fashion

 June 08  Tagged with: ,
Jun 082010
 

Sagging skinny jeans

Sagging skinny jeans


Most of London was wonderfully dressed, and in fact we missed some of the punk culture that we’ve seen here before. But this was something new – sagging from the US mixed with classic London skinny jeans.

War Museum, Nicked Purse, Nick Clegg, and Parliament

 June 09  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
Jun 092010
 

Day 4

A Nice Way To Start The Day

A Nice Way To Start The Day - Hot chocolate across the street from our apartment.

Our primary goal for Wednesday was to see Parliament in action, but that wasn’t until 3pm, so we started out with a visit to the War Museum underneath the ?? building. The museum is the underground bunker where Churchill and his Cabinet and staff ran the British effort in WWII from. Many of the rooms were locked up in 1945 after six straight years of use – they remain today in exactly the condition they were left in. Other rooms have been rebuilt based on photographs taken during the war to reflect authentically how they looked at the time. Connected to the War Museum is the Churchill Museum – a fascinating collection of photos, recordings, quotes and memorabilia of the Churchill’s life and career.  This was all a tangible reminder of why they are called the “Greatest Generation.”

Winston Churchill

A faux Churchill making a call to FDR on display in the War Museum.

Churchill Museum

A wonderful interactive timeline of Winston Churchill's life in the Churchill Museum. Sliders along the side of the projected timeline allow you to select a year, which opens to months, which open to individual days with details in them.

Trafalgar Square was the next stop, with a brief pause in front of Downing Street, where Kevin spotted Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg walking past us on his way to Parliament.  Somewhere between Downing Street, Trafalgar Square and the pub where we had lunch Sarah’s purse was slashed by someone presumably trying to steal her wallet. Luckily the purse had three internal layers and the slice only made it through the outer two, though a nick was clearly visible in the third layer. Nicked but not ‘nicked.’

St. James Lake

Overlooking the lake in St. James Park on the walk to Parliament. The London Eye and home of the Horse Guards can be seen beyond Duck Island.

We arrived at the Parliament Building around 3pm and managed to work past other people waiting in line thanks to now knowing someone on the inside. We sat in the gallery on the second floor of the House of Lords and watched the 30 minute open comment period that opens each session. Topics discussed included whether prisoners should be allowed to vote, tax treatment of low cap stock investments, and the impact of the BP Deep Water Horizon crisis on BP’s dividend. BP accounts for 14% of Pensions’ income in Great Britain, so not paying a dividend would have a huge impact on people living off their pensions.

After the House of Lords we sat above the House of Commons and listened to two first year Members of Parliament (MPs) give their maiden speeches. They were interesting, but generally focused on more local issues than what we heard in the House of Lords. Seeing Great Britain’s government in action was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Photography is not allowed inside Parliament, so we’ll have to go with this:

A Nice Way To End The Day

A Nice Way To End The Day - A pint of Guinness in a local pub.

That evening we watched Prime Minister David Cameron’s 30 minute Q&A session before the House of Commons on TV. Prime Minister’s Question Time opens the House of Commons once a week and is a spirited back and forth between the PM and MPs, with perfect British politeness and formality tempered with insults and wit. Because it is Question Time, there is a Jeopardy strategy of all statements being presented in the form of a question.

Greenwich and a Green Witch

 June 10  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,
Jun 102010
 

Thames Boat Tour

Bow view of Tower Bridge


Thursday kicked off with a boat tour of the Thames from London to the Thames Barrier with a stop in Greenwich. Though it feels now as if the river banks are primarily high end housing and shopping, the water’s edge in London began as a shipping port for Ancient Rome and kept its Maritime focus of shipping, wharfs and ship building until the last few decades. In fact, the word “wharf” began as WareHouse Along River Front.

London has always been susceptible to flooding by the tides in the English Channel which affect the level of the Thames by up to seven meters. The decorative lion heads along the river walls were places for ships to tie up, but also acted as a water level warning to the citizens, “When the lions drink, London’s in danger.”

River's Edge

Lion's head along the river's edge.


To protect the city now, they have built the Thames Barrier – an enormous moveable dam downriver that can be closed during unusually high tides to keep the city from flooding. Since its construction in the 1980s, it has been used over 180 times to protect the city, with annual usage increasing. The Barrier was the farthest point on our boat tour and an impressive sight to see.
Thames Barrier

Thames Barrier


Thames Barrier Piers in Maintenance

Thames Barrier piers. The barges are doing maintenance on one of the adjustable dams.


Greenwich was our only stop along the tour. We spent a couple hours at the original Royal Observatory: the defining point of the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude) and the longtime home of World Time, the standard time to which the rest of the world synchronizes.
In Front of the Royal Observatory

In front of the Royal Observatory. I'm not sure what Kevin's thinking here.


The museum and tour explain the King’s original goal of setting up the observatory to collect astronomical data to aid navigation. It explains sextant navigation and the importance of accurate star data to calculate your longitude, and the necessity of an accurate sea-going clock to synchronize your observations with star data created elsewhere on earth. That ‘elsewhere’ was Greenwich, and thus it became defined as the Prime Meridian. The development of an accurate sea-going clock was so important that the government set up a 20,000 Pound prize for anyone who could build one. John Harrison claimed the prize in the 1760s after 40 years of clock development – the museum has versions I through IV (the winning clock) on display, along with many other attempts. We spent quite a while studying the various mechanisms to understand the maker’s design for overcoming the rolling of the ship that would keep a common pendulum from working properly. The museum also houses many of the clocks that for hundreds of years kept the official World Time, until the now-official atomic clock was developed.

Given that Greenwich is a rather geeky stop, and one that I assumed would only be of interest to someone at least familiar with Greenwich Mean Time, I was rather surprised to hear one of our boating companions exclaim as he exited the boat back in London, “I wonder why it feels warmer in London than it did in Green Which?”

Speaking of green witches, after some R&R time we cleaned up and headed to London’s Theater District for dinner and a play. We had a nice Italian meal before going to the Apollo Victoria Theater to see “Wicked.” Sarah had seen the play in SF, and thought the London version was not as funny but musically better.