We arrived in London on Tuesday morning, flying in from Munich. I had always wanted to visit England. Back in 1988 I spent 24 hours in London and found it quite stressful because I was just learning how very expensive it can be to travel and I was short on money.
This time around we had more money but it was still hard for me to spend it. We arrived at Gatwick Airport and needed to get to Kensington to visit friends we knew from our year in Germany, the Kirkhams. So we spent about $150 on round-trip train tickets to get into London and then spent some additional money to take the Tube to where we needed to go. Getting around in London is not cheap. It was worth it though, to arrive at our friends' house. David Kirkham is currently the director of the BYU London Study Abroad program so they have an apartment attached to the center and they very graciously offered to let all six of us stay with them. They had some food ready for us and after a few hours of visiting we were ready to set off. Another perk of staying with our friends is they let us use some BYU passes that let us into Kensington Palace for free. These passes are available for use only by BYU employees and students so this was all kosher.
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| Kensington Palace |
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| Talk about big hips. This was apparently high fashion back in the day (I'm not sure exactly when the day was). |
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| In front of a statue of Queen Victoria |
We walked through Kensington Gardens and then through the Palace which was moderately interesting. I wanted to walk farther but my feet were killing me and Camille had hurt her foot a few hours earlier so walking was not very appealing. We walked back through the park and spent a few minutes in the Princess Diana Memorial Playground before finding some dinner of Turkish doners.
That night the Kirkhams graciously offered their tickets at the Globe Theater for "Romeo and Juliet" to us. I decided to stay with the younger children while Scott took Susanna. The play was a little too edgy for us conservative types so they left early.
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| The Globe Theater similar to the way it was in Shakespeare's day |
The next day was our big London day. Camille's foot was still bothering her so Judy Kirkham very kindly offered to keep her while we traipsed around. Our first stop was the Tower of London. Once again, we got in free thanks to the BYU passes--huge savings. The tour was interesting but I was a little surprised at how bloody the history is of that place. This is where many of the major historical executions and imprisonments--just and unjust--took place. There was no line for the Crown Jewels (maybe because it was a weekday and early in the day) so we walked right in. I also found the exhibit on the Tower Zoo to be quite interesting--they really didn't know how to take care of the animals. We had lunch at the nearby Subway.
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| A pretend fight at the Tower of London. His antagonist is not shown. |
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| Tower of London. The grass right in front of it used to be the moat. |
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| Tower Bridge is in the background. London Bridge is nearby but looks like a regular bridge. |
Next stop was Westminster Bridge. A deadly terrorist attack happened on that bridge just a few months before and a Utah man lost his life in the attack. Big Ben and Parliament are right next to the bridge which was packed with people. It's easy to see how deadly an attack could be with so many people there. We also saw Westminster Abbey--only the outside because the line was long and it was very expensive. After that, we headed back to the apartment to collect Camille.
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| Big Ben and the Parliament building |
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| The "Eye" of London |
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| Westminster Abbey is a pretty gigantic and old building. |
In the afternoon, we got on one of the many doubledecker buses around London and headed for the British Museum which is huge, free, and full of people. The great thing about the museum is that they have wheelchairs which anyone can borrow, so we got one for Camille and she quite enjoyed being pushed around the museum. We saw the Rosetta Stone and many other artifacts.
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| In front of the British Museum |
After the British Museum we went to the King's Cross train station and stood in line for about half an hour to take a picture at Platform 9 3/4 which mysteriously happens to be right next to a Harry Potter store.
We went back to the Kirkham's and had a lovely dinner and then said goodbye before heading out of London. Seeing them was definitely a highlight.
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