New Friends & the perils of beauty

September 19th

       I stayed up most of the night and by 8 am I had finished the game OFF that I had been playing for the last few days. I then got dressed and decided to go find breakfast. I stopped at a Starbucks and grabbed a mocha smoothie and a croissant and then took my feast to King's Cross to eat and see people going about their business.

Once I had finished, I decided to go on a free tour that takes place in Westminister everyday at 11 pm. I had never been on the Tube before (London's subway), so with my extra time, I decided to experiment and find my way around more of London. It took me some time but I finally deciphered the route maps of the Tube. When I got to the exit, I walked through the opening and was met with the most picturesque view. There was a stand with British memorabilia on it, palaces in the distance and Big Ben smiling down at me. I was ecstatic.

This is Westminister station.

I had an hour before so I walked around and took a few pictures. Here is some of what I saw that was not on the tour:

I then went to the Churchill statue where I found the tour guide with the orange umbrella, my free tour. He asked me where I was from and how I discovered the tour. His name was Linton and he was from Australia but had been living in London for the last three years. He is also has degrees in anthropology and archaeology. He was loads of fun and very informative at the same time. 

Linton telling us about London.

He told us how to get good deals and discounts on things in London and how to see the inside of Westminister Abbey for free. He told us a number of stories which I will recount later here. The Abbey was truly a sight to behold. Its enormous rose window and Gothic architecture just took my breath away. I think I was honestly more impressed with the outside then the inside.

There are so many famous people buried within these walls both old and new. Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens were both buried here. If you pay you can see their tombstones. We also saw Big Ben; The House of Parliament, where we were told the story of Guy Fawkes; and St. James Palace. We also stopped at one of the Royal's residences where they had royal soldiers stationed out front.

During the tour I met a girl from Canada named Meagan. We spent most of the day together and talked for a lot of the tour as well. She was backpacking her way across Europe and was only spending a few days in England before leaving again. We got pictures of some Bobbie on duty. The term "bobbies" we learned comes from a man named Robert Peele who came up with the idea that cops should help people and therefore not carry weapons.

Two Bobbies

 Once we got to Buckingham Palace though, that's when we heard a lot of the REALLY interesting stories and facts. For instance, London is made up of two cities: the City of London and Westminister. What we foreigners know to be London is actually Greater London. I was unaware of this fact. The City of London is also autonomous and has different laws. The Queen is treated as a foreign power and she must ask permission to enter London if she wishes to travel there.

Buckingham Palace

My favorite story was about a homeless man named Michael Fagan who living in the adjacent park to the Palace and got it in his head to break into Buckingham Palace. He hopped the gate and found and open window and climbed through closing it behind him. There are 750ish rooms in the Palace and he figured he'd see as much as he could before he was caught. He was running through setting off every alarm but when security came they couldn't find anyone or anything out of place. All doors and windows were closed. They eventually concluded that the system must be faulty so they shut the alarm system off. This gave Fagan more leisure time to explore and eventually decided he would find a room and sleep in the Palace for the night. As he was looking for a room, he walked right into the Queen's chambers and came face to face with her. She kept him talking until her guards could arrive, but they didn't show up. She had her chance when he smoked his last cigarette and he asked, "Ai, mum, you got a cigarette?" She said she didn't but she could get one. She called on her phone and order an ash tray and cigarette to brought to her room. The servant on the other end asked why, knowing full well she did not smoke. She answered, "Oh, it's not for me, it's for the Irishman in my room." Immediately, all the guards bolted up to her room and arrested him. But funny enough, they couldn't charge for breaking and entering since the window was open, in the end they had to charge him with stealing a bottle of wine from their pantry; he was fined and let go.


After the tour ended, we went to a little pub near Chinatown and got lunch for a discount since we were on the tour. Here's a picture of Meagan and I at the Fountain in front of the National Art Gallery.

After eating we decided that we were going to go to Evensong at Westminister Abbey at 5 pm. We stood in line and when we got to the front, the man letting people in looked at us and said, "This is for the service only." And annoyed I replied, "Yes, I know; I'm here for the service." Once inside we were looking at everything in sight. The architecture was gorgeous and it was all so huge. We sat down and the famous boy's choir entered with the main choir and the service began. Hearing choral singing in a hall with that incredible of acoustics was a joy for my ears. I loved all of it. It was a short service, only about 30 mins. Then we left and parted ways after exchanging contact information. I was so exhausted, I fell asleep at 7 pm.
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September 20th

I woke up at about 7 or 8 and lounged around a bit. I decided to finally look up some of the Goth stores that were in London and go check them out. Many of them were located in Camden Market. So I suited up and headed down. As soon as I got off the tube, the first stall captivated me, as it had the one purse I had spent months looking at online. It was 25 pounds which was actually cheaper than I found it online. And here it is:

I continued on and found some of the goth stores. I was mostly looking to browse, not buy, just so I could see what they had. I came to one store and it was LOADED with stuff, top to bottom. It had three floors, and nothing was organized, it was just jam packed with stuff all folded up and stacked on top of each other. So I started searching around until one of the women there helped me try things on and get stuff out. She followed me around a lot, probably since there was so much merchandise it would be easy to shoplift. Eventually, I found a beautiful cape but with no tag. So I tried it on and went downstairs to the owner and he said 160 pounds. I told them I could not afford that but thank you anyways. He insisted, and bartered with me, asking me how much I had. I said I could probably only pay about 100 max. And he said, "For you, I will let you have it for 100 because you are so pretty." He went on and on about how every man in London would want me and that my eyes were captivating. (He was probably about as old as my grandfather.) He also asked me, "How many boyfriends do you have." I replied one. "Do you want another?" EWW. I was like NO THANKS BYE. Then he tried to get me to try different things on and such and buy more and finally I got out of there.

I looked around a bit more and then after being hit on again by another older man asking about my man in the states I decided to leave Camden until I could bring someone with me next time. I returned to the dorms and there sat down and relaxed, I was in the middle of writing this post when my door opens. I look up so utterly shocked when a blonde girl walks in with luggage in hand. She says her name is Ally and she is my new roommate. Finally, I'm no longer alone. She is from New York state, way up north, and so far we are getting along very well. She had been in Ireland exploring the week prior. We fell asleep at 10 because we were both exhausted.