London

I have now been safely and comfortably back in France since 5 January. Classes have restarted and I am very happy to be back to normal life here in Pau. That being said, I still had a very nice vacation. In total, I was away from France for twenty days: ten days in London and ten days in Dublin. Since it is such a length of time to be traveling, my description of my vacation will be split between two entries. This will be the entry for my first ten days, spent in London...

Classes ended for the semester 15 December and on 17 December, I was on a plane on my way to London. I was very excited about my trip because, while I was traveling alone, I had several friends who lived in London and whom I expected to see often. Unfortunately, the trip did not work out as I had planned in that respect as everyone was very busy with seeing family and celebrating the holidays. I was able to spend some time with friends, but not nearly as much as I had expected. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in London.

While there, I saw all of the standard tourist attractions: from the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace to all of the eccentricities and bizarre attractions at Camden Market. Probably my favorite thing about London was all of the museums.

For those that have not been to London, nearly all of the museums are free to the public. One of my favorite museums was the British Museum. I spent a total of eight hours there over the course of two days and I only scratched the surface. Upon looking at the map of the exhibits, I consciously made an effort to only explore the exhibits that interested me the most: the Rosetta Stone, the exhibit of ancient Assyrian art, Egyptian mummies and two or three other small areas. I think my favorite exhibit from the British Museum was that of Assyrian artwork, simply because I had not expected what I saw: the intricacy of the carving and the size of the murals were unimagi

nable; pictures from books and historians' descriptions do not do them justice. It was also a bit overwhelming to turn a corner and suddenly be faced by infamous, five-legged Lamasu from the Balawat Gates. My other favorite was the Tate Modern. There, I gained a new appreciation for modern art, particularly Surrealism, Andy Warhol and Russian Communist propagandist art. Like in the Louvre and the Musée D'Orsay, it was an exciting experience to be standing in front of the art I had studied in classes 5,000 miles away: Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse, René Magritte, Georges Braque. Like the British Museum, I returned more than once.

I spent a total of ten days in London, meaning this was where I spent my Christmas. Before leaving France, I had booked myself I decent hotel in the western London borough of Hammersmith, and I am very glad I did as my hostel was less than ideal. I arrived at the hotel Christmas Eve, and assuming that I would be alone for Christmas, decided to treat myself to a nice dinner that night before finding someplace to attend Christmas services. I had never had proper Indian food, so I chose the nicest that I could find in the area; it was run by a former four-star London chef who had decided to open his own restaurant outside of the city center. I had a delicious meal of chicken curry and despite ordering a few items had I not originally intended to order, everything was delicious and the meal was still quite affordable.

Well, fed, I then ventured out to find a church. I had not seen any yet that day, so I decided to ask at one of the local pubs (the source of all information when anywhere in Great Britain). I was directed to a Catholic Church that was not far from my hotel, the only church the barman knew of. I went to the church directly from the pub in order to see at what time midnight mass started, and as it happened, an earlier mass was about to begin just as I was arriving. Since I was already dressed for dinner and church, and since I thought it would be too awkward to leave then only to return later, I followed the rest of the congregation and took my seat inside. It was roughly at this point that I was puzzled by the fact that the bulletin was primarily written in Arabic. But knowing that this area was had a large immigrant population, I did not think about this problem again until the mass started. Unfortunately, the entire mass, save two verses of a Christmas carol, was delivered entirely in Arabic. Between my previous experiences with Catholic masses and by keeping a close watch on my neighbors with my peripheral vision, I survived.

After mass, I received a text from a friend I had made earlier at the hostel, Lara; she was from Galway, but was spending Christmas with her mother at her cousin's house in London. Her text invited me to eat Christmas dinner with her and her family the next day. I was hesitant to accept as I thought I would be an intrusion, but she assured me there would be more than enough food and the she herself would not know everyone there anyways. I accepted and was instructed to meet her in Sloane Square in central London just after noon Christmas day. As there were no buses nor subways runni

ng on that day, I decided to try to save my money and walk. I knew it would be about an hour's walk, so I left appropriately early. Unfortunately, after half an hour of walking, I realized I was going the wrong way. I had already killed half an hour and was now even farther from my destination, so I had to take a taxi, which was painfully expensive. But I arrived safely and with Lara and her mom, I went to her cousin's house in a comfortable London suburb south of the Thames. I was warmly welcomed and had a lov

ely, Irish-English Christmas. We all arrived back at Lara's hotel at Sloane Square sometime around 10:00 that night, and I walked back to my hotel, this time going in the correct direction.

I arrived safely back at my hotel without any disturbances. Side note: while I do not necessarily advocate walking around London at such an hour, I will say that if such a thing must be done, it is best to do as I did and walk through Chelsea, the notoriously most wealthy borough of London. I arrived at my hotel with the intention of calling my parents and Maren, but unfortunately ran out of money on my cell phone talking with my dad. I went to bed slightly disappointed, but still quite content that I had been fortunate enough to be so warmly welcomed for Christmas day.

In front of my hostel in Bayswater:

Apsley House, former residence of the Duke of Wellington:

Wellington Arch, across the street from the Apsley House:

Buckingham Palace:

Changing of the Guards:

Horse Guards' Parade:

Horse Guards' Road looking south:

Clarence House, residence of the Prince of Wales:

St. James' Park:

St. Paul's Cathedral:

Thames River:

Mounted Police:

Natural History Museum:

London architecture:

church at Pont Street Mews:

The Royal Exchange:

Afternoon Tea:

Royal College of Music:

Royal Albert Hall:

Queen Victoria in front of Kensington Palace in Hyde Park:

Kensington Palace:

At the pond in Hyde Park:

Westminster Abbey:

Big Ben:

Houses of Parliament and Commons on the Thames River: