Today was a historic day and probably not in the best way. Tuesday had the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the UK as well as London. It just so happened that we were going into the urban heat island of London on this particular day. Lathered in sun cream under the unusually bright British sun, we headed to our first excursion: Buckingham Palace. We got there just in time to see the procession begin and we figured that we wouldn’t waste our time watching the entire procession go all the way down “The Mall” and come back to actually change the guards. It wasn’t that Buckingham Palace wasn’t impressive, because it was: ornate fences, beautiful stonework, and more. It was simply that the heat was too intense, even for eleven in the morning. We were able to make our way to St James’ Park to enjoy lunch and the shade for about an hour. The Royal Parks scattered around London are simply beautiful with nice landscaping and plenty of wildlife.
Buckingham Palace
St James' Park
From St James’ Park, we walked along Parliament Street, in awe of the impressive government buildings and landmarks such as the Admiralty Buildings, 10 Downing Street, Elizabeth Tower, and Parliament. Our group got another break from the heat at Parliament Square and some of us walked a little bit to check out Westminster Abbey which was spectacular. We all see these famous landmarks in media but to see them in person is a weird feeling. I can’t explain the feeling because I’m not necessarily awestruck as I’ve seen them so many times in media but realizing how close you are to something that you’ve only seen on screen or paper without acknowledging the sheer scale is quite an amazing feeling.
Elizabeth Tower from Parliament Street
Westminster Abbey
From there, we walked back up Parliament Street to get to Trafalgar Square where we had a time slot to visit the National Gallery. To be honest, the only thing that I was excited for there was the air conditioning, I was already soaked in sweat. I believe that mid-afternoon when we were at the gallery, was when London hit its highest temperature ever recorded. I actually enjoyed the gallery, contrary to my expectations. There was so much artwork housed there. It was mostly older paintings with traditional subjects such as figures in Christianity, still art, landscapes, and portraits. I really liked the landscape paintings because many of them looked so much like real photographs but were also able to capture natural and man made beauty in great detail. It was also cool to see some of Vincent van Gogh’s famous artwork such as “Van Gogh’s Chair” and “Sunflowers” which also had large crowds around them.
Trafalgar Square
After that, we all stopped at Leicester Square and split into smaller groups to get dinner in Chinatown. My only impression of Chinatown came from the one in New York City which is large, unclean, and overly crowded. London’s Chinatown was only a block from Leicester Square and once we walked into it, I was surprised: it was small, clean, not crowded, and really beautiful which was completely different from NYC. We had dinner at a nice dim sum restaurant where I got to try some new dishes (I can’t remember the names though, I just know that it was all delicious).
Main gate in Chinatown
We did a little bit more exploring the area around Leicester Square before we met back to go to the theatre to watch Six, a musical about the wives of King Henry VIII. It wasn’t what I was expecting as there was a lot more singing than actual dialogue but I really enjoyed the variety of music and acts from each of the “wives” performing. We also sat in the “nosebleeds” of the theater so it was a little harder to watch (it wasn’t really that bad) but equally as loud as it was anywhere else in the theatre. When I say loud, it was loud and combine that with no air conditioning, you get a really sweaty and thirsty Kyle. It was a great experience though.
Six
This day was much better that I thought it would be despite the heat. It was also long and we got back to the school late at night which made it harder for me to write my blog posts (I’m writing this one on the plane ride back and we’re currently over New Brunswick). One last thing, I found it very interesting how all of our activities for the day were contained within the City of Winchester in London. The boroughs of Greater London are much more interesting than those of New York City.
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