My third day in London was less rainy, thank goodness, because the clear skies let me get some really amazing views of the city. I started out in Trafalgar Square and made my way south past 10 Downing Street (the home of the Prime Minister) and a number of other government buildings. I ended up outside the House of Parliament, and was startled to learn that Big Ben is actually attached to it. This being my first time in London, I had based my entire knowledge about the appearance of Big Ben on a statue of the monument that my dad gave me when I was a kid. Since the statue was just of Big Ben, making it appear freestanding, that’s how I always assumed the famous clocktower looked. Apparently this is not the case.
Anyways, I had tickets for Westminster Abbey, and I was super excited for it. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m a huge history buff and I’ve got a big appreciation for a lot of aspects of British culture and history. I’ve been in a lot of cathedrals this semester, and Westminster is by far my favorite. The architecture is beautiful, and at the same time, it has this really eclectic, cluttered feel that comes from burying and commemorating 800 years worth of important people within its walls. Some monuments are elegantly incorporated into the shape of the building, like the tombs of several old kings (Edwards I-III and Henrys III-VII) and of Isaac Newton, while others seem to have been crammed in wherever they fit, like the tombs and monuments of a variety of 16th-18th century nobles. The floor of the cathedral is covered in tombs set into the ground, each marked with a roughly human-sized piece of stone naming the person beneath. Some are so old that all you can see is a well-worn black stone with faint indents where letters used to be. I’m not very superstitious, but I do avoid stepping on graves at all costs just to avoid being disrespectful, so I must have looked very bizarre in my odd, hopscotch attempt to dodge graves and tourists and not crash into anything fragile in the process. Eventually I gave up and stepped directly on Alfred Lord Tennyson, which I felt guilty about, then stepped backwards right onto Robert Browning and nearly fell over onto Geoffrey Chaucer before I decided the residents of Poet’s Corner would just have to forgive me for standing on them.
In addition to paying my respects to nearly all my literary and musical favorites, I saw the tombs of Elizabeth Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots, both of whom have fascinated me since childhood. On the tomb Elizabeth shares with her half sister, I finally laid eyes on the inscription I had long ago committed to memory: “Partners both in throne and grave, here lie we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection”. On the way out of the cathedral, I saw the official Coronation Chair, nearly 900 years old, and was inexplicably treated to the sight of a surprising memorial right next to the Coronation Chair display, which read, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt, four times president”, and probably gives people an inaccurate idea about how our term limits work.
After Westminster Abbey, I went back toward the Tower, this time to see the Tower Bridge Exhibit. I elected to take the North Tower stairs all the way up to the observation deck of the Victorian Era bridge, and the views were spectacular. The walkways are each fitted with a glass floor that gives a terrifying view of the roadway and the Thames 42 meters below. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll get to see the bridge open underneath you to let a ship pass, and if not, there’s a app for that — a brilliant augmented reality app called “Raise Tower Bridge”. I also had a very intense staring contest with a one-legged pigeon on my way to the historic Victorian engine rooms. I won.
By then it was well into the afternoon and I was right on schedule for my 3:00 appointment — the London Eye. I had fast-track tickets that were assigned to a certain time, so I waited in line for all of five minutes before being treated to some really incredible views. From one side of the giant glass capsule I could see both the historic North Bank lined with palaces, cathedrals, the House of Parliament, and other ancient landmarks as well as the modern South Bank, covered in elegant glass structures like the curving City Hall or the towering Shard. That’s what makes London so beautiful to me — the melding of the ancient and the modern. Instead of competing with each other, they work together and flow around each other to create a city that is booming and modern, yet without the crowded, noisy, concrete jungle environment of a much younger city. I hope next time I’m here, it's with a one-year student visa in hand, because I could never get tired of this amazing place.
I also spoke in a fake English accent for four days and no one called me out on it. Check that off the bucket list!