Ex-pat Newlyweds

I! Love! London!

My previous experiences with London were brief (in hindsight) and miserable. The first was a 24-hour sleepover in Heathrow Airport. I finally left the airport with a rash covering a quarter of my body and starving. The second was a journey from Stanstead Airport to Heathrow with a brief park pause in between. No rash, but not exciting.

Well, London, I’m happy to report you changed my mind about you.

I actually found all the CCTV “security” really disturbing. It actually bothered me. This is at Victoria Station.

Despite a very early flight, we packed a full day in on our first day in London. We met Dom for a fish&chips lunch after dropping off our bags at his house. Walked from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus, through Trafalgar Square, past a gate protecting No. 10 Downing Street and past Big Ben Tower and the parliaments and finally through the halls of Westminster Abbey.

The parliaments and Big Ben Tower (Big Ben himself is really the bell inside the tower)

Westminster Abbey, where we visited the graves and memorials for a lot of historically important people, including scientists Darwin and Newton.

Josh snapping pictures with the Soviet camera in front of Buckingham Palace.

Squirrels in the park in front of the palace.

Second day, we visited the Queen (her house at least) and walked through the park to the British Museums. We easily spent our afternoon there and could have taken even more time. It’s a fascinating collection of antiquities from around the world all housed in a beautifully maintained and renovated building. The museum itself has been open to the public since 1759, allowing it to amass quite the collection. Highlights included the Rosetta Stone (the tablet that allowed archeologists to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics) and a collection of mummies. Yup. An entire collection of mummies. It was grotesquely fascinating.

The stunning interior of the British Museum.

Sightseeing is exhausting. But not as exhausting as London shopping. I got a head start on Josh and he went to the pub with Dom while I shopped — not doing anywhere near the damage on the bank account that I thought I would. Not a bad thing at all.

The Devinses pretend to be hobbitses while at the Shire.

Host Dom reliving years of teenaged rebellion over the towns he grew up in/around.

Friday was a very exciting day for me. Fact: I’ve read all the Harry Potter books. I’ve seen all the movies. While I was excited to meet Dom’s parents, along the way, we made a stop at the Gloucester Cathedral, where they film some scenes of the movie, including some of the dining hall scenes. I pranced where Harry Potter pranced. Ok, I pranced, he strode along determinedly to get He-Who-Shall-Not-be-Named.

Harry Potter halls! Eeeeeeeee!

During the 1700s, the Gloucester Cathedral (built around 1000 a.d.) was used as a boy’s school. During that time, many of the tombs, including this one of King Edward II, were graffitied by the cathedral’s resident students. Yes, that is 300-year old graffiti.

Josh enjoyed a “manly day” of dirt bike riding while I met with friends and explored London’s south bank with colleagues from Vancouver who are now in London. I repeated the day again on Sunday, but with a trip to the Tate Modern museum instead of a drink at the former OXO factory (as in the soup stock brand).

The view from the Tate Modern cafe.

Millennium Bridge — Dom tells us that when it first opened, there was an engineering mistake and it shook easily. It was closed down and fixed. Also, Harry Potter fact: This bridge gets destroyed by the bad guys in the opening scenes of the latest Harry Potter film.

London is big. And hectic. It has a frenetic pace that Josh and I could barely keep up with. It was also really disorienting to see signs in English everywhere. English food did not agree with me though I enjoyed fish and chips with malt vinegar — just like the stereotypes! We loved that the museums were free (with the exception of special exhibitions) and people watching in that city is great.

Tower Bridge — often confused with London Bridge, which is down the Thames River and actually really boring.

Cheesy tourist in London shot!

Apologies for the hurried recap. With all the madness over the laptop, I’m rushing to finish this before I face one of the most daunting packing challenges to date: What to put in my suitcase for Paris!?!?

Josh and I are off again, but this time to celebrate our first anniversary in the City of Lights. I can’t believe it’s been a year since we had our wedding, but at the same time, SO MUCH has happened between now and that day that it feels like a really long time ago. Our lives are unrecognizable compared to a year ago.

Now: to sort out what to wear in the world’s most fashionable city….