London! Or, the Setting for Everything I've Ever Loved as a Child

'Ello, readers! (That's appropriate, since this post is about my travels to London.)

And what marvelous travels they were! I've always wanted to go to England, I've got family there, Harry Potter's from there, they have the best candy and they have fish and chips... the list of reasons is never-ending, really.

So you could imagine how amped I was to see this while riding the Underground:

DREAMS DO COME TRUE.

Kara and I got settled in at our hostel (St. Christopher's in Camden Town, not too shabby) and headed out to meet up with her friend for dinner at Chipotle. Afterwards, we walked around to see the sites at night, like Piccadilly Circus, where we also good super scrumptious macaroons from Laduree.  

We also stopped by Buckingham Palace, you know, to congratulate Queen Elizabeth on her upcoming Diamond Jubilee. She was really glad to see us.

We also walked past Westminster Abbey and Big Ben and Parliament, which was very cool, considering I'm a big fan of the movie Hook... I think the fan list for that movie is me and my mom and that's it, but who cares! It was very exciting.

You know, all that "second star to the right and straight on till morning" business?

This is just a cool picture. No Pan reference here.

Our first night in London was was just... pretty. Everything is lit up and you recognize things and it was just fun to be there. Again, I like to walk, so that's just me, but keep in mind, my point-and-shoot Canon can only do so much on its own.

What else can it do, do you ask?

TAKE MY PICTURE AT PLATFORM 9 3/4, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

So many dreams realized in London! So many!

Just makin' dreams come true. Thanks, King's Cross.

After our adventure to Platform 9 3/4, Kara and I walked around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, where the devil incarnate in the form of a goddamn squirrel literally chased me through the park. Like, pursued me... even after Kara threw a rock at it.

Rodenty little bastard.

Again, because I like Peter Pan in any shape or form, our trek to Kensington Gardens was a real treat. It would also have been a treat to see some of these people get pooped on, but you can't have everything in life, right?

Ahhh! And then we found it! The Peter Pan statue from Hook! It was so great. It was almost like I could feel 1991-Robin Williams asleep at the foot of it while Mr. Smee / Bob Hoskins sweeps up around him. 

After the aforementioned momentous occasion, Kara and I decided to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We stopped to check out this awesome moment to Albert and to grab some lunch right quick.

OMG, fish and chips.

Kara was also kind enough to take this stereotypical touristy picture of me in a phone booth...

... and I am not even a little bit embarrassed about it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the V&A, it's more or less a collection of stuff from everywhere and every time period they can get their hands on. It's the world's largest museum of decorative art, and it is massive. Kara and I spent about three hours-ish in it and we barely made a dent in all there is to see.

We got a real hoot out of the museum's collection of Islamic art, especially the stuff on display from Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, especially since most of the tiles on display were labelled as "probably Iznik." This is funny, because if you've ever been to a mosque in Turkey that has been tiled with Iznik tiles, you can tell that it's pretty much definitely from Iznik.

Really, really Iznik.

The museum also had major collections of art from all over the world, as well as collection of precious gems, medieval art, glass, ironwork, architectural styles from all periods of history... you name it, the V&A has is.

They even have computers where you can design your
own coat of arms, no shit.

HELP: my family had stuff with these little elves on them.
If you know what they are, please inform me. I need to know!

Also, we found Harrod's! We went into Harrod's! We did not buy anything from Harrod's! I did, however, take a map of the store layout with me as my (free) souvenir. It's the little things in life. Plus, it'll fit in a scrapbook.

The next morning, Kara and I hustled out to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. We obtained a prime spectator spot right up against the fence, where hundreds of people proceeded to press my body against its rails. Had this been a summer barbecue, I would have been overcooked on one side.

Note: my camera is not zoomed in at this time.
This guy got so close to me that some Southern lady behind us
shouted out, "Oh my goodness, he's gonna kiss her!"

The whole changing of the guard bit also featured this crazy impromptu marching band action, which was pretty neat. No one could provide us with any insight into what it was for, but man, get a load of those hats.

Gated, just like the Wonka Factory.

And as usual, I have to be my unashamedly touristy self, because what else would this trip be good for? Culture? Please.

Just before we parted ways  so I  could go to the Tower of London, Kara and I passed some government building with all of the United Kingdom's commonwealth flags blowing in the wind. And I spotted Belize! Shoot out to my first international adventure destination.

Much like the V&A, the Tower of London is a museum that you could literally spend all day in. The Tower of London is a fortress that was built in the eleventh century during the Norman Conquest of England by the artist futurely known as William the Conquerer. It had been sieged a ton of times, has operated as everything from a treasurer, an armory, a menagerie... you name it, it's on the Tower's CV. Today it houses the Crown Jewels, including the little mini-crown that Queen Victoria wore after her husband Prince Albert died.

The Tower of London houses a lot of artifacts from throughout England's history, including Henry VIII's suit of armor. Let me just say: that man was a big man. I mean, anyone who had taken seventh grade social studies as outline by the State of New Jersey knows that however fat and pasty you were during the Middle Ages was directly proportional to the amount of gold you had it your vault. Or chest. Or whatever. And while this is likely most applicable to any English monarch during that time, Henry VIII, let me say one more time, was a large, large, mammal. According to a recent study by the Royal Armories (located in-- you guessed it-- the Tower of London), Henry VIII likely had a fifty-three-inch chest and a fifty-two-inch waist, or girth (the worst word in the world), making him morbidly obese by modern-day standards. A FIFTY-THREE INCH CHEST. He's like a human barrel, for goodness sake. Eighth graders are fifty-three inches tall. And it's not like he was a Hank of average height for a man in sixteenth-century England-- he was 6'1''. As I realized this, I tried to picture all of the guys I know who hover around six one and add a fifty-three-inch chest to their torso, and in my mind, everyone just ended up looking like Professor Klump.

Unfortunately, like many museums (including the V&A), visitors are not allowed to photograph the Crown Jewels. Which, for the record, I think is stupid. What are they worried about, that I'm going to go home and try to DIY myself a copy of the Imperial Crown of India?

Following the Tower of London visit, I met back up with Kara to attend an Evensong service at Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey is a Gothic church in London whose construction began in 1245; even before that, however, the site upon which it stands has been used for coronations since the eleventh century. It houses memorials for the likes of FDR, MLK, Churchill, Newton, Oscar Wilde, and Dickens, and is the actual burial site for Darwin, Jane Austen, Oliver Cromwell, Rudyard Kipling, William Shakespeare, David Livingstone, and Charles Dickens. And while this history bit is all well and good, this experience meant far more than that to me.

During this service, the mens' choir sang. And because I'm about as familiar with what goes on in an Anglican service as I am with what goes on in a Catholic service (which is to say, not familiar in any way, shape, or form), I found myself completely overwhelmed with both hearing the mens' choir sing and the sheer beauty of the interior of Westminster Abbey. I mean, literally overwhelmed as I looked up into the ceiling of this monstrous, beautiful building. I'm not going to be able to tell you in five or ten or fifteen years what that service was about, or what songs or psalms or whatever the mens' choir sang, but I'll be able to recount to you sharing a smile with one of the primary school students who sang in the first row of the choir and how proud he was to be there. And I'll be able to tell you that I saw the graves of some extremely influential individuals from all fields of study. And I'll be able to tell you how I felt both proud and disappointed in the human race at precisely the same moment as I sat there in that service that I didn't really understand. I felt proud because I've been lucky enough, over the past few months, to visit some of the most celebrated and revered places of worship across the world and to see the magnificence and wonders that mere people can create with their own hands in the name of whatever or whoever they worship. And I felt disappointed because, as a global society, it is only the differences in religion and spirituality that make headlines. We don't celebrate the things that make us similar; we only put on display what makes us emphatically different. And I think that's a sad thing. I think it's a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the world. You can call me naive or silly or whatever, that's your prerogative. I just think we need to care a little bit more for the people around us, and not about what they're doing, but about how they're doing. That's all I got. I just think it's important that if we point out differences between person, it's because understanding them will make us all better.

But who knows, hopefully that's not just the "cross-cultural exchange" in me talking. I don't think it is.

Thanks for the memories, London!