Week 14: London Bucket List

This weekend my friend who’s studying at NYU Paris came to visit and it was a chance for me to finish my London Bucket List too.  Here is a list of some highlights in London, which is definitely more than you can finish in 2 days.  Nonetheless, we still managed to hit up the majority of it while she was here.

• St Paul’s Cathedral – A historic site, where Princess Diana had her wedding and the funerals of many celebrated people took place.  The architecture is beautiful; it used to be in the style of a traditional cross cathedral with a spire but Sir Christopher Wren designed it with a dome after it burnt down in a fire.  Interestingly, the dome you see from the outside actually surrounds the dome that you see from the inside and has a painted ceiling.  This is so it looks taller on the outside.  You can climb the dome and see great views of the city.
• London Eye – Not much to say besides that it is a must-see because of the amazing views of the city.
• Westminster Abbey – Where coronations take place and also the site of many royal weddings like that of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
• Buckingham Palace – The Queen lives here, enough said.  Read more on my earlier blog post.  Also go see the Changing of the Guards.
• Tower of London – Holds the crown jewels and is rich with history.
• Globe Theatre – This is a reconstruction of the original theatre during Shakespeare’s time.
• Tower Bridge – One of the most iconic bridges in the world.  You’ll be lucky if you see it open (it’s a drawbridge), which I sadly did not manage to catch.
• Millennium Bridge – A footbridge that connects to South Banks over the Thames.  You can walk from St Paul’s right over to the Tate Modern or The Globe.
• Borough Market – Lots of good food.  Get the duck sandwich and mulled wine, mulled cider, or other mulled fruit drinks in the winter.
• Camden Market – Look at my earlier post to learn more; also lots of good food and shopping.
• Portobello Road Market – Look at my earlier post to learn more; antiques and flea market.
• 221B Baker St: Sherlock Holmes’ home/museum – Also look for the Sherlock Holmes tiles in the nearby Baker St tube station.
• Graffiti – There are works from some famous street artists around town, like Banksy and Mr. Brainwash.  A lot of it is quickly removed after they appear, but try to catch them as they pop up or if they’re lucky enough to be preserved behind plexiglass.
• Have tea – My friend and I went to Tea & Tattle, a cute little teashop below an independent bookstore and ordered afternoon tea.  You usually get a selection of sandwiches, scones (with clotted cream), and cake (try Victoria sponge) with your tea from a set menu, and it all feels very classy not to mention delicious.

View of St Paul’s Cathedral & Millennium Bridge from South Bank.

Also don’t forget all of the great museums in London, which are all free! (Except for various small specialty museums).  Look at my blog post for an overview.

Week 12: Harry Potter Tour

This Friday I went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour at Leavesden Studios with an NYU London programming event, and I have to say it was like I stepped into a dream come true. We had a chance to stand on actual sets constructed for the movies, look at thousands of carefully constructed props and costumes, get a behind the scenes look at the making of the movie, and even taste butterbeer!

Although I had been in the dining hall that inspired the Great Hall at Oxford before, now I got chance to walk through the actual set and see how the inspiration was brought to life. Now if you know me, you’ll know I got a little too excited about checking in to each section of the studio on Foursquare. For example, when I checked in to “Dumbledore’s Office” it was even marked as a college administrative building! It made the experience feel more real, as if everyone who visited decided to suspend all disbelief when they entered and treat everything as if it were the real thing. After seeing some more sets with all the props placed perfectly within such as Snape’s potions class, the Chamber of Secrets door, Gryffindor’s common room, and the Burrow, we took a break to get some butterbeer and take pictures with some huge props like the Knight Bus (which had a bus stop that looked like a real London bus stop–something I could appreciate now), the Ford Anglia, and Hagrid’s motorcycle. I have to say that butterbeer is absolutely AMAZING. Though the studio and Harry Potter world at Universal Studios only serve a cold butterbeer, a warm one a la the books’ many scenes in Hogsmeade in winter would have been perfect on this cold day. If I can try to describe it, it mostly tastes like cream soda with a butterscotch flavored cream at the top, and it’s that cream that you never want to stop eating.

My friend and I in the flying Ford Anglia!

When I walked into the room with the model of Hogwarts Castle, I was breathtaken. The model is actually pretty big, filling an entire room, though of course the fraction of the size of what a real castle should be. It was gorgeous though and we had done it–we had reached the real Hogwarts. This is the model they actually use to film exterior scenes, and it was just as grand as I expected. I honestly felt the magic in the room.

Then, we were able to walk along Diagon Alley and see the shops, and finally ended up inside the interior set of Ollivanders Wand Shop. Did you know that there is a wand box inscribed with the name of every person who was on the cast and crew of the Harry Potter movies? It was a great way to end the experience looking for some big names like J.K. Rowling and Emma Watson and appreciating all their work to make this wonderful world we all fell in love with.

Week 7: London Museums

London has a large number of museums you should definitely take advantage of.  In fact, most are free, with the exception of some of the smaller more specialized ones.

• National Gallery – Famous paintings, including Van Gogh (Sunflowers), Monet, Seurat, Van Eyck (The Arnolfini Portrait), Van Gogh (The Virgin of the Rocks) and much more.
• National Portrait Gallery – I think I like this better than the National Gallery, mostly because I really like the collection of modern portraits they have.  A current (free) exhibit features royal portraits.  There’s a head made of the artist’s blood and has to be displayed in a refrigeration device (weird but cool).  Also, I saw a special exhibit featuring the Queen, from official portraits to Andy Warhol’s take, and I loved it.
• Tate Modern – Very abstract.  The building is converted from an old power station, the Bankside Power Station,  and there are galleries on the underground floor in old oil tanks used by the power station.
• British Museum – So large that I definitely did not see all of it.  Holds the Rosetta Stone and many other historical relics from all over the world.
• Victoria & Albert Museum – The world’s largest museum on decorative arts and design.  I really loved the exhibits on fashion there.  Also cool exhibits featuring jewelry.  The current special exhibits were on ballgowns and Hollywood costumes, which both looked amazing but I unfortunately did not have a chance to see because of both the price and unlimited time I had–not to mention the masses of people in line or with pre-booked tickets.
• National History Museum – Has a giant dinosaur skeleton and is absolutely huge and full of interesting things (sadly I did not get to see it all).  The architecture is beautiful and I think worth checking out in itself.
• Bank of England Museum – You can pick up a gold bar (though it’s held in place behind bars) and see currency throughout the ages.

Columns at the entrance of the National History Museum.

Week 5: Oxford

This Saturday I took a day trip with a friend to the city of Oxford.  We were able to go into the dining hall at Christ Church College, one of the 38 schools of the University of Oxford, which inspired Hogwarts Great Hall in Harry Potter.  The thing that I have been noticing about being in England is that everything is so old and historic, but people continue to use the old buildings or household items as if it were no big deal at all.  It makes me realize how young the United States is in comparison, and how that’s something that would take getting used to.  Also have I mentioned that our NYU in London Academic Centre is in an old Georgian style house?  There are fireplaces and chandeliers in our classrooms, which is pretty cool.  Actually it seems that a lot of office buildings are just old houses in the city, which I just began to notice.

Great Hall at Christ Church College.

The Bodleian Library at Oxford is also very beautiful, and supposedly inspired the Hogwart’s Library.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go in because there was a graduation ceremony going on at the time.

On Sunday I tried to attend an event for Open House London.  It’s a weekend every year where some of the most famous buildings in London are open to visitors.  This is a great chance to see some buildings that usually wouldn’t be accessible, or usually have an entrance fee.  I tried to go into the Gherkin, but upon arrival discovered that the queue was already closed off.  Some people had been waiting 6 hours or longer just to get in!  If I had another day, I probably would have planned ahead and picked one place I really wanted to see and gotten in line early.  After that we just decided to call it a day because we figured most lines would be too long at this point and we wouldn’t have much time left to explore the buildings.  The Gherkin is just an office building, but I really like the architecture of it.  “Gherkin” is just a nickname, but it is called that because it looks like a pickle—or a gherkin.  My friend studying at NYU Paris had a Open House Paris weekend, and she was able to see the French President’s office.  I think this is such a cool idea and something I’m sure would receive a lot of interest in New York.

Week 4: Two Palaces

This weekend I was able to go inside 2 palaces: Buckingham Palace and the palace at Brighton.  Of course a visit to London is not complete without a visit to Buckingham Palace, where you can ogle at and attempt to get as close as you can to the lives of royals.  Lucky for us, Buckingham Palace is open to visitors in the summer while the Queen and royal family is away on vacation at one of her many other palaces and castles.  We knew our time was limited before Buckingham Palace would close for the season, but somehow we failed to think about how many other people would want to visit as well.  We just made our way over on a Saturday afternoon and expected to be able to waltz in, but the guards informed us that tickets were booked up and we needed to get there early in the morning for a chance.  Thankfully, someone in line had 2 extra tickets for friends who weren’t able to make it.  Otherwise, there was a good chance we would have missed our chance for the season.

This year, the special exhibition was on the Queen’s diamonds, in line with everything being Diamond Jubilee crazy.  That was one of my favorite parts of the tour.  Other things that I found interesting was that there are secret (or perhaps not so secret if you’re lucky enough to already live in the palace) trap doors for the Queen to get around the building faster.  Makes sense because Buckingham Palace is huge, and is not only where the Queen lives but also where she works.  Everything in the palace has amazing history behind it but everything is fully functional for the royals to use.  I think I would be paranoid about damaging an artifact every time I tried to do simple things like eat dinner or sit in a chair.

My roommate and I in front of Buckingham Palace, with a view of the gardens.

On Sunday I went on the day trip to Brighton beach.  We had a tour of the palace there, and it was interesting to see two palaces in a row because I could notice and appreciate the differences.  This one had an Asian influence from the architecture to the décor.  The city of Brighton was also very cute and the beach was beautiful despite the bad weather.

Brighton Palace

Week 3: Two Markets and a Festival

This weekend I went to two street markets: the Portobello Road Market and Camden Market.  I also went to the Mayor’s Thames River Festival.

The Portobello Road Market was like a typical outdoor market that you would usually think of, full of little trinkets, art, thrift items, jewelry, clothes, and food stands.  However, it was massive.  So long that we didn’t even cover the whole thing.  The plan was to double back as there was a section where it split off, but by the time we got to the end we were simply too tired. Also,  this market had many stalls dedicated to antiques and there were many antique shops along the road.  There was a lot of cute handmade jewelry and so many things I was tempted to buy.

I didn’t know beforehand, but I discovered along the way that we were in the Notting Hill Area.   I had just seen the film Notting Hill, for the first time, in my British Cinema class that week.  I know, I know–it’s a classic.  I saw a bookshop that inspired The Travel Book Store in the movie.  Apparently, the iconic blue door of William’s house was auctioned off for charity.

That day I decided to stop by Camden Market as well.  I had been hearing lots of good things about it and figured why not since it was such a nice day out.  Camden Market is actually a series of markets in the area, and I also just barely scratched the surface of what it had to offer.  The vibe of this market, and the area of Camden Town, was definitely younger and more rocker and hip.  There were so many things I saw that I made a mental note would be perfect for my friends for Christmas.  I browsed the Camden Lock Market and the Camden Stables Market.  There was also a ton of mouthwatering street food.  I tried a bit of my friend’s fish & chips and agree that it’s much better here.  Usually I’m not a huge fan of fried seafood in the states, but here you could tell it was very fresh and it wasn’t just fried to cover up something mediocre.

Sunday night I checked out the Thames River Festival that is held every year.  The Paralympics Closing Ceremony also happened to be taking place at the same time, and I was able to catch some of it on TV as we had dinner in a pub (coincidentally, I was watching the Paralympics Opening Ceremony in a pub the first night we arrived in London).  There was a parade, and what I loved was that you were able to go into the streets to get up close to the parade participants.  They were also very open and came up to make faces at and take pictures with the crowd.  I feel like that’s something you don’t get to do in America as it is usually barricaded off.  Later on we watched the fireworks from the balcony of a pub, and I thought it was a great show.

A float from the Thames Festival.