Parliament/Big Ben/10 Downing

Across the street from Westminster Abbey is the Palace of Westminster which is more commonly known as the House of Parliament. Here it is…

The business of Parliament takes place in two places, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Parliament exists to challenge the work of government, approve new laws and debate government policy and current issues.

Westminster Hall is also part of the Parliament complex.

Westminster Hall is a striking building and is officially a royal palace. Standing on the banks of the river Thames the Parliamentary buildings hold many important historical stories.

This is a statue of King Richard. Here are some guards looking very busy. We did not go into the parliament buildings this visit, but previously I spent an entire afternoon attending a session in the House of Commons being totally entertained.

Big Ben is also part of the complex.

Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, and is often extended to refer to the clock or the clock tower as well. Big Ben is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-standing clock tower in the world. It celebrated its 150th anniversary in May 2009 (the clock itself first ticking on 31 May 1859) Me with Big Ben in the back. Shannon mentioned she was surprised at how ornate it was. I thought others might be as well, so here is a close up picture.

Big Ben towers 96 metres high in the sky overlooking Westminster and is open for tours for UK residents who have made arrangements with their MP. Unfortunately overseas visitors cannot climb the 393 steps to the top.

Obviously we did not go up Big Ben, since we were not allowed.

From Big Ben we walked to the Thames River. On that street we were able to get our pictures with the traditional British phone booth.

Shannon coming out of the booth.

Here I am. From here we were able to see the London Eye.

The Merlin Entertainments London Eye (known more simply as The London Eye, and also known as the Millennium Wheel), at a height of 135 metres (443 ft), is the largest Ferris wheel in Europe, and has become the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom, visited by over three million people in one year. At the time it was erected, in 1999, it was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, until it was surpassed by the Star of Nanchang (160 m) in May 2006, and then the Singapore Flyer (165 m) on 11 February 2008.

The last time I was in London the Eye was not operational yet. No we did not ride it – neither one of us are big fans of ferris wheels.

We also saw Millennium Bridge –

The London Millennium Footbridge is a pedestrian-only steel suspension bridge crossing the River Thames in London, England, linking Bankside with the City. It is located between Southwark Bridge (downstream) and Blackfriars Railway Bridge (upstream). The bridge is owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation. Construction of the bridge began in 1998, with the opening on 10 June 2000.

Londoners nicknamed the bridge the Wobbly Bridge after participants in a special event to open the bridge (a charity walk on behalf of Save the Children) felt an unexpected (and, for some, uncomfortable) swaying motion on the first two days after the bridge opened. The bridge was closed later that day, and after two days of limited access the bridge was closed for almost two years while modifications were made to eliminate the wobble entirely. It was reopened in 2002.

From here we visited 10 Downing Street –

10 Downing Street (Colloquially known in the United Kingdom as “Number 10”) is the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury and hence Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The headquarters of Her Majesty's Government, it is situated on Downing Street in the City of Westminster in London.

One thing I noticed here was the increase in security over the past 10 years. Previously you could walk right up to the gates (they are located at the end of the street – the entrance is half way down the block. Now there were 3 additional barricades preventing you from getting to the gate.

The last time I was here I saw Tony Blair giving a press conference from the front step - so such luck this time.

While we were there a car entered and I quickly snapped a picture.

We were doing really good on time so we went to the London Bridge next....

Westminster

My comprehensive plan for London took us to many of the major tourist spot in a very efficient, concise way. For the most part it worked. After leaving the hostel we were headed to Westminster Abbey. When I mapped things out I accidentally sent us to Westminster Cathedral. This detour was on the way to Westminster Abbey and ended up being a really neat place to see.

Westminster Cathedral in London, is the mother church of the Roman Catholic community in England and Wales and the Metropolitan Church and Cathedral of the Archbishop of Westminster. It is the largest Roman Catholic church in England and Wales. The architecture is more of the Byzantine style of the eastern Roman Empire than the familiar Gothic of the native cathedrals.

Here is Westminster Cathedral.

Across the plaza was this modern office building. Part of what I love about London is finding the mixture eras and styles so close together. After stopping by the Cathedral, we continued on to the Abbey. Along the way I saw this cool building. Love all the flowers. At this point I was just so excited to be back in London!!!! Finally (after a 10-15 minute walk from the hostel) we were at Westminster Abbey.

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to popularly and informally as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English, later British and later still (and currently) monarchs of the Commonwealth Realms. For many it is best know for holding the funeral of Princess Diana.

Shannon in front of Westminster.

Me with Westminster in the background. On my previous visit to London I spent a good portion of a day here and was very moved by the experience. Due to the limited time, we did not go in.

Here are some close up pictures of the architecture and decorative details. Next to Westminster Abbey is St. Margaret’s Church. More pictures of St. Margaret’s. Across the way is Westminster Methodist Hall (I know what you are thinking at this point – who knew that were this many churches named Westminster.)

Constructed approximately 100 years ago, Methodist Central Hall serves both as a Methodist Church and Conference Centre in the heart of London. This spectacular building and magnificent great hall was built from donations given by followers of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

After all the Westminster’s, the next stop was Big Ben….

Friday, October 8, 2008 – Londontown!!!

I could not believe I was finally back in London!! Just watching the landscape as I flew over I became increasingly excited. London is my favorite big city – I clarify that I consider big cities to be like New York and LA, but I don’t think of Chicago, Toronto or D.C. as big, which I think it has to do with all the time I have spent in those cities – they do not feel big to me. It might also have to do with my first visit to London – in 1999 I lost 85% of my sight in my right eye due to a very rare disease (one they still know very little about.) Not knowing what was going to happen or how long I would have sight, I quickly planned a trip to visit my friend Lynne who was living in London at the time for 2 weeks. On that visit I was able to explore so many sections of the city and experienced so much!! It was great. Thankfully since then I regained my sight and no longer fear sudden blindness. But due to the circumstances of that trip and time in my life, London holds a very special place in my heart.

After we finally landed at HeathrowShan and I got off the plane, grabbed our luggage – mine made it, no problems and headed over to customs/immigration. There was a huge line, in fact the sign where we entered said it could be a 45 minute wait. UGH… not what we wanted to hear. We both made a bet on how long we would be in line. Shannon thought it would be 20 minutes, I thought 30 minutes, but we were both wrong – it only took 15 minutes to get through the line. It was great. We then headed over to the tube.

Me by the Heathrow sign Shannon by the sign In Heathrow waiting for the tube The train we needed to take was the Piccadilly line towards Cockfoster – which kind of made me laugh and started our file of lost in translation pictures (basically things that have different meanings in American English and that you would never see in the states.) Here is Shan on the tube. We took the Piccadilly train for about 45 minutes to the Green Park Station where we transferred to the Victoria line to the Pimlico Station where we got off and walked to our Hostel for the evening.

We were staying at the Astor Victoria Hostel. When we got there it was too early to check in. So we put our luggage in their luggage room and set off for out very busy day exploring London.

Here we our leaving the hostel for the day.

Thursday, October 8, 2009 – I’m leaving on a jet plane…..

Before I went to bed on Wednesday night I was pretty much ready to go. With the exception of a few things I needed that morning, everything that was going with me on the trip was in on my guest bed, except my dresses which were hanging up until the last possible moment. I have put together a packing list weeks before the trip after careful thought of every possible thing I would need. I even had a list of secondary item that if I had room I would add them. I had also started doing laundry weeks prior to leaving and carefully planned so that I would not have to wear any of the clothes I was bringing after they were washed. I also turned my guest room into my packing room so that as things were ready to go they would be put in that room. That made pulling everything together and checking off the list was pretty easy to do Wednesday night.

Since I did not leave until 4:22 p.m. on Thursday I worked that morning. I planned on leaving at noon, but did not end up leaving until 12:30 p.m., which put me a little behind schedule, but not too bad.

When I got home the first thing I did was pack

Here is my pile of things to bring.















Once I got everything in my suitcases and carry on, I kept thinking my suitcase was really empty and that I had done really well not over packing. I even began to think about the back up list and if there was anything I wanted to add. Then I turned around and saw my 4 dresses hanging on the closet.

My dresses.




















That would explain why the suitcases were so empty. Once those got added my suitcases were not so empty.

Because I was so on top of things, I actually had time to do all that stuff I try to do before I leave, but never have time to do. Stuff like change my bedding, clean out my fridge, unplugged appliances….. For the first time, I think ever, I felt really good when I walked out the door about how I was leaving things.

My sister and brother in law were going to use my car while I was gone. My brother in law works right around the corner from the airport, so I was going to drive to his office and he would drop me off at the airport and take my car. I love flying out of Grand Rapids, the airport is small enough that you can show up just an hour a head of time and have no problems making your flight. (In fact I have been known to show up about 45 minutes before a flight.) But because this was the first leg of an international flight I wanted to get there a little bit earlier. I left home about 2:45 p.m. and got to the airport just after 3:00.

The last time I flew out of Grand Rapids the construction on the new parking ramp was still under construction. Now it was almost done and I have to say, it looks great. It makes the Gerald R Ford Airport look like a real airport. I am so excited. Here is a picture of it.




As I got up to the counter I tried to check in at the kiosk as usual, but it would not let me, great I thought. The man behind the counter came over to help and he noticed there was a flag on my ticket because I only had an hour and twenty minutes in Philadelphia between flights and they prefer you have 1 ½ hours to make sure your luggage gets on your plane. So I had to acknowledge that I was aware of the fact that my luggage may not make it. I basically said I did not have any other choice so I was going to hope for the best. Speaking of my luggage, while international flights do not have a luggage charge, they still have the 50 lb weight limit. My checked suitcase weighed in at 49.9 lbs. Talk about just making it. I also checked what my carry on weighed, which was just over 20 lbs, which was fine for these flights, but could be an issue on some of the other flights. Once we got past that there was another issue. I was flying from Grand Rapids to Chicago and then Chicago to Philly on United, and then taking U.S. Air from Philly to London. Even though they are partner airlines for some reason they could not print my boarding pass for my last flight. Great I thought, I am already short on time in Philly and now have to deal with getting a boarding pass there. Once I got passed all these issues, I was able to check in. I had renewed my passport over the summer and this was my first trip with it. I have to say, I am quite happy with my passport picture. Here it is…

Once I was checked in, I easily went through security and got to the gate. I talked to Shannon for a while who was also at the airport in Orlando. My flights were not ideal, I would have been much nicer to fly directly from Chicago to London, but the extra stop was worth it because Shannon and I were on the trans-Atlantic flights together. I told Shan about the whole boarding pass issues and since she was getting to Philly first, if she would make sure everything was okay and our seats were still together.

The 28 minute flight from GR to Chicago was uneventful. I dozed during the flight, like I normally do. We landed in O’hare a bit a head of schedule and I had about two hours before my next flight. I grabbed some dinner and made phone calls since I knew I would be unable to use my phone for almost 3 weeks. The flight from Chicago to Philly was also uneventful. I purposely did not sleep on this flight so that I would sleep more on the over night. We took off from Chicago around 6:10 p.m. their time (7:10 p.m. EST) and actually landed early, around 9:00 p.m. As soon as we were on the ground I called Shannon who was already at the gate. I asked her where I needed to go and if she had talked to the person at the counter. She had and everything was fine. She did say it was a long walk to our gate so be prepared. I was happy that I had gained 20 minutes on my layover so hopefully my luggage would make it. After I got off the plane, I started my trek, and called my family one last time before I left the continent. I finally made it over to the international terminal and found Shannon. It was so good to see her. It had been over a year since we said good bye in Seattle after our Alaskan adventure.

I had her watch my stuff while I went and got my boarding pass and talked to her Mom on the phone for a bit. (Shannon’s mom, Maggie, is like a second mother to me.) They then started boarding the plane. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:40 p.m.

I have never flown with Shannon before and while I knew she did not like to fly, I didn’t realize how much she did not like to fly. She likes to be the last person on the plane, I prefer to get on as soon as possible to get all settled in (and half the time fall asleep before we take off). She also has to touch the plane as she is walking on and made me do the same. I was kind of laughing at her. I have no fear of flying and actually like it when it is a little turbulent.

When we got to our seats we found noticed there was some real interesting people around us. There was this large (both in size and number) Norwegian family in the middle section by us who were arguing with each other. The family included a couple teen age boys who were quite taken with Rubik Cubes. Three ladies going to the UK took this picture of us, as we were getting ready to leave.

Soon after we took off they served us dinner. It had been a long time since I had airplane food served on a flight. It was a nice change. Of course when the announcement came over that dinner featured pasta with both alfredo and a red sauce, it started our funny quotes/events for the trip. Here is the pasta...

After dinner, they dimmed the cabin lights so that people could sleep. I did okay sleeping, never got into a really deep sleep, but got a fair amount. Shannon did not sleep hardly at all. Our flight was supposed to be about 7 ½ hours. But about 5 ½ hours into the flight the lights came back up and the pilot announced we had a very strong tail wind and would be arriving in London about an hour early. That was great – more time in London! During the last hour of the flight I was watching out the window and enjoyed seeing the English landscape. I even saw a amusement park from the sky. It felt like we were going pretty slowly the last 30 minutes or so, we probably were waiting to get cleared to land. So we ended up landing about a half an hour early – 10:30 a.m. London time, 5:30 a.m. EST. But we were here and our adventure was about to begin….