Cockfosters

[ggdeurope]

Day 13-14: Paris to London to home

June 14th-15th, 2013

Today, we would be flying back to London, and then back home. Our flight wasn't until 9 PM though, and we still wanted to do some more in Paris.

The Eiffel Tower.

For instance, we still hadn't climbed the Eiffel Tower. We arrived at the Tower in the not so early morning, and were first dismayed to find that the line to ascend snaked across the ground in a never-ending squiggle. That turned out to be the elevator line, however, and we intended to take the stairs! 

The elevator line, as viewed from the second floor of the Tower.

One hard climb later, we were as high as we could be without paying additional fees. From up there, Paris sprawled out before us, giving us a spectacular view of the whole city.

View from the top.

We stayed there for about an hour before beginning our descent. 

We at lunch together, but soon parted ways to do what we wanted in Paris. Alex went to the French Pantheon, where people like Victor Hugo, Voltaire, and the Curies are buried; Chris decided to check out the Museé d'Orsay; Ajay headed over to the Champs Elysée to buy his dad a Father's Day present; while Don, Casey, Eric, and Zee embarked on a futile journey to the Paris Sewer Museum and Catacombs (both were closed that day.)

Le Pont de Champs Elysée.

We reconvened at our hostel at 6:00, and took the subway to the airport.

And with that, our two-week long adventure had pretty much come to an end. We had a short overnight stay in London, then flew back to Shanghai, stopping in Kuala Lumpur for a layover. It's been a great trip, guys. I miss it already.

Goodbye, Europe. Hello, Shanghai.

Alex Chen

Ajay Singh

Casey Reischel

Christopher Su

Don Zheng

Eric Lee

Zee Shin

[ggdeurope]

Day 12: Paris

June 13, 2013

There really isn't that much to say about today. Disneyland was fantastic, despite the fact that it was raining. While we were buying our tickets, we inadvertently earned ourselves a €7 discount on four of our six tickets by bringing what we thought was an advertisement but was actually a coupon. Once inside, the rain prompted Casey to buy a poncho, which his large frame soon ripped through. 

A rainy day at the Magic Kingdom.

We went on a circuit of the park, riding Space Mountain four times, Indiana Jones three times, and the Buzz Lightyear Blaster twice. In this case, the rain was a mixed blessing. Although we did get cold and miserable, lines for the rides never took more than 15 minutes as saner people postponed their Disney trips for a sunnier day. By the end of the day, we were tired and cold, but satisfied with all the Disney magic we had experienced. The sun had even begun poking out of the clouds, and the float parade was advancing through Main Street.

The Disney float parade.

We took the long trip back to the hostel, stopping for dinner. Shortly after we arrived, Alex returned from his adventure as well. After sharing some details, we went to bed and slept the sleep of the content.

[ggdeurope]

Day 11: Paris

June 12th, 2013

Today, we planned to visit two of Paris' most famous attractions: the Louvre and the Notre Dame cathedral. We wanted to arrive at the Louvre early to place ourselves a little further ahead in the long line to enter, but as always, we were hideously delayed. Fortunately, it didn't really matter.

The famous Louvre pyramid.

A short 30 minutes was all we waited before we entered the world's most famous museum. 

The Louvre was positively massive. A few of us had been to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, which holds the title of the largest museum in the world, but this was one contiguous building filled with priceless art. We split up and explored the museum for three hours, and even then we only covered a small fraction of what there was to see.

One of the Louvre's many rooms.

One piece we couldn't find, however, was Liberty Leading the People, an abstract depiction of the French Revolution. After hunting through the museum for this elusive painting, we were disappointed to learn that it had been moved to a different museum. Regardless, our visit to the museum had been a wonderful experience. We ate lunch at a nearby restaurant. Don and Alex thought this to be a good time to try tartare, a French dish of seasoned raw minced beef. Though cautious at first, they discovered at it was delicious, and shared some with the rest of the group as well.

Satisfied with the new food we tried, we meandered over to Notre Dame.

Love locks on a bridge leading to Notre Dame.

Though we expected it to be closed by the time we got there, we had nothing to fear. In fact, a service was in session, complete with beautiful organ and choral music.

The interior of the cathedral.

We admired the Gothic architecture and art, then stepped outside to the raised bleachers in front of the cathedral.

Exterior of the cathedral.

As we were sitting, a man in explorer gear suddenly stood up, pointed to a tourist, and grandly proclaimed: "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of Russia!" He was met with confused stares from everyone in the vicinity. He then pointed to another tourist. "The President of Zimbabwe!" Soon, it became clear that he was a street performer, "introducing" passerby as "George Clooney" or "David Livingston" or "Bill Gates." Eventually, he started to tail unwitting pedestrians and pretended to walk pigeons as if they were dogs. It didn't take long for him to get everyone cracking up at his antics. After he left, we left to meet up with Garvin for dinner. We rendezvoused with him at Trocadero, a palace right across from the Eiffel Tower.

Group photo in front of the Eiffel Tower, plus Garvin.

We had dinner at an American diner nearby,then split up. Don, Casey, Ajay, and Alex went with Garvin to say hello to his parents, while the rest of the group retired back to the hostel.

When everyone was back home, we decided that we would split up the next day. Alex would head off to Versailles by himself, while the rest of us would take a trip to Paris Disneyland. With tickets and transportation figured out, we crashed.

[ggdeurope]

Day 10: Paris

June 11, 2013

 Our train arrived 30 minutes late in Paris, which was fortunate because we all needed some more sleep anyways. When we finally stepped off the train, we were all pumped and ready to go. We took to long metro ride to the station nearest to our hostel, followed by an agonizing walk to e hostel itself. However, when we tried to check in, we were informed that we could not enter our rooms until 2:00 PM, and it was only 11:00 AM. S we left our bags in the luggage room and started off the day's adventures.

First, we had to get lunch. We found a cheap-looking sandwich bar near the hostel and decided to eat there. What we didn't count on was the large group of middle-eastern hooligans hanging out at the restaurant who pointed at Alex, said something about "Chinoise" and laughed. That, coupled with the copious amounts of graffiti, did not give us a very good first impression of the City of Lights. Despite the rude teenagers, we were still determined to see Paris today.

In order to fully realize that we were actually in France, we had to see something that was uniquely French. We arrived at the Arc de Triomphe at around noon, a glorious structure at the end of the Champs Élysées.

The Arc de Triomphe.

It teemed with visitors, and was covered with plaques and engravings. We climbed the stairs to the top, which was no easy and looked at Paris from a bird's eye view. From that height, it was easy to identify Paris landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.

View from the top of the Arc.

Our sightseeing was interrupted by an American kid who passed by and laughed like an idiot. "Huehuehuehuehue." Inexplicably, we all started making the same noise at him. He quickly retreated. A few moments later, however, he swaggered back and proclaimed more confidently: "huehuehuehuehuehue." This time, we had no answer. After asserting that he had beaten us, the little kid left, presumably to rejoin his inattentive parents.

After descending from the Arc, we decided to walk down the Champs Élysées to the Louvre. Although it was clear that we would not have time to enter the museum as it was already 3:00 PM, we really didn't have anything better to do than to wander some gardens.

Chris in the process of bothering Eric.

On our way, we saw the great stone Luxor obelisk, for which Alex posed in taking an obscene picture. We then strolled through the garden around the Louvre.

When we were walking along the Seine, we saw a couple of girls throwing bottled messages into the water. Eric thought the appropriate response would be to run up against the wall of the quay and grabbing onto one of the metal rings.

Hardcore parkour!

This resulted in hilarious antics as all of us attempted to do the same. The rest of the day was taken up primarily by walking around, but we still got to see a lot, including multitudes of heavily armored and armed police. 

When we finally got back to our hostel and unpacked, we were contacted by an old friend of ours, Garvin Price, who lives in Paris. He would be coming to meet us that very night. We caught up and hung out for a while, then returned to our respective homes for a good night's rest.

[ggdeurope]

Day 9: Rome to Paris (by Zee Shin)

June 10th, 2013

Last day in Rome; as hard as it was adjusting to the slow pace of life in Italy, it is rather saddening now that we are leaving today. Anyways, going back to the story, GGD members woke up to visit Colosseum in the morning. Although this wasn't the first time we saw it (we saw the night view on day 6), we figured that we have yet to go inside. Inside the huge structure were displays of artifacts such as combs, toothpicks made out of bones, stone stoves and beads from necklaces that were found in Colosseum, along with busts of Roman emperors and empresses. Since we did not have a tour guide, we did not understand every little detail of Colosseum, but from eavesdropping on English and Korean guides (yay Koreans) we could figure out that there were caged animals, slaves / workers and gladiators  in the basement, and that sometimes the stadium was flooded out for naval skirmishes. Furthermore the stadium could hold in approximately 75,000 people, and had amazing acoustics, making it a perfect place for entertainment, concerts and alike. However, regardless of its historical significance and amazing size, the fact that Colosseum was used to be a stadium did not change, and made it a stagnant (didnt want to use the word "boring" ) place to be at.

The Coliseum. 

Next, we headed towards St. Peter's Basilica since we did not get a good look at it (we went there 10 minutes before the closing time) and since Casey and Zee insisted that we went there. The Basilica was gigantic. Along with lights, painting, and sculptures that never failed to amaze Zee and Casey (they love fine arts after all), the sheer magnitude of it made us wonder how long it took for completion and how it was possible to build the structure in the first place (the height was roughly the same as that of Colosseum).

The inside of St. Peter's Basilica.

As we walked out, we saw couple of artists sketching the Basilica in a detailed and delicate manner, proving the brilliance of the place and the respect people pay to the place. Of course, on our way back to hostel to pick up our luggages, we saw another enormous obelisk in front of the Basilica. We actually saw this obelisk on the day we visited the Vatican Museum, but fearing that we would get banned to enter the Vatican forever for sacrilegious acts, we decided to leave it for the last day. So, yes, we took another picture of Alex Chen's obelisk with police car stationed right next to us, and a clergyman walking in the distance, giving us a look of disapproval, as he shook his head and continued his way back to the Basilica.

After we got back to the hostel, we picked up luggages, bought 5 euro cheap pizzas for take out and walked to the train station (it was about 5~10 minutes walk).

Waiting for the train to arrive.

We got on the train after munching our pizzas and waiting for good 40 minutes, and found our two 4-person-rooms. We divided up into two groups: Chris, Alex, Ajay, Casey and Don, Eric and Zee.

One of our train compartments.

While we were waiting to get together to play cards in one compartment, what happened next in group 2's room was wild. Don was going crazy. He pulled down blinder in our train compartment and the curtains, then every time we went under tunnel he said "AAAHHHH ITS DARKKKK." Whenever we went to the surface he said,"it is a new worldd" and repeat again with maniacal laughter. I mean, it's fun having you in the same room Don, but man it was crazy. Ah, theater people.

When we gathered into one room, a lot of fishy people on the train were bothering Zee. While we were at Alex's compartment, some people were looking outside and inside the rooms repeatedly. Also, one person was keep checking the two compartments, opening the one we were gathered at and the other one with his bloodshot eyes. The conductor person said he was drunk but the way he tried to open both doors makes paranoid Zee think that he was looking for the right one to loot. Anyways, the train ride was fun altogether.

[ggdeurope]

Day 8: Rome (by Ajay instead of our regular correspondent)

June 9, 2013

This is when things started to get ridiculously slow. We let the hostel at 10, and ate a small breakfast from the nearby convenience store. The first item in our somewhat incomplete plan for today was to visit Palatine Hill, Rome's founding place. We slogged up the ruin-studded hill, marveling at the ancient Roman structures and statues. We saw the houses of Augustus Caesar and Nero, the huts of Romulus's first village, and a seagull perched on a railing that for some reason was being paparazzied by at least 12 tourists including Chris and Ajay. We then moved on to the Roman Forums.

Eric at the Roman forums.

Our strength had sapped by now, and we voted that instead of doing a tour we would just walk around the grounds by ourselves. Progress was painfully slow. For every 5 minutes we walked, there would be 10 minutes of sitting down.  

Ruins at the Roman forums.

After repeating this process for 3 hours we finally headed out if the Roman Forum in search for food. We were all starving at around 3 o clock after having a small breakfast that morning. We searched for food until one waiter at a restaurant approached us and offered us a discount for our meal. While the special was appealing to some of the group members. Alex, Ajay, and Chris headed off on their own to find a different restaurant. After lunch we all met up at a gelateria. There, we all indulged ourselves into having some of Italy's finest gelato. 

With the same walk and sit down process, we made our way to the Vittorio Emmanuel Memorial.

The Vittorio Emmanuel Memorial.

The Memorial was created by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini himself and was is a monument to the first king of Italy who managed to unite Italy. At the front of the memorial lies the tomb of the unknown soldier. The tomb is flanked in each side with a member of the armed services and a flaming torch. After paying our respects, we headed into the memorial. Much of group was either super tired or just didn't care at this point in the day and just walked through the memorial to find ourselves standing on too of a grand marble staircase leading down the memorial. 

View from the top of the memorial.

Since nothing else was planned for that day, we decided to sit at the top of the stairs. Sitting at the top of the stairs, we each found our own way to relax. Alex, Casey, Ajay and Don read their books, Chris listened to music, and Eric and zee sketched the scene from the stairs. The sun was shining brightly down on us. The time spent on the top of the stairs was relaxing and also gave us all some time to reflect on the trip so far and really think about how much of an amazing experience this trip was. 

After about an hour of sitting at the top of the steps, Ajay headed off on his own to go explore the city and walk though the alleys. Most of the group continued to stay at the top of the stairs continuing to relax. Tired and weary we all made our way back to the hostel to once again branch off into separate groups. Alex and Don walked and went to a relatively pricey restaurant while Ajay, Casey, Eric,and Zee all went to a local pizzeria and sampled different kinds of pizzas.

The next day would be our last day in Rome.

[ggdeurope]

Day 7: Rome (by Eric instead of our regular correspondent)

June 8th, 2013

As so often happens to our time schedule, our last-night-agreed-upon departure time of 8 AM was not upheld. Instead, Alex and Ajay were still in bed, and Casey was dealing with the problem of our Vatican tickets. The confirmation code needed to redeem our tickets were sent to the nonexistent [email protected] that Alex provided (instead of his actual email [email protected], no capitals). After a matter of time spent making false starts to heading out for breakfast, the ticket issue was dealt with by Casey, and the breakfast issue was dealt with at the local grocery store. We were walking down the steps into the metro station by 9:30 AM.

A short, musical metro ride involving a gentlemanly busker playing an accordion later, we stepped into the sun-blasted streets around the Vatican. The regular line to the Vatican wrapped around a corner of the wall, one side in merciful shade and the other in withering sunlight. After walking past two blocks of sunbaked tourists, we arrived at the gate at 10 AM only to be told our online tickets were not valid until 12 PM.

Walking back past the metro station to the St. Peter's square, we were then told that the square would not open until 3 PM. We resigned ourselves to the not-so-rewarding morning and had lunch at a restaurant nearby. Don declared that he would not eat any meat today, as several of us had a diet consisted solely of pasta or pizza for the past few days. Alex and Chris also decided to share a vegetable dish for the sake of taking shits and avoiding constipation.

It was 12:20 PM by the time we had paid for the meal, and the walk back to the Vatican's gates was hurried and hot under the midday sun. Unfortunately, the "Skip the Line" line had grown to almost the size of the main line's length, though thankfully mostly in the shade. The "Skip the Skipping Line" line was no where to be found.

The line into the Vatican.

Forty minutes later, we walked through the spinning doors of the Vatican Museum lobby and entered the congested and hectic lobby. The tickets lady took our confirmation code and gave us our tickets without looking at any of our ages on the passports we had brought. After receiving our audio guides that Eric didn't get because he didn't want to shell out seven Euros, we began our tour.

In memory, the museum was three hours of marble statues, Egyptian relics, and Christian art. Some of us captured the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel amid other illegal camera flashes.

Illegal photos of the Sistine Chapel.

Those of us with wide angles were annoyed at the crowd of iPad and flashy point-and-shoots at every exhibit. Raphael's Renaissance art stood out in particular amongst the blur of hallways covered in meticulous masterpieces.

When we stepped out of the Vatican, clouds replaced the clear blue skies, much to our relief. We traced our way back to St. Peter's square, a sight we were familiar with from the news and movies. The Basilica's interior was breathtaking, with high rise, ornament ceilings and walls giving an inescapable sense of inferiority and awe. 

Group picture in front of St. Peter's Basilica.

Afterwards, as we walked back towards the metro station, our group stopped at an ATM waiting behind another person as Eric had to withdraw money. At this point, an Indian man (South Indian as Ajay would be sure to emphasize afterwards) publicly yelled something to the effect of "get in line." However, he was standing at least 10 feet away from the ATM, not even looking like he was lined up at all. This led to a bit of angry yelling as Alex started yelling at him. Ajay and Chris soon joined in. Eventually, as we turned around and left, only as he said "fuck you." At this point, Alex turned around and flipped him off and then we all walked away. We also stopped at a Foot Locker for Alex, Ajay, and Casey to buy socks. Now Casey has clothing now except for underwear as he is still limited to his one pair that he's washing every night.

Armed with this new merchandise, we returned to the hostel and ate at the same restaurant as the first night – the Egyptian waiter offered us a 15% discount, apparently because he likes Ajay. Bellies full, we went to sleep, wondering what tomorrow will entail.

[ggdeurope]

Day 6: Rome (by Zee instead of our regular correspondent)

June 7th, 2013

Waking up in the room which was deeply drenched in bacon ­and­cheese scent, Don, Chris and Zee woke up sluggishly and headed to Alex’s room for the day’s debrief. Lightly teasing Eric Lee for his roommate situations (he had a 23 ­year ­old lovely korean lady as his roommate since he booked the room separately), every one regained vitality and sense of humor from last night’s fatigue and started another day for GGD senior trip.

When Don, Eric, Zee and Chris were going to the nearby bar for breakfast and banks for currency exchange (which didn’t work, considering the first one did not even let Zee in saying “no money change,” and Don and Zee could not open the door to the second bank) they saw an interesting scene. What first seemed like a flirtatious interaction ­ few boys and few girls dumping water and flour on each other (which Don thought was “cocaine”) ­ seemed like a tradition of sort when it happened more than few times. First it was teenagers on the street; second, elementary school kids on crosswalk; and finally, flour­ covered college students in the grocery store, we came to an sound conclusion that cocaine is cheap in Italy, or either that it is actually flour (but it probably is cocaine).

In contrast to the rather drab and lethargic atmosphere near our hostel,  The Spanish Steps were full of energy with people’s vibrant conversations and laughters, just like the scenes from the movie The Roman Holidays.

The Spanish Steps.

It was here that we started the church tours for the day and we went around the city, looking for other churches as well as getting accustomed to the city streets. Despite the free admission, we were amazed at the long history of second church we visited getting constructed at 17th century, as well as its paintings and decorations. Although I, Zee Shin, and other GGD members are not Christians, but it made me understand why people wanted to convert to christianity at the time in Italy. Seeing the rich gold decorations on the pillars were so ornate and paintings on ceilings were so majestic, realistic and impressive that we could not contain our reverence. Furthermore the geometric patterns on the floor as well as perfectly well laid tiles added complexity to the church, making each church a place worthy of protection and respects. 

One of the many basilicas we visited.

As amazing as it was to release our inner priests, we decided to attend to the most pressing matter when we heard Chris say, “guys we need to get Casey some clothes, seriously.” That’s right. As humorous as it was seeing Casey trying to go through the whole trip with one underwear (he forgot to bring them for the trip) in London, we were not callus enough to make him wear the same T­shirt and pants for the next 8 days. To compensate for the clothes Casey lost from his missing luggage, we went on the shopping street where Gap, H&M, Levi’s and etc. were located. Through couple of hours’ toil and thorough inspections from fashion advisors on the trip (namely Alex Chen) we were able to get Casey three new polo shirts and some pants.

While we were exploring the city, we came across a huge obelisk which spurred several brilliant idea in our heads. As GGD tradition, when we come across a great phallic symbols, such as the Washington Monument during NHD National, we make Alex Chen, our beautiful fashion model lie down in front of it. Applying the same concept, we carefully aligned him in front of the obelisk while medics in the ambulance right to us were laughing uncontrollably at our humorous jest and captured a perfect picture of what would happen if Alex were to go through change down there.

On our way to the Mausoleum, we saw a row of interesting “offerings” to the Augusts Caesar, each with its own description or title. First few offerings were drawn in cubic style, a bent Prada umbrella on “auction” (the price under the umbrella was replaced by higher bidder), picture of a man standing in front of a wall, who was standing behind us the entire time, and almost burnt out cigarette. Furthermore, every time someone was looking at the picture, the person would whistle at the viewers, so that they would understand the hidden meaning of the offering’s title: “the doppleganger.” Lastly, there was a crudely made donation box at the end, like the ones from churches, perhaps being half serious and joking about those boxes. On our second visit to the place ( first time, Don, Chris, Eric and Zee went there while other group was shopping for Casey and second time, every one went there), the person in the picture greeted us after asking where we were from. It turned out that the offerings were actually the exhibition all made and arranged by him, which we all quite enjoyed. After that, we visited the Pantheon, which was very nice.

Group picture in front of the Pantheon.

After dinner (I mean, it’s just dinner, nothing special about that, people) we went to Vittorio Emmanuel’s tomb which was beautifully lit with evening light that amplified the beauty of the ornate decoration. We enjoyed the delicate carvings and sheer brilliance of the structures for good 10 minutes and headed towards to Colosseum. Colosseum looked far better than simple images on post cards and imgur, and made me think that no matter how much cameras will improve in the future, it won’t be able to top the real life experience and images and transfer those vivid feelings. I have written enough for structure description, and I will leave the impression up to you for this one.

Coliseum group photo.

[ggdeurope]

Day 5: London to Rome

Jne 6th, 2013

We had a flight at 3:00 PM today, but there was still much to do in London. Alex, Chris, Don and Zee woke up early to visit the British Library and to purchase train tickets to the somewhat distant airport. We arrived at King's Cross Station without incident and sauntered over to the British Library.

King's Cross Station

The British Library

Although we didn't see the Library's collection of books open to withdraw, we did visit the exhibits of precious documents. Among the treasures kept there were the Magna Carta, the original manuscript of Beowulf, and the original sheet music of Handel's Messiah. After spending abut half an hour marveling at these old relics, we returned to King's Cross to buy some train tickets. While looking for the ticket booth, we saw a trolley stuck into a brick wall. The sign above it read: Platform 9 3/4.

Platform 9 3/4.

We didn't have time to wait in the line, so we snapped a couple of pictures, bought the tickets, and hopped on the subway. 

On our way back, we realized that we were running on a very tight schedule. It was 11 AM. It takes us an hour to get back, another hour to get to King's Cross, and yet another hour to get from King's Cross to the airport. That gave us only one measly hour of leeway to check in and pass security, and that wasn't considering any delays we might have. After talking it over, we decided that Alex would go to the airport straight away to make sure the plane wouldn't leave without us, while the remaining three of us would return our keys and take the others to the airport. We split up, somewhat confident that we would make it. 

When we got back to the hostel, we expected the rest of our group to be all ready to go. But instead of being greeted by "where are you"s, we were only greeted by silence. Casey and Eric were asleep, while Ajay was sitting on his bed half-awake. Don hurried them all along as they packed and got ready, but in the end we had lost 20 minutes of our precious time. We took the tube from our hostel to King's Cross, then ran to our platform. By the time we made it there, however, a train had just departed and we would have to wait 10 minutes for the next one to arrive. After much confusion about whether or not we were getting on the right train, we finally embarked.

Once we got to the airport train station, we took a shuttle bus to the terminals met up wi Alex, and proceeded to the check in desk. Since Eric had booked separately from us, he checked in on his own. By some nasty turn of events, however, the airline did not have his booking so he had to purchase another one with additional cost. Once we got all that sorted out, we passed through security, where there was a bunch of Scotsmen wearing kilts. We boarded the train, and flew on our way to Rome.

It was getting late by the time we arrived, and all we really wanted to do was to find somewhere to eat. While we were waiting by the baggage claim, however, we discovered that Casey's bag was nowhere to be found. Casey and Ajay went to talk to the airport officials for what we believed would be a short time. 10 minutes stretched into 20, then half an hour, then inexplicably, a whole hour had passed, and Casey's luggage was still missing. The officials said they would return the luggage if they find it, but for now, Casey has to make do with no clothes, no toiletries, and a wallet 1,000 Euros lighter. Maybe it was fortunate that he had forgotten to bring his underwear on the trip, or that would have been gone too, along wi the rest of his luggage. It was with heavy hearts that we set off on the train to our hostel. Our hearts were so heavy, in fact, that despite being on the train for much longer than anticipated we didn't realize we had passed our station by six stops. 

By the time we finally arrived at our hostel, it was almost midnight.

One of our hostel rooms.

Fortunately, there was a reasonably priced restaurant right next to our hostel. After we ate and talked with our Egyptian waiter Mohammed for a while, we shuffled to bed and had some hard-earned sleep.

[ggdeurope]

Day 4: London

June 5th, 2013

Today was our last full day in London, so we figured we should make the most of it. Unfortunately we left the hostel a little (quite a lot) later than we planned. Our first stop was Westminster Abbey where we just barely missed the last tour. We could still explore the Abbey on our own, however. The building wasn't all that large, but we still managed to spend a good three hours browsing these hallowed halls.

Westminster Abbey.

Like St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey houses the remains of many famous Englishmen, including eminent scientists Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, and James Prescott Joule, and eminent musicians G. F. Handel and E. W. Elgar. It was almost surreal to just walk past the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer or Michael Faraday and barely even noticing it.

    Under these stones are the ashes of hundreds of great people.

  They Abbey also contained old vaults, gardens, and other trappings of a medieval monastery. We took a good, hard look at all of these, and of course also took generous amounts of illegal photos.

After our tour of Westminster was complete, we took the Tube to the famed London Tower. Many famous Englishmen are buried there as well, but most of them lost their heads on the same grounds. We opted for the Yeoman Watcher tour, where a real traditional guard of the Tower showed us around the courtyards and the chapel it includes. Although our tour guide wouldn't stop joking about mundane topics such as the discomforts of a married life, he managed to be interesting and informative. After our tour, we proceeded to view to Crown Jewels, also located in the Tower.

Illegal photo of the Crown Jewels.

We wandered through the exhibition's winding corridors until we reached hallway after hallway of progressively grander accoutrements of royalty.

We exited, a little dazzled. Somehow, we had divided into two groups, each trying to find the other. Perhaps it was because we were so struck by the beauty of the Jewels that we didn't realize we were only separated by one short wall. One we figured out that nonsense, we marched over to the centerpiece of the Tower - the White Tower.

The White Tower.

Within, we found former banqueting halls filled with weapons and armor from different time periods. After exiting the Tower we visited the torture chamber, which had pitiful few torture engines. Looks like the English don't like admitting that they tortured people.

  Group photos with the Tower Bridge.

We took some photos at the nearby Tower Bridge, by which time our stomachs strarted demanding food. Not just any food - Indian food. Although Ajay claimed to not have "some sort of Indian food radar," he still managed to lead us to a very legitimate Indian restaurant. Don and Zee decided to order the hottest dish on the menu, which almost everybody tried but only Don and Zee could eat. We also visited London's M&M world, where Don and Chris bought some overpriced candy, before returning to our hostel.

It had been a long day, but tomorrow would be even longer.

[ggdeurope]

Day 3: London

June 4th, 2013 We were finally all able to sleep in today, heading out at the relatively late hour of 10:00AM. The first stop in our agenda was he reconstruction of the Globe Theatre. The Globe Theatre reconstruction. To be honest, the structure was much smaller than expected. We didn't see the theatre until we were right in front of the distinctive thatched roof building. A real Shakespearean costume! We took a complete tour of the "Big O", learning about the construction and history of the Shakespeare's performance center. A complete list of Shakespeare's known works. It was now time to head over the Memorial Bridge towards St. Paul's Cathedral, He burial place of Britain's national heroes. St. Paul's Cathedral. We walked around the cathedral, admiring the building from the outside before buying sandwiches from the nearby Mark's and Spencer's and eating on the steps of the cathedral. Eating on the steps of the cathedral. Alex, Casey, Chris, and Don entered the cathedral for the tour, where the tombs of Admiral Nelson and the Duke of Wellington are located. Unfortunately we had a rambling tour guide who wouldn't stop digressing to random topics. Regardless, it was fascinating to be walking through so much history and architecture. An illegal photo of the cathedral's interior. Meanwhile, the rest of our group walked to the Gherkin, the world's most mathematical building. When the tour ended, Alex and Don walked up the stairs to the Whispering Gallery, where it is impossible to pinpoint exactly where a sound is coming from. They then climbed even further up to the Stone Gallery, and finally the Golden Gallery - the apex of St. Paul's double-domed cathedral. The view from the Golden Gallery. By the time we had descended, the everyone else had already congregated around the cathedral exit. Our next course of action was to head to the Queen's theatre, where we would be watching Les Miserables. Alex, however, split from the group to confirm ticketing for the London Tower tour for tomorrow. When we arrived at the theatre, we made a terrible discovery. Don had screwed up the date for the musical. The tickets were, in fact, for the previous day's show and had been cancelled. Although it appeared that all had been lost, we decided to try to salvage what we could. There was a meal included in the ticket booking, so we walked over to the restaurant while Don bought extra tickets for everyone in compensation for his mistake. Fortunately, the restaurant still honored the booking. After Alex and Don returned from their respective missions, it became clear that we were the worst-dressed people at the restaurant. But we were much too relieved to care. It was a free meal at a fancy restaurant, and we could live with feeling a little awkward. After paying for the few bottles of water we had during the meal, we proceeded to the Queen's theatre to watch "the longest-running musical in the world." The show was absolutely amazing and filled with ridiculously strong voices. Although it was late, we waited by the backstage door to get autographs from the actors before heading home to a good night's rest. Autographs!

[ggdeurope]

Day 2: London

June 3rd, 2013 We probably shouldn't have gone to sleep that late last night. Alex, Ajay, Casey, Chris and Don planned to wake up early to go to a service at Westminster Abbey, but we severely underestimated the amount of time it would take us to pack, eat, and get there. We ended up arriving one and a half hours late, so we ended up just walking around the area. Group picture in front of one of the great icons of London. Regardless, we did get to see the Abbey from the outside, Parliament, Big Ben, and the London Eye. Alex trying to get ahold of the rest of our group, with Big Ben and Parliament in the background. Our short sightseeing tour was followed by a stop at Tesco, where we brought some food for our second breakfast. At some point, we remembered that Zee and Eric were still back at the hostel. After some yelling on the phone, we decided that we would rendezvous at the statue in front of Buckingham Palace, where the changing of the guard would be taking place. Cavalry guard trotting down The Mall. By the time we got there, however, the area had already been filled with tourists and cordoned off, effectively sealing Zee and Eric off from the rest of our group. We had other things to worry about, however. The guard came marching towards the gates, and soon thousands of hands were holding cameras up in the air trying to get a photo. First came the marching band, then the armed guard, then the cavalry. Once they were all inside the gates, a lot of people started to leave the area. Little did they know, the best part was about to start. The band played a selection of jazz, pop music and even the closing song of Star Wars Episode 1. The military band. It was a truly fantastic performance, impressing even Zee, who had a great view of the entire thing from the raised central platform. Too bad he was stuck with Eric (jokes). Group picture in front of Buckingham Palace. After everyone had cleared out, we decided to walk around to take a look at the surrounding barracks. At this times, Don realized that he needed to take a piss (again). He told everyone to wait by the Guard Museum and proceeded into the nearby park to find a restroom. What he didn't count on was the fact that the restroom was on the other side of the park, and that he was waylaid by a large Brazilian man, who asked to have his picture taken before rambling on about female presidents. "You're American, yes? Here, see, this is Brazilian currency. This is the former president. He was good. The new president is no good. You know why? She's female. Obama is good. He is not female. Do you like football? I am in London for football. Can I see some American currency...." This went on for another 10 minutes. By the time Don got back, 20 minutes had passed and everyone else was taking bets on whether or not he had gone for a dump. Walking to the Churchill War Rooms. We ate lunch at a pub near Downing Street (we really have to stop eating fish and chips) and planned out the rest of our day. After lunch we made our way to the Churchill Museum and the Churchill War Rooms, where we spent a great deal of time exploring Churchill's life and London's experience with the Blitz. We then headed to Victoria, where we would be watching Wicked. Ajay taking a photo with a cavalry guard. The guard then startled him by suddenly coming to attention. We're pretty sure he smiled a bit at Ajay's reaction. But before we could fill our ears with music, we first had to fill our stomachs. The nearby mall looked like a good place to find food, as well as for Casey to buy some underwear (which he forgot to bring) and for Don to withdraw some cash from an ATM. Zee and Eric headed up to the bathroom, while the rest of us found an ATM. But here something odd happened. While Don was typing in his PIN, a large man approached us from behind. "Hey mate," he said. "Give me your money, mate." Don at this point was too concentrated on the ATM to figure out what was going on, but Alex quickly realized what this man meant to do. As the money slid out of the machine, the man's hand reached for the slot. But Alex was quicker. He grabbed the money and motioned for us to enter a nearby drugstore. To our dismay, the man followed us in. With a grimace on his face, he advanced towards us. "Foreigners," he spat. For a moment, it seemed he would try something in the middle of the store, but to relief, he left. We bought some chapstick at the drugstore, while we filled in Zee and Eric on what had just transpired. We decided to eat dinner upstairs in the mall's food court, but as we were exiting the drugstore we were greeted by an unpleasant surprise ­ the man was waiting for us outside. This time, however, he just stared at us before we stared running in the direction of a police officer, at which point he turned too leave the mall. That whole incident put a damper on our spirits. Over dinner, we discussed extra precautions we would take agains pickpockets and other such characters. Our unhappy discussion was fortunately short lived, for we had to start heading towards the theatre to watch the show. No one mourns the Wicked! The show was fantastic, with brilliant lighting displays and even more brilliant performance. Although we did have a run-­in with a turnstile jumper holding a bottle of vodka, our long tube ride home was quite uneventful, and we were soon back in the comfort of our beds.

[ggdeurope]

Day 1: London

June 2nd, 2013

When we first came up with the idea for this trip, none of us actually thought it would happen. But here we are, sitting in our London hostel playing a refreshing game of Cards Against Humanity, in the process being a complete nusiance to everyone else staying here. It’s been a lot of fun planning and researching. Given all the time and effort put into preparing for this trip, we realized that we’d better put a little work into documenting our adventure. So here it is: the story of seven Asian boys and their European escapades.

The seven of us, Alex Chen, Ajay Singh, Casey Rieschel, Christopher Su, Don Zheng, and Zee Shin started our journey when we disembarked at the London Heathrow Airport at 5:30 this morning. After many unsuccessful attempts at purchasing Underground tickets, we were finally able to get our hands on some Oyster passes and hopped on a train to our hostel. Our host Ben seemed nice enough - he shook our hands, introduced himself, and made sure we were comfortable. One of our two rooms at Benny’s Bed and Breakfast

In response, Zee and Ajay decided to violently (and somewhat sexually) assault Eric, causing a massive disturbance and probably waking everyone up, while Don filmed this entire encounter, telling everyone to “stop.” Still gracious, Ben offered us a free breakfast of croissants, juice, and fruit. Ajay repaid his kindness by accidentally smashing a pitcher of orange juice. Clearly, we were off to a wonderful start.

We got on the subway, unaware that our maturity would be tested in the coming moments. “This is a Picadilly Line train to Cockfoster,” a soothing female voice stated over the loudspeakers. We all looked at each other. “Don’t laugh, guys,” Eric stammered. Unfortunately, Chris didn’t hear Eric’s warning and only realized after Alex pointed this out moments later, leading to hysterical and very awkward laughter.

There’s something terribly uncomfortable about laughing at something as juvenile as “Cockfosters” in a train filled with judgemental Brits. But honestly, why would you give a station that kind of a name? We have to listen to the same message at every stop…

We arrived at Picadilly Circus station at around 9:00, pumped and ready for doing all sorts of British things.

Not so tall now, Casey.

Unfortunately, nothing would be open for another hour, so we ended up walking around looking at closed doors. There was one place that caught our attention, however, Somehow, we were in the right place at the right time for the London red carpet premiere of World War Z. For now, the only activity was a small group of suited men walking around, but later the area would be cordoned off and filled with people.

We made our way to Trafalgar Square, admiring the great Nelson’s Column before entering the National Art Gallery, which for some reason smelled like dead things. Photography was prohibited in the gallery, but of course, rules never stop Alex. Today, we learned that the Gallery guards are pretty serious about their rules. When Alex got caught trying to photograph some paintings, a guard personally ensured that all of his illegal photos were deleted. (which they actually weren’t because Alex is a sneaky bastard)

Horray for breaking the law!

However, despite this being an unplanned visit, we still managed to see quite a few pieces that we recognized by Van Gogh and Rembrandt.

After checking out the Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Manet, and Monet in the Gallery, we started feeling pretty hungry. Fortunately, we had already planned where we would eat lunch: Chipotle. Double fortunately, lunch ended us up very close to the British Museum.

Chipotle.

We toured the British Museum for hours. Just when we thought we were done, we would see a sign pointing towards another inter.

Casey has an unfortunate encounter with a giant hand.

Although digging our way through scads of Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Native American artifacts was both engaging and informative, prolonged walking was taking its toll. Especially affected was Alex, who decided to be a rebel on steps sporting a “Do Not Sit” sign right behind him. This time, he got away with it.

By now, we were ready to call it a day. But the mesmerizing show of a street performance pulled us on a long detour. An extremely racist but funny street peformer.

Before finally coming back home and eating at a pub, we bought Wicked tickets for the next night and that concludes Day 1. Hopefully, tomorrow will involve less destruction of private property and breaking of rules.