The first thing I learned when I got to England was to always print out a map before going to a new country. I got to the Victoria Underground Station (the closest station to my hostel) without too much trouble by around 9:30pm and headed right like (I thought) the directions on the hostel's website had said. Then I started following the signs for Buckingham Palace. Big mistake, I was supposed to be going to Buckingham Palace Road, not the actual palace. What I didn't realize until after walking in circles for about 20 minutes was that street names aren't written on street signs with sign posts, major attractions are. The actual street signs are on the walls of buildings on the corners. It turned out that the directions to my hostel that I had were from the Victoria Coach Station, not the Victoria Underground station. After asking probably 6 unhelpful people, I finally found someone who told me more than "just look at a map" and found the hostel.
The next morning, I woke up early and just walked. I passed the Victoria Underground Station (I had to make sure I could find my way back to that place), Buckingham Palace (the real palace, not the road), St. James Park, the Guard's Museum where they were practicing for something that looked as ceremonial as the changing of the guards, but it was something else, Trafalgar Square, and a bunch of other places. At 10:30, I went back to Buckingham Palace and sat by the fence for an hour waiting for the changing of the guards which was going to happen at 11:30. You really do have to get there that far in advance if you actually want to be close enough to see anything, it was crazy. The ceremony was cool, but a little silly, and I was disappointed that they don't actually wear red coats anymore, they're grey now. I don't really understand the purpose of it, but it's an interesting tradition anyways.
After that, I walked around some more, killing time until 1:00 when the free New Europe tour started. The tour was great. We went to a bunch of places that I'd walked by but didn't know where I was, and they told us interesting historical facts about those places. My favorite stories were the ones about people who had broken into Buckingham Palace. One time was a 12 year old boy who's job was to sweep the chimneys, but he would never leave after work. He lived there for several weeks without getting caught by stealing food from the kitchens at night. Eventually, he was caught and sent to Australia. Another time, there were a group of tourists from another country who didn't want to pay for a hotel, so they decided they would camp out in Green Park at night, which is right next to Buckingham Palace. They got there at night and saw the gate for the Palace and thought it was the gate for the park, so they jumped the fence, set up tents, and slept for the night. In the morning, they woke up and couldn't find the exit, so they walked up to a guard who told them they better get out, and only then did they realize that they weren't in Green Park.
My favorite break in story was about the Irish man who broke a window to get in the palace. The alarm went off, but the security guard thought it must have been a fluke because no one in their right minds would break a window into Buckingham Palace, so he didn't send anyone to check it out. The guy had free reign of the palace for a few hours. He found his way into the wine cellar where he stole a really expensive bottle of wine. Then he ended up at the royal throne where he put the bottle of wine on his head and declared himself King of England. Finally, he decided he wanted to go to sleep, and of course, of all the bedrooms in the palace, he wandered into the Queen's bedroom. She woke up, and rather than freaking out, decided to appease him for a while, so they were chatting (they both had 4 children, so they talked about that) for a while until he asked for a cigarette. She said that she didn't have one but maybe her butler did, so she called him and said "There's a drunk Irishman in my room, and he would like you to get him a cigarette." The butler was obviously very confused, so she repeated herself: "There's a DRUNK IRISHMAN IN MY ROOM, and he would like you to get him a cigarette!" The butler came in and tackled the guy. Oddly enough, at that time, since it was a government of the people, the palace technically belonged to the people of Britain, so the guy hadn't broken any laws by breaking in. The only thing they could charge him with was stealing the bottle of wine! The rest of the stories that I heard on the tour can be found under the pictures I posted on facebook.
After the tour, I tried fish and chips for dinner (delicious!), walked around to Chinatown, went to King's Cross Station to see platform 9 3/4, and checked out Piccadilly Circus (like a smaller version of Times Square) where there was a pretty good breakdancing group doing a show. Then I headed to the roda that I had found out about online before the trip. It was weird playing with them because until the last 20 minutes or so, they basically did a fast version of Angola which I didn't really know how to do. Plus, their games were LONG. Each game would literally be probably 3-5 minutes, so it was pretty exhausting. At the end, we did Regional though, and I kicked butt :). After, I hung out with them for a while, and got some Mexican food. I miss Mexican food so much!! It was good there, but it sucks in Holland. They were really nice, and they invited me to the other events they had that weekend, including one in Oxford which would have been cool, cuz then I could have looked around there, but I didn't want to spend that much of my 3 days in London doing capoeira when there was so much to see, so I declined.
The next morning, I went to the British Museum, which has nothing to do with British history. It was all about world history, and they had some pretty cool stuff in there. There was a piece of the real Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra's mummy and tomb, and a bunch of other really historical things. Not to play into every Jewish stereotype ever, but the room that I thought was most interesting was the room about the history of money. Afterwards, I headed to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. On my way, I started to see hundreds and hundreds of people protesting. There was apparently a giant protest all over London because they were cutting some money that goes to public services. It was a peaceful protest (then and there at least. According to the news, it got a little violent in a couple places by night time). The National Gallery was pretty cool too with lots of famous art by famous people, but I wasn't allowed to take pictures in there, so I can't remember which ones I was most impressed by. Then I walked over and saw the London Eye, but I didn't go on it because the line was insane, and it wasn't that nice of a day out anyways. That night, I went on the Grim Reaper tour where we heard about and saw the locations of all 5 Jack the Ripper murders, where the first mental institution was, where people were sent to Australia from, etc.
The next morning, I intended to go to the Tate Museum (modern art museum), but when I got off the underground, I saw a sign for the London Museum, so I decided to check that out first. It was about the history of England. When I left there, I tried again to go to the Tate Museum, but I ended up pretty lost, so I walked around for a while and decided to try to head to the street the guy at my hostel had told me about where I could get good Indian food (because everyone had told me Indian food in England was great). On the way, I found this HUGE market where they were selling everything from clothes to makeup to souvenirs REALLY cheaply. I wanted to buy clothes, but I had no idea what my size would be and I couldn't try anything on :(. After lunch (the Indian food really was delicious), I started making my way toward Covent Garden where the Old City tour started, and in the process, I found 2 more giant markets!! I spent a lot of time that day just walking around the markets. Covent Garden was interesting (it's not a garden), it was basically a shopping center but also, there were people all over the street performing for tips. Everything from jugglers to musicians to people all painted in one color standing perfectly still to magicians. Then I went on the tour, where I got to see pretty much everything else that I hadn't gotten around to seeing yet (St. Paul's cathedral, Tower Bridge, the location of the beginning of the Great Fire, etc). Then I headed back to the hostel to get to bed early, because I had to wake up at 3am to catch a 4am bus to the airport, and I didn't want to oversleep and miss the flight.
I made it to the airport by 5:30 for my 7am flight, which would normally have been way more than enough time, but I forgot to put my conditioner into a little plastic bag which set off their alarm, and my entire bag had to be searched. The confiscated my shampoo, conditioner, and even my deodorant, which they said was a liquid (wtf?? definitely not a liquid...) because clearly, I was going to blow up the plane with that stuff, and I only made it to my gate with about 10 minutes to spare. Luckily, I made it though, and all in all, it was a great weekend.
