Londinium I

 I originally had no idea how far away from London in fact the city of Brighton was. I guess that was not such good planning on my part, but I don't regret this because I got to stay and hang out with a friend, as opposed to being stuck in a hostel in London alone. In fact, I felt like the two days that I spent just walking around London gave me a fair impression of what the main tourist attractions in the center of town looked like. This impression is something that I can further build on if I find myself in the city once more.

Caity and I calculated that the best ticket for us would be an all-day off-peak rail, tube and bus pass for 19 pounds. Off-peak meant we had to travel to London after 10 am and head back to Brighton no sooner than 7 or 7:30 pm (I don't remember exactly anymore). In exchange for that we could use any tube trains or buses during the day inside zone 1. This restriction didn't bother us because all the attractions were located in that zone.

 Our first destination was the Sherlock Holmes Museum. We got there from Victoria Station using the Tube. Despite it being "off-peak" the stations and trains were quite full and I was reminded of the good old days when I had to shove my way into a subway train in Moscow. There was something different this time: unusually shaped doors. For some reason in the Tube some trains (I only took one, so cannot speak for all of them) have very low slanting roofs and the doors follow the roof contour, yielding something like this as a result. While this looks cool and extraordinary, it seems quite impractical in the case of much human traffic, because the people left standing next to the entrance have to always be aware of their head (or neck in the case of very tall individuals) getting hit by a closing door. Then, after the doors have closed, they are stuck in a slightly ridiculous posture with head and shoulders bent into the car, following the shape of the doors.

221 Baker Street

At the time Arthur Conan Doyle was writing, 221 Baker Street did not exist in reality. This address, I believe, was specifically created for the Sherlock Holmes Museum later. The museum itself was primarily an example of a mid or late nineteenth century interior with the majority of the house consisting of a staircase trunk, with a couple of rooms strung around it on every floor (of which there were at least 4), like leaves or some hollow kind of fruit.

Touristy Picture, courtesy of anonymous Schweitzer

We were greeted on the first floor by a sly-looking old man wearing an ascot who, upon hearing that we were from Boston, remarked on the high quality of tea parties in that city. We chuckled at the "compliment" and Caity proceeded to persuade me to be in a touristy picture, holding a pipe and wearing Holmes's hat on my head (can be seen left). We had some Swiss people, speaking their incomprehensible dialect of German, take said touristy picture.
 
We then went up the staircase to higher floors where we encountered some wax figures depicting some of Holmes's famous cases. Likely an influence of the nearby Madamme Tussaud's, these figures seemed strange to me in a victorian house.We looked at them for a bit, then bummed around the expectedly overpriced museum shop and set out to the Brittish Museum via Regent's Park.

Madamme Tussaud's influence

This is a rare picture of me smiling at a dog

In Regent's park we went along the pond for a while, I fooled a swan into nibbling on my hand by presenting it as if I had bread to give (there was an enourmous number of hungry and hence almost tame water foul there). Then we passed Regent's college, a very posh looking place with a gatekeeper and ID check at the entrance. After that we found ourselves suddenly on the outskirts of the park and not being content with that, ventured back in, made a loop back to the college, and as a result discovered a charming rose garden with an abundance of different species of the flower. Not being a big flower-lover, I can't say I appreciated this find as much as Caity.

Making friends with the swans.
Caity's camera died shortly after this picture, so the rest
of the day was only documented in written form.

After that we exited Regent's Park for the second time and for good. We then turned our steps in the direction of the Brittish Museum, picking up a sandwich per person from Pret a Manger. We arrived at the museum sometime around two or three o'clock, and roamed through the classical antiquity and european section until its closing sometime around five.

I remember finally seeing the barelief "The Battle of the Centaurs against the Lapiths" live after bumping into photographs of it in several books. I was also surprised to discover that heart-shaped ornaments dated to as far back as the 18th or 17th century. I always thought that symbol was invented fairly recently. The last thing I remembered from the visit was us being rushed out by the museum personell through a very impressive quasi-two storey library room built in classical style and containing various rarities besides books. As we were leaving, I gathered from a sign that this room was the orininal museum and the rest of the complex was built around it in order to house more exhibits.

I also (a bit later) made a list of things to see when (or if?) I come back. These include, but are not limited to, the reading room and the egyptian and babylonian sections.

After we were kicked out of the museum (I lived to see the day when I had to leave a museum against my will!) stumbled on St. Paul because the bus that was supposed to take us directly to it happened to unexpectedly end for some mysterious reason at a stop one block away from the church. We were able to find it because one of the steeples was visible from the stop, otherwise considerable wandering would have ensued.I cannot say much about St. Paul's other that it is impressive and that I had the cheesy song 'Feed the Birds' from the movie Mary Poppins stuck in my head the whole time we were around it. Oh, and there was a monument in front of it to a queen Anne, and we could not figure out when she lived or why the monument was erected.

We then bused over to Traffalgar Square, saw the Nelson Collumn, the Olympic Games Countdown Machine (not its official name!) and lots of yet mor classical empire style buildings, seemingly a staple of London architecture.

As it was getting late, we quickly marched to Buckingham Palace, glanced at it from a respectable distance, and discussed what it would be like to throw parties in there. We then walked over to the Parliament Building and Big Ben, the latter turning out much shorter and less impressive than I had imagined from postcards and movies. The amount of detail in the decorations of both buildings was astounding, however. When a nation dedicates so much attention to beautifying their parliament, that says something, I think.

Naturally after seeing the Parliament, we walked around the very well-lit Westminster Abbey. I don't think I have anything of note to contribute to the plethora of different things said and written about the place, so I will limit myself to a dry but sincere "very impressive".

At this point it was eight o'clock and we decided that was a good time to head home. Having trudged to Victoria Station, we boarded a train to Brighton... and fell asleep. I did so somewhat too blissfully and with too much commitment, because I remember being somewhat amazed at being woken up by Caity, who was beginning to suspect that our train had arrived at it's final destination. Our car was indeed suspiciously empty and not moving at all. Unfortunately, it was dark outside and hard to tell what station we were at exactly. I used this as an excuse to attempt to make a case for going back to sleep, but then somehow Caity won (I was not awake enough to remember) and before I realized completely what was going on, we were standing on what looked like the platform of Brighton Station. Luckily for us, there was a train headed to Falmer (our home station) in 3 minutes, so we made it. By Jove, what would have happened, if my arguments had prevailed?

Thus ended the day of my first visit to London.