London, England 16.09

We left our hotel in Cairo at 4am in the morning, so we would make it onto our flight to London. We soon arrived at Heathrow airport, and were greeted by Kasia, Artur's sister-in-law's sister.
Artur and Kasia were also in the same class at school!

We had a great chat in the car on the way to her house and then we all sat down for a cup of tea in her living room. It was pretty cold outside, so it was nice to be snuggled up indoors, especially considering we were just in temperatures of up to 50-60 degrees celsius in Egypt!

Sam with his wild scooter

After a cup of tea, we went to pick up her son, Samuel, from school. It was great to meet him too, and to hear him speaking Polish as well as English. He spoke really well despite living only in England. He was very cute with silky blonde hair, that had just been cut, much to his mother's dismay. She loved his long silky hair.

Once we had picked up Samuel, Kasia dropped us off at the local station, because we wanted to start sightseeing as early as possible. Our camera died during our last couple of days in Cairo, so we had to look for some repair shops as soon as possible. The lens opened when we turned the camera on, an then it got stuck and wouldn't retract itself. This was a serious loss for us, as we loved that camera.
We were surprised to find a whole line of police cars outside the train station, and long lines of police tape. We were still allowed to go inside though, and we saw lots of policemen there with sniffer dogs. They ignored us thankfully.

Oxford Street

We went into the center of London by train and metro, and got off at Oxford street. Loren was so excited to finally be in London. She had always wanted to visit. The streets were full of little black taxis, bright red phone booths and post boxes, all the things that tell you you're in England!

We wandered through the smaller streets off Oxford street, searching for a camera repair shop. We found it quickly, but the news wasn't so great. The cost for repairing the camera was about 30 pounds less than if we bought a new one. We decided it wasn't worth it.

Instead, we had some dinner at a Thai buffet. The food wasn't as great as we had imagined. It was warmish and mostly vegetarian. Artur ran back to the repair shop in the middle of dinner, to see how much we could get if we sold them the camera. In the middle of the examination of the camera, it magically repaired itself! We were thrilled but didn't trust the magic to last.

We wandered back to Oxford street, and bought Loren a pair of jeans. She somehow forgot to pack every piece of warm clothing that she had, and was desperate for something warm to wear.

We walked to Oxford Circus, where we saw the statue of Eros and lots of flashing billboards.

Then we explored Leicester Square, which was full of vibrant theatres and cinemas. We nearly saw Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr and Jack Black, who were starring in Tropic Thunder. The movie premiere was happening in one of the buildings on the square. There was a fence to keep the hordes of spectators out, and another section for the spectators lucky enough to get inside the fence. There were camera people and reporters everywhere. It was funny to see the reporters all made up and fancied up for the occasion, standing out in the cold, waiting for the celebrities. After about 15 minutes, we got sick of waiting, and decided we had better things to do.

Soho was very colourful and full of pretty, old buildings. There were pubs on every corner, filled with people having after-work drinks. Each pub had a cute name, and looked like it had quite a bit of character. Every street was filled with Asian restaurants and the occasional sex shop. We were determined to avoid the boring English as much as possible, and stick to our old Asian favourites.
Loren fell in love with London from the first moment she saw it. Artur had already been here, but loved it too. He used to live in Cambridge, so he was able to travel here and get to know London pretty well. He was the tour guide for this part of the trip.
After wandering around Soho for a while, we became exhausted, and decided to take the train back to Kasia's house. She kindly picked us up from the station and took us home. We got to finally meet Bob, Kasia's husband, when we got there. We had a great chat with both of them before we headed for bed.
The next day, we spent the morning at Kasia's house, doing some admin for the trip. The camera stopped working again, so we decided we needed to buy one. The best price we could find was on the internet, but it only accepted cards from the UK. We sorted things out by paying with Kasia's card and paying her back. Thankfully that worked out ok for us.

We didn't have time to go to the Brazilian embassy as we had planned, so we decided to visit Windsor Castle instead. We go there at about 3pm, passing through the famously ugly town 'Slough'. Artur was thrilled to see it as he had heard about it on his favourite comedy, 'The Office', with Ricky Gervais.

Kasia as a batwoman

We parked outside the Castle but didnt have enough change, so we paid for an hour, then went to get change and buy some fish and chips. We paid the rest of the money needed for 3 hours, and headed off to the castle.

Windsor Castle

We were pretty impressed by the Castle, it was really big and old, but in really great condition. It is still being used by the Queen and is one of her favourite castles. At the time, she was in Scotland though. The Castle is one of the most imposing castles in Britain, and has been repaired since the fire in 1992 that burned a large portion of the complex.

Our favourite room was Queen Mary's Giant Doll's House. It was amazing how much detail was put into it. It even had servant's quarters and garages. It was at least 2.5 metres high, and maybe 2 by 2 metres wide.

St George's chapel

St George's chapel was pretty cool as well. It had a really high ceiling, and contained the tombs of several monarchs, including Henry VIII. There was a choir in there practising while we were there, so there was an amazing ambience to the place.

There was another cool room with pictures of the contemporary royal family. It was pretty amazing to see the major events of their lives in photos. There was also a display of art by members of the royal family. Prince Charles is actually a pretty good artist! He did some pretty impressive paintings, and he was also trained as a pilot. We had no idea about either aspect of his life.

In the courtyard of Windsor Castle, we saw an amazing collection of luxurious cars. There were Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Mercedes etc. Artur asked the warden about the cars, and apparently Prince William was organising a charity event that was based a rally drive to Florence in very posh cars. Artur thought it was funny, because if they sold those cars instead of racing them, the charity wouldn't know how to spend all the money they would get.
We really enjoyed seeing the castle, and we thought that the staff were very friendly, especially after Egypt. One of the wardens let us take a picture with him, and explained what the initials on their uniform meant. Apparently the EIIR stands for Elizabeth II Regina (Regina is latin for Queen).
After our visit to the castle, we wandered back to the car. We still had about 15 minutes on left until our parking ticket expired, so we decided to go and check out all the swans that were congregating on the lake. They were being fed by tourists, so we watched as they fought with each other and ate the food.
As we walked back to the car, we noticed two fat parking inspectors fitting a clamp to the wheel of Kasia's car. We were quite surprised as we had bought one ticket for an hour, and another ticket for two hours, which costs more than just paying for 3 hours all at once. We paid the money, but they were putting a clamp on the tire! Their story was that unless we purchase the two tickets within one minute of each other, the first one doesn't count, so we only had 2 hours not 3. They would only take off the clamp if we paid 120 pounds! Apparently we were lucky, because it would cost even more if they had left and we had to call a clamp removing company. We were so angry though, because we tried to do the right thing, and we even paid more than what was needed for three hours, but they still charged us. Kasia said she would challenge it with the authorities, because it was just so unfair.

Later that evening, Kasia cooked us dinner, and we had a chat about living in England with her and Bob. After dinner, we went down to the local pub for a few drinks. It was trivia night, so it was a bit hard to talk over the loud guy with the microphone. He kept giving us dirty looks because we were trying to talk to each other over the top of his voice, and he wanted absolute silence. The trivia was centred around very British things, so when we were listening, we still couldn't guess many answers.
It was exciting to be at our first English pub, and a local one at that. Very authentic! We had to head home soon though, because English pubs close at 11pm. Loren was pretty tired, so she went to bed, but Kasia and Artur stayed up to 3am chatting. It was great for Artur to be able to talk in Polish and exchange views on living in a foreign country and being with a foreign partner.

The next day, we all slept in, for obvious reasons. We had breakfast together and then we opened an important letter for Kasia. She was waiting on her results from a big exam that she had taken in order to become an official interpreter. The exam was insanely difficult, and she was sure she had failed. It turned out that she had passed all but one section of the exam, so she only had to resit that part in a few months, and it would all be over. She was very relieved.

This was the end of our stay at Kasia's house, because we were planning to stay for one or two nights in London itself. We figured it would be easier to sleep right in the city itself, when we were sightseeing. Our first task in the city was business though. We had to get a visa for Loren at the Brazilian embassy. We thought we'd be able to pay for express processing, and pick the visa up in about two days, but they had a 5 day wait and no express! This did not fit with our plans at all, as we'd already have left London by the time it was ready. We had no choice though, and just had to rearrange our plans.

After the embassy nightmare, we finally arrived at our backpacker's hostel. We dropped off our bags, and settled into our room. We had more missions to complete this day though, not sightseeing. We split off in two directions for the afternoon. Artur wanted to sell the old camera to a second hand camera shop. He only ended up getting 30 pounds for it, but that pretty much made us break even with how much it would cost for repairing the camera, and how much we spent on a new one.

His second mission was to return to Kasia's house to pick up the new camera, which had been delivered that afternoon. Loren's mission was much more fun. She was looking for warm clothes and sightseeing. Her first stop was London Bridge which was not too far from the hostel. She walked to the bridge and fought her way amongst the work crowds that were heading back across the water. She also admired the Tower Bridge further along the river Thames.
Next stop was shopping! Loren was so was thrilled to visit the enormous Top Shop store on Oxford Street. It was theh biggest non-department store clothes shop that she had ever been to! There were three storeys of clothes, shoes and accessories, and the bottom floor was dedicated to retro style, vintage clothes! This floor was amazing, and was filled with the craziest retro shoes and clothes that she had ever seen. There was some seriously cool stuff in there, and she was struggling not to buy the whole shop. Clothes stores like this are a great incentive to move to London :)
After her little shopping spree, Loren went to Trafalgar Square to do some sightseeing. It was starting to get dark, but she was still able to get a good look at the place. There was a huge fountain in the middle of the square, and a big museum at the top of the steps. Not too far away, she saw a pretty church, that was nicely lit. She wandered over there to check it out, but there wasn't much more to see at night. Soon it was time to meet Artur at the hostel, so she headed back.
We met up at the hostel, and played with our new camera for a little while, before we exhausted ourselves and went to bed. It was a very strange feeling for us to go sightseeing and moving around the city on our own. We hadn't spent more than a few hours apart for the whole trip!

The next morning, we had the breakfast at the hostel, before heading out on a walking tour for the morning. The walking tour was with the same company that offered free walking tours in Berlin. The tours are free, but you are expected to tip the guide at the end.

Wellington Arch

We took the Tube, as the London metro is called, to Hyde Park. We were told to wait by the Wellington Arch, and we had a bit of time to spare, so we flopped down on the grass near the arch. While we were waiting, a group of men in fancy uniforms came riding past on horseback. They were all in formation, and looked pretty cool!

Soon people started arriving for the tour. We were put into smaller groups with our own guide. Our guide turned out to be a Welsh girl. She had a pretty good sense of humor, so we enjoyed listening to her. She told us about the Duke of Wellington, who the arch was dedicated to. Apparently the Duke was the guy responsible for getting rid of the 'Frenchies', so everyone loved him. He was also very famous for hitting people in the head and challenging people to duels. Another big impact that he had on modern day life is his fashion statements. The Duke hated wearing stocking and breeches, as was the typical clothing of the time. He preferred to wear trousers. Everyone thought he was a bit ridiculous, but eventually it caught on! He was not a modest man, and he insisted on naming his house Number 1, London.

Next we wandered towards Buckingham Palace, where the Queen still lives today. You can tell when she is home, because her family flag is displayed above the Palace. She wasn't in that day, but we saw those fancy horsemen again, as they rode past the Palace. Apparently they are the Queen's guards.

Buckingham Palace

The grounds opposite the Palace are covered in flowers, and are exceptionally beautiful. They were probably put there so that the Queen can look at them from her window. Our guide told us lots of funny stories about the Palace and about the Queen. Once the Queen said in an interview, that she really likes to dance to the Abba song Dancing Queen, because she really is a 'dancing' Queen.

Another story was about some German backpackers who wanted to camp in Green Park, which is illegal,but they thought they'd try it. They came across the fence into the Buckingham Palace gardens, and thought they'd found it. They climbed over the fence, and slept there for the night. The guards were extremely shocked when they found them there in the morning. Another drunk Irish guy also found his way into Buckingham Palace itself, and set off so many alarms that the security guards thought it was a mistake. He kept wandering through the house until he found himself in the Queen's bedroom. She woke up, and rang the silent alarm, and chatted with him calmly while she waited for her footman to come. The footman jumped on the guy and sat on him until the police came. Amazingly it took the police 30 minutes to respond to the call, even though they are only 700m from the Palace. Londoners take this as a bad sign for them if they ever need the police quickly.

On our way to Buckingham Palace, we saw Green Park. It's not a very sophisticated name for a park, but there's a story behind it. Apparently one King used to walk his mistresses around this garden and pick flowers for them. His wife found out, and was not happy at all, so she asked for all the flowers to be removed from the park. This made it the Green Park.

Guarding the guard

After seeing the Palace, we went to watch the change of the guard at St James Palace. The change of the guard is only on every second day at the Palace, and we were there on the wrong day. The Palace where Prince Charles and Camilla live just across the street, and the guards are there regularly.

We came nearby and watched as the guards stood motionless and expressionless. One American lady thought she'd be clever and get right up in the face of one of the guards, and make faces at him. The guard yell at her really loudly, 'Stand Back, Stand Back!' She was so surprised she shrieked and ran off. She was the only one to try it. The rest of us had photos with the guards, and then watched them marching. Unfortunately we had accidentally switched our camera to fast record, and the movies we have look like jerky tin soldiers.

Next we visited Pall Mall street, which is famous for its Gentlemen's Clubs. These are not what you probably imagine when you hear that name. They are exclusive social clubs that are excruciatingly difficult to get into. The waiting list is at least 50 years long, and you must have three enlisted members recommend you in order to make it onto that list. Once you make it to the top, there is a vote using black and white balls. If there is even one black ball, you will not be accepted, and the members who recommended you will be expelled.

Gentlemen's Clubs

Apparently Prime Ministers have automatic entrance to these clubs, so they can talk politics there. This became a serious problem when England had a female prime minister. They decided to grant her an honorary male status, so that she could enter, rather than to change their rules.

Next we walked to Trafalgar Square, where Loren had been the night before. It looked even better in the day time. The Nelson column at the centre of the square was the most impressive feature. Below it there were some huge statues of lions. The sculptor of these lions had never seen a real lion before, so he used greyhounds as a model for the body and pictures for the lion's head. If you look at the statues properly you can see the resemblance.

Trafalgar square used to polluted by thousands of pigeons. People had been complaining about it for years, because they were constantly getting pooed on by the birds. Eventually they tried to fix the problem, first by making it illegal to feed them. This didn't help, so they hired falconeers to scare the pigeons away with birds of prey. This didn't work either, so they tried giving the birds contraceptive pills. You can see the result for yourselves today, there are hardly any pigeons left!

Trafalgar Square

The last cool thing that we heard about the square was that a new exhibition was about to be opened there. There is a big stone platform in the square, that is going to hold the exhibit. The crazy thing about this exhibit, is that it involves real Londoners. They are going to pay Londoners to stand on the platform for one hour each, as living art!

Next we went to St James's Park, which used to be the home for all the exotic animals that were given as gifts to the Kings. Each friendly colony or country tended to give their local animals as exotic gifts.

St James's Park

All of these animals are gone except the occasional black swan from Australia, and the squirrels, which took over the trees here. Loren was fascinated by the squirrels as she never sees these kind of creatures except on TV.

We also saw a camouflage building, covered in ivy. This is where some of the intelligence units are located.

Not so secret intelligence unit

Downing Street was not too far away, so we had a look at the houses that the Prime Minister and his Treasurer use. The street that runs along beside them were closed, so we just looked from a distance. Our guide told us some funny Winston Churchill quotes, including this classic conversation. 'Are you drunk sir?', says a female opponent in parliament. Churchill answered, 'Maybe I am, but tomorrow I will be sober, whereas you will remain ugly and obnoxious.'

We also passed the former horse and army barracks, which have now been turned into a museum. The huge parking lot out the back, is going to be the location for the Beach Volleyball during the 2012 Olympics.

Next we went to see Big Ben, or as it is more correctly known, The Clock Tower. The Big Ben is actually the huge 30 tonne bell inside the clock tower, not the tower itself. The dial on this clock is the biggest in Britain.
Our final stop on the walking tour was at Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. We sat down on the grass nearby and enjoyed the unusual sunshine while it lasted. Apparently this was the warmest week all summer, as summer was washed out by rain for the whole season.

Our guide told us about the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism in England. One group of activists decided to blow up parliament house, by filling the basement with barrels of gunpowder. Somehow their plot was discovered and the group of them were arrested. They executed as traitors, which was the worst kind of death imaginable. First the person is hung until they almost suffocate, then they are stretched on a machine until all their arms and legs pop out of their joints. The next process was to cut off their genitals and burnt them front of them, and their organs were also pulled out and burned in front of them, then their head was cut off and displayed on London Bridge, and they were cut into four pieces which were sent to the four corners of the British Empire. The pieces would be shown in each town on the way, to warn others of the fate that awaited traitors.

We enjoyed the tour a lot, and all of the stories that our guide told us along the way. After the tour finished, we headed back to see the inside of Westminster Abbey. We had only stopped outside it before.
We were a little taken aback at the 12 pound entrance fee, seeing as it is a church, but it is definitely a unique one, and they gave us an audio guide.
Westminster Abbey is where most monarchs have been crowned since 1066. At one point it was a monastery, and it houses the bodies and memorial plaques for many famous poets and writers. It was amazing to see all of the names of such incredibly talented people in one reverent place.

The fan vaulted Henry VII chapel was one of the most exquisite parts of the monastery. The ceiling was so intricate and beautifully shaped. We were overwhelmed by its beauty. There were many royal tombs throughout the Abbey, and several memorials to soldiers who fought for England. We even saw a stained glass window with the Polish pilots regiment's symbols represented, for fighting in WWII.

One of the other cool things in the Abbey, was the throne that is used in every coronation ceremony. There used to be a big sacred rock that was stolen from the Scots, and incorporated into the English coronation ritual. Now the English can't seem to live without it, and it took a lot of convincing and political prowess to get it back. This return of the rock is only a recent event.
After this heavy dose of British history, we wanted to do a more light hearted sightseeing activity. We chose to ride on the London Eye, which is like a huge ferris wheel. It was built for the new millenium, and the size of it guarentees great views over the city of London. We were once again suprised at the cost of sightseeing in London, but we went up anyway. The view over the city was well worth it. The weather was pretty clear, so we could see for a long way into the distance. The Thames looked pretty amazing from above, with all its little bridges here and there along its way.
In the evening, we rushed back to the hostel to clean up and get ready to go out for the evening. We had a lovely dinner at a stylish Italian restaurant near our hostel. They even gave us free shots of limoncello at the end of the meal. We had to head out again quickly though, as we were planning to catch up with a guy that Artur met on the Machu Pikchu trail in Peru.

We met Artur's friend, John, at a pub called Ye Old Cheshire Cheese. We thought the name was pretty cool, and it turned out to have great price beers and a real English atmosphere. Artur's friend was very English himself, so it was a great place to meet. The pub was like a little maze, filled with upstairs levels, and little stairways leading to more pub areas in the basement. People were even spilling out into the little alleyway outside.

We chatted with John about our travels and about his trip to Hungary. We had to call it a night at around 11pm though as we were pretty exhausted. Once we got outside into the cold air again, Loren started to feel more awake, and wanted to go dancing. In the end our fatigue prevailed and we headed back to the hostel.
The next morning we had breakfast at the hostel, and planned the rest of our day. That evening we were going to Bath, and hoping to stay at our friend Andy's place, another guy that we had met on our travels in Thailand. We decided to make the most of our day in London, and try to see as possible before leaving for Bath.

We decided to visit the Tower of London, but Loren wasn't feeling too fantastic, so we had to get some strepsils for her. We were amazed at the size of the Tower of London, when we got off the Tube. It was huge like a castle. The first hour we were there, we took a tour with one of the yeo wardens, who live at and look after the Tower of London. They had some pretty cool costumes and loved to tell lively stories about the Tower. The yeo wardens also look after the crows who live there. It's their responsibility to care for them and feed them.

Yeo warden

After the yeo wardens tour, we decided to go wandering around ourselves. We hired some audio guides, and explored the place for another 2 hours. There were so many medieval stories about Queens and future Kings who had been killed here. The tower had the reputation of being like a prison for a while, and many political prisoners died here.

Two boys who were in line for the throne before their uncle, disappeared here. The were always believed to have been murdered, but they only found the bones of two small children much later down the track. Lady Jane and her young husband was also kept here after her 9 days as Queen. She was put in power by people who wanted a protestant Queen, but she was ripped from her place by the rightful Catholic sister of the deceased King. It was a tragic story for poor young Jane.

We had a glimpse of a Scottish wedding while we were at the Tower. The couple were getting married in the tiny little chapel there. All the men in the wedding party were wearing kilts, including the tiny little page boy. There was even a guy playing bagpipes!
Artur's favourite part of the Tower was the White Tower, with its rooms full of medieval armoury, weaponry and an interactive display. We played games here to test our skills with a sword and other weaponry. We also took little quizzes on what weapon is good for what kind of action. Pretty fun!
Loren's favourite part was the Treasury! We got to see the Royal Jewelry, Crowns, orbs and sceptres. They were filled with diamonds and precious stones bigger and more sparkly than any we had seen before. Apparently they have been valued at 37 billion dollars!
While we waited in line to see them, there were cool videos showing the finer details of each piece of the treasury. There were also information boards on the walls explaining about where the jewels came from, and about the meaning of each of the pieces.

Tower of London

After we saw the Tower of London, we wandered outside the walls to see the Tower Bridge. It was really impressive up close. We decided not to walk up onto it, because the whole point was to see it, and we didn't have a lot of time left for sightseeing.

After we finished for the day, we rushed back to the hostel, and picked up our bags. We headed for Paddington Station, where we were planning to take a train to Bath. Unfortunately it cost 55 pounds for one ticket! You can fly across Europe for that kind of money! It was too late to find something else though, so we just had to take it. Artur panicked because we hadn't heard back from Andy yet, so he also booked some accomodation for us. We heard from Andy soon after, and found out we could stay with him. The dodgy hostel wouldn't let us cancel without paying for one night! Dodgy! Soon we were on our way to Bath though, and were very excited.

To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
London