Happily Ever After: England - Day 6 - A Foggy Day in London Town

I still can't get over these guys! Their uniforms are the BEST!

By the time day 6 came around, we were starting to feel like we had gotten the hang of London and could really navigate ourselves anywhere pretty quickly with the tube and the double decker buses. St. Paul's cathedral was our first stop of the day. It is huge - Europe's 4th largest cathedral. We have seen two of the three that are larger - St. Peter's in Rome, and the Duomo in Milan. We planned to get there a few minutes early to take some pictures outside before starting our tour of the inside.

Here is Dave, holding out a tuppence, for you to feed the birds. Yes, he did sing the song on the steps. Big surprise, I know. :)

Davey singing Feed the Birds. My favorite part is how embarrassed he was at the beginning (there were tons of people walking by), and then how he got over it pretty quick and how he just made up words to the song. One funny thing about Dave is that he never ever knows the words to songs, so he always makes them up. Even in London, England. :)

I learned a lot of neat things about St. Paul's while we were there. Like the fact that there has been a church standing on the spot since 604. That's a LONG time!! Remember how I told you that Christopher Wren basically rebuilt the City of London after the big fire of 1666? Well, the old cathedral burnt down along with the city, so St. Paul's is Christopher Wren's most famous church. Here's my favorite St. Paul's fact though - despite 57 nights of bombing during WWII, the Nazis failed to destroy the cathedral, thanks to the St. Paul's volunteer fire watchmen, who stayed on the dome. I love that amidst all the chaos and destruction and ruin of WWII, the church was miraculously spared bombs and that people cared enough about the church to protect it at the cost of their own lives.

A picture of St. Paul's cathedral during the bombing. I love that through the smoke and debris, you can clearly see the church standing as Britain's symbol of resilience.

Inside the cathedral was beautiful. Again, we weren't allowed to take any pictures, but we saw some pretty neat things in there. We saw Horatio Nelson's grave (remember the one-armed, one-eyed hero of the Battle of Trafalgar?), The Duke of Wellington's grave, and Christopher Wren's grave. In the middle of the cathedral, directly underneath the dome, on the floor is Christopher Wren's name and this epitaph, "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you." There is no better monument to Christopher Wren than St. Paul's itself. There was also a little chapel inside the church called the American Memorial Chapel, built to honor the Americans who sacrificed their lives to save Britian during WWII. There is a beautiful stained glass window that has the American Eagle, George Washington, and symbols of all 50 states. Underneath the glass is The Roll of Honor that lists the names of 28,000 US servicemen and women based in Britain who gave their lives during the war.

I found this picture online, and I know it's hard to spot - but you can see George Washington in the top right curve of the window. He's in a little square with a blue background. Also, we found Utah's beehive! It's on the right hand side of the window, just above halfway. You'll see a little yellow beehive with a blue background. It was fun to see a piece of home all the way across the world.

We climbed 400-something steps to get to the top of the dome, only to find out that the very top level didn't open for another hour. We unfortunately didn't have time to wait that long, so we climbed to the middle level and saw some pretty impressive views of the city. They also had a "whispering gallery" that we stopped at. It was about halfway up to the dome, and if you stood in one spot and talked into the wall, somebody else standing a few dozen yards away could hear what you said if they leaned into the wall. Weird, huh??

Hello London!

While we were walking around the outside of the dome, we heard the bells ringing. So cool to be standing where we were and hearing the bells as we overlooked the city.

We could have wandered around that church all morning long, but unfortunately we had to get to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. Rick Steves had warned us that it would get crazy crowded and that if we weren't there, standing in our spot no later than 10:30, (even though the actual changing wouldn't happen until 11:45), we wouldn't be able to see anything. We wanted to spend more time in St. Paul's and less time standing around at Buckingham Palace, so we didn't get there before 10:30. As usual, Rick Steves was 100% right. We got there at about 11:15, and the place was OUT. OF. CONTROL. I think every single tourist in all of London was there at the same time. There was nowhere to stand at all.

Just a small glimpse of the amount of people. There were this many people in every direction, no matter which way you faced. It was NUTS!

We muscled our way as close to the front as we could get, and did pretty good. There were only three rows of people in front of us, and we were standing at the front gates. There were people pushing and shoving and weaseling cameras every which way. At one point, someone's arms went around both sides of my head, and their camera was right in front of my face taking a picture. Talk about personal space! Or the lack thereof, I suppose. There was a mom and a daughter in front of us from Arizona, and a French lady standing next to them who kept pushing and shoving the daughter. The mom was getting so frustrated, and was finally at her wits end when she angrily tapped the French lady on the shoulder and said, very angrily, "Can you stop FALLING on my daughter!?" Hahahaha. Dave and I were dying. The daughter was so embarrassed, the French lady was mad, and it all made for great pre-changing of the guard entertainment. Am I glad that we saw the changing of the guard? Absolutely. It's SOOO London. Would I ever feel like I needed to see it again? No way, Jose. Once is totally fine for me.

To me, there is nothing more quintessential London than this. Well, maybe Big Ben with a double decker bus driving in front of it. Which we also saw. :)

Here's a little snippet of the actual changing. It was so neat to hear the band playing - I sort of felt like I was at 4th of July parade, except British style. At one point during the ceremony, the band started playing Billy Joel - Dave and I were rockin' out to one of our favorite artists right there at Buckingham Palace!

We loved the funny little hats that all of the policemen wear.

Getting out of the Buckingham Palace mess of people was CRAZY. I held onto my bag and Dave's backpack in front of me and we just muscled our way out of the crowd until we had some space to BREATHE. It was nuts. I never felt more like a tourist than I did there. After we got out of that mess, we headed to the Churchill War Rooms. You know how I was so excited to see all of the Jane Austen sights? Well, Dave was just as excited, if not MORE excited, about the Churchill War Rooms. He's always loved Winston Churchill, and so the war rooms were a BIG deal for him. The British government hunkered down underground here in the war rooms during the darkest days of WWII - during the seemingly endless Nazi bombardment. It was from here that the war effort was directed and from here that Churchill gave his stirring speeches about never giving up. At the end of WWII, when the last employees left the war rooms, they turned off the lights, and it has now been turned into a museum with everything being kept exactly as it was left 70 years ago. Being that close to WWII history gets Dave all giddy with excitement.

He was definitely as giddy as a school boy. Maybe a school GIRL even. :)

Inside the museum were the war rooms themselves, plus a museum all about Winston Churchill and his life. It was amazing. One of the best museums I've ever been to. I actually like WWII history too, and so learning all of this stuff about Churchill was really fun for me too. They had all kinds of interactive exhibits, videos, and TONS of pictures and artifacts. I was fascinated the whole time. And if I was fascinated the whole time, you can only imagine how Dave was. I wish I would have taken a video of him just enjoying the place. He was so cute.

The big cabinet meeting room. Winston's chair is the one right behind the red box - the wooden one with the curved back. Crazy to think that a few men sat here around this table discussing how they were going to keep the world free from Nazi terror.

Winston's Office.

A portrait from the museum of a younger looking Churchill than we are used to seeing.

The Chiefs of Staff conference room.

The kitchen. Can you imagine cooking underground?? I wonder if it was weird.

The map room. Where that guy in the back is standing was a GIANT map of the world with pins and dots all over it showing the location of troops, both allied and enemy.

Winston's bedroom. This bed is where he famously took his "naps". He didn't sleep much throughout the crisis of WWII, and sometimes would have meetings and phone calls into the night. He would retire to this bed for some much needed naps. I'm not sure any of them were ever long enough to call a "good sleep".

We were in the war rooms on May 8th, the actual date of the 70th anniversary of VE day. At exactly 4:00, a voice came over the intercom letting us know that in memory of VE day, there would be a national minute of silence. It was SOOOO cool to be IN the ACTUAL war rooms, where the war effort was directed, observing a moment of silence to remember the sacrifice from all the heroes of WWII. It really was so special that we were able to be there at that time.

During our tour, we had walked past the cafeteria and had seen people eating out of these little tin cans. I knew Dave would want to do that too, so we stopped on the way out. For him, it was kind of like having tea with Mr. Darcy at the Jane Austen center. Only a whole lot less romantic, and a lot more...I don't know...historical? Is that the right word? They served vegetable soup in the tin can, but really it was just basically squash soup. Pureed, warm squash. Which is good if you're a baby or haven't eaten for 3 days, bad if you eat it for any other reason. We dumped in two entire bags of goldfish to mix in with it, and when we did that it was at least edible. Stupid England food.

The soup was gross, but it made for a good picture, right?? I love that war poster in the background.

After Dave spent a good amount of money in the gift shop (not as much as me at the Jane Austen center, but fairly close!), we were off to the National Gallery. I love art history, and there were some paintings there that I was so excited to see. Our trip to Italy had so much art history involved with it, and although there was a lot of actual history in England, there wasn't much art history. So - the National Gallery was a must for me. I had made a list of all the paintings I wanted to see most of all, so that we didn't spend hours wandering around looking at pictures we didn't know anything about. Here are a few of the highlights:

Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks. I love da Vinci's paintings. They are always so calm and peaceful.

A Botticelli!! My favorite!! My all-time favorite painting EVER is Botticelli's Birth of Venus in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. So - anytime I can see another work by Botticelli, it is a good day. Here is his Venus and Mars. I don't think anybody paints more beautiful people than Botticelli.

Did I mention I love the Renaissance?? This is Michelangelo's The Entombment. It is unfinished, but is still typical Michelangelo. His strongest art was sculpting, and even his paintings look like sculptures. Chiseled, defined muscles are everywhere, even on the women. The people are struggling to hold the weight of Christ's lifeless body, showing the weight and tragedy of their deceased God.

This painting was NOT on the list, but you can imagine that it caught our eye. Funny? Yes. Shocking? Yes. Disgusting? Yes. I can't remember the name of the man who painted it, but the description said that it was a satire of old, frumpy ladies trying to look young and vivacious when they just weren't. A satire about how it's not good for older ladies to try and pretend like they are 17 again. I think he made his point pretty clear.

Dave's favorite type of art is Impressionist. The National Gallery had a beautiful section of Impressionist paintings. Here is a painting by Monet, called The Water Lily Pond. Monet is called the Father of Impressionism because he was more interested in how light played around his subject matter, more than the subject itself. You can definitely see that in this painting.

Van Gogh's Sunflowers. This may be one of the most recognized paintings in the world. The sunflowers are much like himself - drooping, wilting, or shimmering - all depending on which way you look at them.

The National Gallery sits at the very top of Trafalgar Square, so after we had seen all of the paintings we wanted to see, we grabbed a sandwich at a little corner cafe and brought it back to the square and sat down, people-watched and enjoyed the London scenery while we ate our dinner. It was so fun just observing the sights and sounds of London - cabbies honking, double decker bus exhaust fuming, British accents jabbering away, babies crying, phones ringing, people laughing. London is truly a busy, bustling, beautiful city. We loved soaking it in.

A little narration from Dave standing in the center of Trafalgar Square.

The London Eye was on our agenda for the evening. We headed back that way and took a few more pictures along the way.

Remember quintessential London?? I think this might be it in a picture.

The London Eye was super fun. It wasn't a thrill ride at all, it was really, really slow, but it allowed for us to take in the sights from an aerial view which was pretty awesome. Seeing London from the sky is totally different than seeing it from the ground - maybe a little more majestic, since you don't see or hear the loud, traffic-ridden streets. It was just me, Dave, and London from the sky! (Plus a few other families that were in our little car as well. They were really cute though).

I love in this picture that you can see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey at the same time. So pretty!!

By the time we were finished with our trip around the eye, it was dark outside and pretty late. We wandered around the streets, just taking in more of the London night scene. It was fun to see the city all lit up. We took a few more pictures, went to the grocery store for some more breakfast items/snacks, and then called it a night. We were starting to feel like true Londoners at this point, and were thrilled that we had been able to see and do as much as we had done so far.