Break Day 3: Alone in London

So...first day of London was sort of...badly planned.

Nathalie, our other friend who also went to London, and I had planned to meet up the next day at Buckingham Palace at the changing of the guards. Oh...if only we had known...

I walked over the the palace and stood by one of the entrances. It was pretty calm, I waited...and waited. Finally I walked over to a lady and asked "excuse me, is this where you watch the changing of the guards?" like a brainless tourist. No, she said, I had to walk around to the other side. I rounded the corner and saw what must have been thousands of people alllllll over the palace. Within two seconds I knew I would never find them. And I had left my tablet at my cousin's place. Great.

Okay now try to find Nathalie.... 

I found a place among all the other tourists at the gate to stare at the stone-faced men dressed in red walk back and forth. That was really boring, to be honest. The other people around me, on the other hand, where fascinating. To my left I heard French, to my right I heard Slovakian, so I sort of half understood everything around me. One little French boy turned to his mom after waving to the guard "Maman, why does the man not wave back when I say bonjour to him? it's rude." Lots of little things like that.

After 15 minutes of waiting I realized that this was ridiculous, and I left and went to the park right next to the palace. It was a fantastic park, I went on a mini run, and I must have looked like an idiot, but I didn't care. I loved it. I have to say, I felt a lot less judged in the UK than I do in France. I don't know what it is, but in France it feels like everyone and their dog is glaring at you for disrespecting some sort of social norm.  Here, however, I felt like I had gone back home. Maybe I could even walk around in sweats.

AND! SO MUCH STARBUCKS! I have started measuring the awesomeness of a place based on the number of Starbucks or Subways I pass within an hour, and London...in this regard you have succeeded.

I did that, then walked back to the touristy thing, impossibly even more people had managed to show up. I did a quick walk around the palace, half-looking for Nathalie and her friend, but I had given up the second I saw the crowd. Needless to say, I did not find them.

So plan b: explore London on my own. I waited for the guards to do their thing, but I more heard than saw the changing of the guards, the crowd was too big. Then I walked through another park (where I saw a squirrel for the first time in months) towards the London Eye, and...just sort of walked. A woman let me use her cell phone at one point to call my cousin and let her know what was going on. Another thing I'm no longer used to: random strangers on the street being nice to you. Sorry France but... you sort of fail at this.

Nathalie is a huge England buff so I was sort of relying on her and her friend to be tour guides, but since they weren't there I snagged a map from the tour bus company and just followed the bus route on foot, which was actually a pretty successful plan.

"Maman, why does the guard not say bonjour to me when I say bonjour to him? C'est impoli"

Back in my day, we played with sticks when we were waiting 

These kids were adorable

Another example of kindness I forgot existed, the policemen walked through the crowd telling everyone how to hold their stuff to protect themselves from pickpockets, and he made hand gestures for those who didn't speak English. I doubt this would happen in France

Forget the guards, park! 

Squirrel, first one in months

Poor guy, his job is literally to stand there and have people take pictures of him. Tyra Banks would be proud.

At home I'm used to doing a lot of my favorite things on my own, so it was actually kind of nice to be able to wander around and see what I wanted, do what I wanted. Slightly lonely, but it was nice to just wander. Like I said, I basically followed the tour bus route: I went all the way from the Parliament buildings through some random streets towards St. Pauls, then along the water to Tower Bridge and back.

Westminster Abbey

Street performers. Yes, that is an oddly-bent man in a basket on another man's head 

A book sale under one of the bridges... a beautiful sight, I was worried I would never leave

One of my favorite finds, the Twinnings tea shop!!! One good thing about being alone, I could wander in here, sit down for a tea tasting, and I didn't feel rushed

Literally the best tea I have ever had. Each of of these is hand made, and a chrysanthemum flower is sown into it

Sikh protest 

And then I found a goat, the first of many on this trip :)

St. Paul's Cathedral. I was really lucky to come on a Sunday, it's the only day you can go in for free, otherwise it's pretty pricey. I sat in for a little bit of mass. The inside is gorgeous 

Tower bridge

Hay's Gallaria

The city lit up at night 

Shakespeare's Globe Theater, eh, not that impressive. But then again I didn't go inside 

I stopped into Tate Modern, a free modern art museum, on my way back. I actually liked some of the stuff in there, some of it was just weird. 

A whole room filled with communism propaganda 

Aaaand apparently this is art...

...as is this? 

My impression of London: it's beautiful. Touristy? Yes. But it was expected. Definitely less so that Paris, though. I think I heard more English in Paris than I did here.

At the end of the day I went back to my cousin's house and checked my tablet. 20 messages from Nathalie. Facebook had shown all her massages as "seen" so it looked like I had ignored her...oops. The plan had originally been that we go back to my cousin's together, but that failed. There was a bit of confusion. But she was able to get into contact with my cousin and she found her way over. Then we ate cake. Went to sleep.