London, England - You Had Me At Pub Crawl

I have a special place in my heart for London, England, so it was only fitting that it be my first international destination.  First off a person very dear to me while growing up was obsessed with England.  He knew all the history, made drawings of various sites there and planned on moving to London one day.  Unfortunately this never came to pass as he passed away before he could make any of this happen. 

 

I had been planning this trip for years in my head, and even though I didn’t have a lot of money that year, I knew the time to go to London was right.  I originally was going to go alone, but my best friend Angie asked if she could join me on this trip because she knew how important this experience was to me and wanted to share it with me.  Now that is a good friend!  Of course I said yes.  So she flew into NYC from the West Coast and we began our journey to the JFK.

 

I was so excited as we exited the taxi that I didn’t even see the extra piece of luggage on the curbside.  What was going on?  I had only brought one piece of luggage, but now it had multiplied.  My roommate who was trying to help me had brought my luggage downstairs from our apartment to the cab while I was doing a last minute errand.  Though my suitcases had been in two separate rooms, he thought that I intended to bring both of them even though one was completely empty.  Hey, at least he was being nice, but I was now stuck with two pieces of luggage one empty.  Such is life…

 

The flight went pretty smoothly and wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  The crappy thing about flying to Europe is you have to fly across this little thing called the Atlantic, I am not a fan of water but because we were in the middle of the plane it wasn’t that bad.  I just focused on the bad in flight movie and all was right with the world.

 

Let me just start by saying that Heathrow is a mad house!  Complete insanity!  I thought JFK was crazy, oh no, Heathrow takes it to a whole new level.  It took us a while to get our luggage and get through customs, but it eventually did happen; that which does not kill you makes you stronger.  Amen!

 

No trip is complete without the GPS system of Angie.  I have the worst sense of direction and can get lost in my own apartment.  Angie on the other hand is a beast!  She has the best instinct and can read a map with the best of them.  If I had to be lost in the wilderness with someone, I would want it to be her.  She shuttled us onto the train and we took a seat on the bright red and blue cushioned seats.  Very comfortable and stylish! 

 

After about 20 minutes on the comfy train I turned to Angie and asked when we would be getting onto the Tube.  Angie turned to me and gave me the “What is wrong with you?” look before she explained that this was The Tube.  What?  I thought it was the airport shuttle?!?  It was clean and inviting.  If they put plush cushions on the trains in NYC they would be destroyed within five minutes after pulling out of their first stop.  This was madness, but the kind of madness I could get used to.

 

After a total of 40 minutes Angie and I exited the Tube and headed out to find our hotel.  Let me just say that the grid system does not exist in London.  To this day, I do not understand the rhyme or reason of the street system in London.  It reminds me of Lower Manhattan; pure, confusing madness!  We asked two taxis to take us to it, but both of them gave us directions and said we were only two minutes away.  But that was 20 minutes ago.  I thought about leaving my extra suitcase behind at this point, as it was weighing me down. 

 

I am glad to say we finally did get to our hotel; otherwise this would have been one boring entry.  The hotel room was pretty tiny and my bed in the corner sagged a bit in the middle, but who sleeps on vacation?  It couldn’t be that bad could it?  Ask me four days later…

 

Other interesting facts about the hotel room: the toilet flusher is on the opposite side from American toilets.  I thought that maybe it was just in our hotel, but no, it is everywhere.  After two days in London, I had it down.

 

Also the shower was tiny; it was smaller than a US phone booth.  To make it even worse, the shower head was directly above you so when you showered, anytime you lathered up, you had to turn off the shower first, otherwise the lathering process was not going to happen.  At least we saved on water.

 

After we settled in, we realized that we were hungry and set off to have our first meal in London.  So we hit the street at about 11PM on a Wednesday.  We were next to a fairly busy street and figured we would have all types of options; we didn’t.  Nothing was open…I mean nothing.  We passed a few convenience stores but we didn’t think there would be anything but chips and candy.  Though I will say that wouldn’t have been a bad thing.  England has awesome chocolate!  The US can’t compare and it was hard coming back to it after we returned.

 

After 45 minutes of searching we finally gave up and ended up at a McDonald’s.  Yes, a McDonald’s.  I flew all the way from NYC to London to have McDonald’s for dinner.  In case you didn’t catch that; McDonald’s!  I was hoping that since we were in London the fish burgers would taste better, nope, just like back home; greasy with a hint of freezer burn.  So dejectedly Angie and I headed back to the hotel.  There was always tomorrow.

 

And indeed there was.  The air was crisp the next morning with a hint of rain in the air (Well, yeah, I was in London).  Within the first 5 minutes outside the hotel room, Angie almost got taken out by a Double Decker bus.  I had to grab her and pull her back onto the sidewalk before she got laid out.  Of course, she had looked the wrong way!  I pointed to the ground showing her the correct way to look for traffic.  Yes, on the ground in certain places in London, the English help out people who are used to traffic going the opposite way by placing arrows on the ground that say, “Look Left” and “Look Right.”  We had a good laugh even though Angie’s laughter was more from nerves than anything else.

 

So we "Looked Right" and continued on our journey to our first stop, Buckingham Palace.  Along the way we took a few photos to document our adventure.  The first one of the whole trip was of me standing next to a monument.  Angie checked it immediately because it was a new camera.  She really loved this photo, a lot!  Until she realized that I was posing next to a war monument of some sort.  Right next to my head was the hand of a dead soldier.  We didn’t mean any disrespect and I told her to erase it, but she wouldn’t hear of it.  She loved this photo and would not part with it.

 

It started to sprinkle as we made our way over to Buckingham.  When we got to the gates we were surprised to see there weren’t many people there, but we were visiting on the off season midweek so maybe that was the reason.  It ended up being great for us because we could take tons of unobstructed photos.  Nothing like a bunch of big heads of various people in your photos to capture the mood of your trip.

 

After about five minutes you have pretty much seen Buckingham palace, unless you can get in.  Angie loved the guards standing at their posts that were big boxes.  It was like seeing animals at the zoo.  I kind of felt sorry for these guys and hoped that they were paid well.  That can’t be easy!

 

We ventured on and went to go see the Parliament Building.  After a while we wondered if we were heading in the right direction and wondering what time it was as our bodies hadn’t adjusted to the time change yet.  Thirty seconds after asking the question, the sounds of a huge clock chiming twelve filled the air.  Indeed, we were heading in the correct direction.

 

After seeing Big Ben and The Parliament in images everywhere my whole life, it was surreal to be standing next to the real thing.  Nothing quite hits home that you are in London until you find yourself in this area.  It was thrilling and I took several photos.  Angie on the other hand was more excited by St. Thomas Hospital thanks to the movie 28 Days Later.  Well, okay…I guess it was a close second.

 

We decided to walk along the Parliament to get away from the crowd, but that was not going to happen anywhere in that area. There were people milling around everywhere.  I feel sorry for anyone who works by this area.  I used to work by Herald Square for a time in NYC and I almost went postal.

 

We were pretty hungry at this point and went exploring.  I wish I could remember the name of the noodle shop we went to.  It was in a food court area by The Thames and it had the best spicy noodle soup ever.  They also had this canned peach tea which was amazing considering it was canned.  This was one of the best meals that I would have in London.  In fact I lost 7Lbs while I was there and I can’t afford to lose weight. 

 

We continued to wander the streets for the rest of the day.  I found a nice jade ring at flea market and Angie got a necklace.  Because the US Dollar was (and is) so much weaker than the British Pound, both Angie and I were being very thrifty.  She was saving up for her wedding and I had recently left my job and was acting (which means temping and unemployment).  So affordable jewelry was hard to find; affordable anything was hard to find.

 

That night we went to a delicious Lebanese restaurant by our hotel and were in bed by midnight.  But our bodies were still adjusting so we decided to watch some TV.  TV in England is a whole different beast.  I am used to TV in the US where you have 1000 channels with nothing on any of them.  In England, they have 6 channels with nothing on any of them; at least it saves time on channel surfing.

 

What we came upon was a talk show, Thelma and Louise, CNN, MTV 2 which played a mix of videos from the 90’s and videos from Germany, the best being Schnappi.  Interesting… They also had a show on about teenage hoodlums, but the best part was the subtitles; did I mention the people were speaking English?  Apparently they felt that the accent they were using was too thick and Londoners needed help, thus subtitles. We finally settled on the next Bollywood Star, how could anyone pass that up?  The sad thing is we never did find out who won. 

 

Another difference between American and English TV are the commercials.  In America, you have a span of 5-7 minutes of commercials in which you can use the facilities, grab a snack or take a quick jog.  I thought that was the case there as well until I kept trying to use the facilities.  Within 30 seconds the show was back on.  So I would try again on the next commercial break only to find it wasn’t a mistake the first time.  Maybe this only happens on late night TV?  They also really like ringtone commercials a lot too; especially in German!

 

Angie was pretty keen on seeing Westminster Abbey the next day which worked for me.  The Westminster Abbey is a gothic style church owned by the royal family.  Many coronations, weddings and funerals have taken place over the years and many famous people are buried there as well; including Queen Elizabeth I who I have been intrigued with for years.  It was unreal standing over her grave and I wish I had gotten a photo, but photographs are not permitted in the Abbey.  I could have stayed for hours; there is something so amazing about a structure that has been around longer than the US itself.  But we had a lot to see in five days.

 

So we said goodbye to Westminster and headed towards Parliament Square.  We were having a wonderful chat when we were distracted by a statue.  Abe Lincoln?  What?!?  We did a double take and tried to reorient ourselves.  We were still in London, not Illinois, right?  What was Lincoln doing here?  When I got home I did research and found nothing, Google let me down.

 

A few months later, one of my friends who works with the public asked many English tourists why Abe was in Parliament Square.  The best answer we received?  “Why is Shakespeare in Central Park?”  Touché!  Those cheeky English!  I guess this is one for the ages.

 

We snapped a few photos of Abe to document this moment and headed across the street from The Parliament to see what was around.  We ended up with a great view of Big Ben and the Parliament along with the London Eye (The Millennium Wheel).  The London Eye was built for the Millennium Celebration in 1999.  I have to be honest with you.  I think the London Eye is an eyesore and wish they would get rid of it, but I doubt my opinion is enough to get the city of London to remove it…too bad.  To me, it just doesn’t fit the rest of the landscape of the area and stands out like a sore thumb.  I have never heard of a sore thumb being a good thing…neither is the Eye of London.

 

That evening after another snack of the McDonald’s fish burger (they were so cheap), we took The Tube to see the London Bridge.  As soon as we exited The Tube, we realized that the area was slightly seedy.  In fact we ran into a guy close to the bridge who was making us nervous so I spoke a few words with an English accent so he wouldn’t take us for tourists and would leave us alone.  I don’t know if it worked because it was so believable or if his ears were just offended by it, either way it didn’t matter; he left us alone!    

 

It was pretty chilly that night and we thought maybe we had made a mistake as our noses began to freeze off as we trekked across the bridge, but then we saw the Tower Bridge in all its beautifully lit up glory. 

 

The London Bridge is inspiration for the nursery rhyme that all of us have uttered since childhood.  It has had many disasters thought-out its history that it has been rebuilt many times.  I didn’t understand the line: Take the key and lock her up, so I did some research when I got home.  It is believed that they used to bury a virgin in the foundation for luck, but others think it is in reference to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine.  I am rooting for Queen Eleanor, because putting a virgin in foundation just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do, but this is England and they don’t follow anyone’s rules!

 

The next day we decided that the National Gallery was going to get its due and we were on our way.  During the winter of 2005 London was trying to be the host city for the 2012 Olympics.  Old news, it won!  But at the time it was anybody’s game and NYC was in the mix as well.  I love New York City and was hoping we would win and I thought we really had a chance until we came to London. 

 

London went all out for the Olympic Committee; I mean all out.  London doesn’t play!  Everywhere you went there was something to remind you that London meant business.  In NYC the only thing I remember advertising that we were up for the bid was stickers put up on the subways.  Not every impressive.  But London wasn’t going to lose!

 

When we got to the National Gallery Museum we were surprised to see a huge helium filled runner pumping its fists in the air in victory with a sign that read: London 2012.  Nice touch!  We had a good giggle over it and snapped a photo.  Strangely enough in the photo it looks like a miniature rather than the giant it really was.  We tell people about how huge this thing was and they stare at us like we are on crack!  But it was huge, I swear! Any Londoner who saw it will vouch for me.  You look at the photo and you be the judge!

 

Back to The Gallery…  The Gallery houses one of the largest and greatest collections of European art in the world.  It is decently sized and could take a couple days to get through it, so my advice would be to look at the brochure and pick out what you really want to see, because you won’t see it all unless you are speed walking , but then you would be defeating the purpose. 

 

It was early evening when we decided to leave the museum and we were going to get something to eat, but we got sidetracked by these huge lion statues that were on these high pedestals in Trafalgar Square.  Okay, actually I got distracted, it doesn’t take much.  I came up with this brilliant idea to climb up and see the lions up close.  Angie helped me up by lending her hands for me to step onto and I used by brute arm strength to pull myself up, I was a beast!

 

I was so excited, I won’t lie.  Climbing comes naturally to me being that I spent a few years in the Northwest, which is what we do in Oregon.  I was thrilled and Angie took some photos to document the moment.  People even waved and cheered me on! 

 

It was awesome!  It was awesome until it finally dawned on me that I had to get down.  Not an easy feat.  There was no way that Angie could reach that high and carry me down.  I thought about jumping but at least one of my legs would be broken in the process.  So I stood stupidly looking for an escape route.  Someone on the street took pity on me and asked if I would like some help down.  Indeed, I would kind sir!  Luckily my rescuer came in the form of a very tall Russian tourist.  Being around 6’5 he could reach me easily and brought me down as if I were a mere child.  I thanked him profusely and he smiled and congratulated me on my climb.  Yeah, this guy was a class act in my book!

 

The following day was crazy!  We were told no matter what we did we had to visit the Tower of London.  I am a huge fan of the history of King Henry the VIII and his wives and was ready to check out one of London’s greatest landmarks.  As we were walking, we stumbled upon an area across the street that sold food.  There right in front of us was KFC in tacky neon.  Kentucky Fried Chicken at the Tower of London!  What was going on?  Why was this allowed?  I couldn’t help but start laughing uncontrollably as I walked over to the Tower of London.

 

The laughter died as soon I saw the entrance fee. $27.00 USD!  This was no laughing matter!  We were broke Americans and the exchange rate was horrible!  I told Angie that there was no way I was paying that.  She talked me down explaining that it took us 1.5 hours to get there because the Tube had shut down stations that would get us there quicker for the weekend.  She argued we had changed trains four times and it was wrong to leave.

 

Finally I agreed and shelled out the dough.  Afterwards we took a photo with the Tower in the background, tickets in hand and a certain gesture that includes one finger.  Sadly this photo will not be in this blog as it is a family site, but it has been a favorite of guests for a few years now.

 

Though I enjoyed the Tower of London, I felt it was a little overrated.  There were so many people and lines that it felt like we were being rushed through many of the smaller rooms; especially the room with the royal crowns and jewels.  When you enter you step onto a conveyor belt and are zipped through a tunnel where the jewels and crowns are displayed, but the conveyor belt moves at a decent pace so you have to go back again and wait in the line to get another good look at them.  I felt a little dirty after I was done.

 

I did enjoy the rooms with the historical artifacts of historical figures of England and the old school bathroom in the same building as the armor of King Henry VIII.  It was basically a small room with a hole in the wood that dropped into a bin in the yard.  Yikes!

 

One of the stranger things we came upon were random actors re-enacting famous scenes from earlier centuries at the Tower.  Now being a fellow thespian I understand that actors have to work, but the shows were distracting and cheapened the experience.  So I ran away from them whenever we stumbled upon them. 

 

At around 5PM the Tower of London was closing up for the day, so Angie and I decided it was Saturday and we needed to experience the ever popular pub crawl.  We were in England and could not skip this national pastime.  So we hit a pub and decided to get a seat and grab some grub and let the games begin.

 

I don’t know if it is customary or if it was just at this pub, but you order from the bar rather than have someone take your order.  But that was okay, because we needed some drinks so we killed two birds with one stone.

 

The food was pretty bad.  I had ordered a fajita; probably not the best food choice while in London since I don’t think they have a high Mexican population, but fajitas are pretty easy to make.  I do it at home all the time.  Angie had fish and chips.  We were both surprised to see that the fish still had scales on it.  It really freaked Angie out so she picked at it with a fork removing all of the scales in the process.  I think it killed her appetite because she left half of her meal on the plate.  So we did what any easy going tourist would do.  We got another drink, finished it in record time and then hit another pub.

 

At the third pub we visited, we met a few people at the bar who offered a shot of bubblegum vodka as I walked to the bathroom.  Not a good time to offer a girl a drink, so I had to decline.  I walked back to the table I had left Angie at and within five minutes these two guys sat next to us.  We are the friendly type so we had a drink with them before they suggested we hit yet another pub.  At this point I had had a few vodka drinks and Angie had had beer and wine, but we were game and willing to stick it out until the last call.

 

So off we went.  The next pub we went to only served beer and cider.  I don’t drink either, but decided to try a cider which was supposed to be fruity.  Nope, it was chock full of icky.  But I nursed it so as not to be rude to any locals.  One of the guys (we will call him Lush) started to scream about how he hated England and how he wanted to move to the US, uh huh. Then he began screaming “God bless America,” at the top of his lungs over and over.  Angie and I panicked.  We were the only Americans in the joint and we didn’t want anyone to think it was our idea.  We just wanted to drink!

 

Finally his friend (we will call him The Snogger) decided to shut him up by suggesting we hit another pub.  Good move!  The Snogger decided we should do a shot.  Okay, I can handle that, but Angie cannot mix alcohol.  Ever!  So I tried to tell her she didn’t have to do it.  She told me she would be fine, I knew the truth but she was way gone and would not be swayed.  So we clinked glasses and knocked the shots back and prayed

 

Within five minutes Angie disappeared.  The Snogger decided that this was his time to make a move even though I had told him earlier that we were not interested in anything like that before he could even suggest it.  I think he forgot that conversation because he filled my ears with such crap as we were soul mates but only for that weekend.  Huh? I didn’t realize soul mates worked that way.  He also said that he is a spiritual person and that this would make us both grow because we were on the same wavelength.  Again, Huh?  What wavelength?  The booze one, not good enough buddy.

 

It was time to leave so I went in search for Angie.  It wasn’t hard as I knew where to find her.  She didn’t disappoint and I found her doubled over in the ladies room.  So I grabbed Angie, walked out of the bathroom, told the boys goodnight and headed for the door.  But The Snogger wasn’t through, he told us we would never find our way home this time of night since the Tube was closed and taxis were impossible to get at that time of night.  In your face Snogger!  We got lucky because right as he said that one pulled up and we flagged it down.

 

The Snogger was disappointed, but would not let up and suggested he escort us back to our hotel room to make sure we were alright, but if he did he would have to spend the night.  Finally to get rid of him, I told him I would meet him at this pub tomorrow since Angie was sick and she wouldn’t be feeling well enough to go out; he left us alone in hopes that I would be there tomorrow; he would be wrong.  Apparently someone didn’t get the memo that no means no.

 

The next day Angie was feeling pretty lousy so I suggested going downstairs for breakfast for the first time we had been there because it was free.  She agreed it might be good to put some tea and toast in her stomach.  That wasn’t enough for me, so I ordered the English Breakfast.  Oh, the horror!  I am a picky eater and I did not know what to expect.  I wish I had known!  It consisted of sausage, bacon, a potato square, mushrooms, baked beans and a stewed tomato.  An evil tomato!  I didn’t want to insult anyone at the hotel so I tried to eat what I could which wasn’t much.  I don’t eat pork, baked beans or tomatoes.

 

Angie looked up from her toast and tea and gagged at my plate.  It was time to go; she wasn’t going to make it.  We went back to our room immediately.   I began to pack while Angie excused herself and closed the bathroom door.  This would be our last afternoon as we would be leaving that late afternoon so we planned a quick trip to Kensington Gardens since we were close by. 

 

I have to say even to this day, London remains one of my favorite traveling memories.  There were a lot of crazy moments and we crammed so much into the days we were there that I couldn’t get it all into this blog.  I hope to return someday soon, but this time, I might have to skip the pub crawl and leave it to the professionals.