Falling in Love with London <3

I’ve now spent several days in London, rushing around the touristy sites with family and friends… Trying desperately to take it all in before my one year programme at Oxford ended… But it took a peaceful day of casually wandering aimlessly with Anna, before I actually fell in love with this amazing city… Ironically enough, one of my most precious days in this lovely country of England, was also to be my last for the year… <3

After a week of frantic packing, stressing over unknown exam scores, saying goodbye to friends, Anna and I headed to London to spend our last two days in the country savoring the city! We left the hostel bright an early (after a rather late night spent trying to just locate the darn thing! I mean literally, we got to the address and it was nothing but a run-down, empty building… Needless to say, we figured it out eventually thanks to a very helpful bar-tender in a local pub!) and meandered in the direction of Tower Bridge.

Okay. So Tower Bridge is without a doubt my favorite London site. To which Anna can clearly attest. I don’t know what it is about it… But I just found it fascinating and mystifying and completely    beautiful… Maybe it was just the gorgeous day. Or maybe it was the fact that there were almost NO crowds of tourists as we lazily meandered towards it on the River Walk. Or maybe it was that I randomly discovered a piano overlooking the River and Bridge (where I commenced to play “London Bridge is Falling Down!”). Or maybe it’s simply that it’s an iconic symbol of London and an amazing Engineering feat. Whatever it is. I love it. A little too much apparently. I just kept taking pictures. And eventually Anna had to drag me away. Haha :)

But not before we found the Tower of London on our way towards Tower Bridge! A completely accidental discovery… We simply followed the hoards of tourists, and found ourselves standing on the famous location of Anne Boelyn and Sir Thomas More (and countless famous others’) captivation and execution… So as I told Anna whilst nerdily taking photos, “Smile! Dead people died here!”

And this was her reaction when I said that… :D

 Tower of London

TOWER BRIDGE!!! :) Haha

 

And some other crazy hilarity along the way…

From Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, we embarked on the nerdiest (and thus, most amazing) wild goose chase of my life. It was the Quest to discover John Snow’s famous water pump! Now, I say “famous” with some caution, because it is completely likely that the only other people in the world, nerdy enough to enjoy such a     quest with delight are either Public Health specialists, Epidemiologists, and the occasional rouge Medical Anthropologist who paid attention in “Anthropology of Disease” last term. Haha :) Long story short, (because this should be documented for posterity sake) John Snow is considered one of the Fathers of Modern Epidemiology… A title earned when he discovered that the source of the 1854 Cholera outbreak in London was a pump in Soho. He promptly shut-down the pump (which Anna and I theorized probably caused much anguish at the time!) and saved the day! And Anna and I took on the challenge to discover said pump… Unfortunately now all that exists of this (in my opinion) historic site is a pub in his honor, and I red tile on the sidewalk… But we were quite pleased with our adventure all the same!

I found the site of the John Snow Pump!!! :)

Luckily for us and our stomachs, this expedition put us in the neighborhood of Chinatown! So we made a visit and ate some of the most amazing Chinese food ever (or perhaps we were just ravenous) … :) We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around London’s shopping districts, before heading back to the other side of the River to begin Anna’s “Nerdy Quest of the Day!”

And what exactly, did Anna (my literature turned religious studies turned Muslim studies and all things crazy ancient languages genius) wish to track down… Shakespeare’s ‘Globe Theatre!’ And it turned out to only be a short walk down the Thames River from our youth hostel! :) We showed up at the Globe expecting no more than to look around, but promptly discovered there was a show performing that very night… And we two lucky girls snagged the last two “standing room only” tickets for a whopping 5GBP! Best surprise ever! So we headed off to enjoy a dinner at a river-side pub, and     returned later that evening, tickets in hand, ready to enjoy the delights of Shakespeare in THE (replica) Globe!

She was so adorable and excited… Haha :)

Now I am ashamed to admit that I somehow made it all the way through high school, college, and an almost Masters without ever reading or seeing a single Shakespeare play… The best I can own to is that I was somewhat in love with a few of his Sonnets in high school (thanks to my favorite A&E movies and Lizzi!)… So I had no idea what to expect, or if I would like his work at all… The performance that night, of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, however, absolutely left me near speechless it was so wonderful. I mean it was absolutely AMAZING. For one, it was just being in the Globe, and the ambiance, and standing to watch it (which, while my feet were killing me by the end, it was totally worth it for the experience!) as peasants once did… For two, it was the amazing all-star cast they had! The line-up included everyone from the butler off of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, to actors from Titantic and other Blockbusters… For three, it was the interactions with the audience… The actors would play off of the audience, use them as props, pause at awkward moments or when there was a mistake made, and literally laugh with AND at the audience… It was as if you were a prop in the comedy of it all… Seeing Shakespeare performed, on stage, with such perfect talent and wit, made it literally come alive in a new way than anything I’ve ever seen on stage. It was a wonderful end to our perfect day in London. Both Anna and I walked away in awe of London as a city…

Early the next morning… Alright, strike that… Later in the middle of the night (because my 7am flight required I be up at 3am to take a taxi and then train and then plane and then drive an hour to get back home to Stuttgart), I waved goodbye to England and Anna (ie. the reason I survived graduate school!)

This past year has been a dream-come-true… More than I ever could have wished for… I’m truly going to miss the ancient traditions, little British quirks, beautiful sites and countryside, and amazing friends I’m leaving behind in England … So I’m already counting the days til I’ll be returning to visit friends and/or graduate next April!!! :)

With Love from Germany… <3 Mary Elizabeth