Le Avventure Di Sophia Graf

My thrilling adventures in Europe!

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

London Day Trip



On Saturday we went to London for a day trip. We left on the 9.43 train from Hungerford and arrived in London an hour later. Since we were planning on having tea in the afternoon, we ate lunch at Paddington Station (yes, where Paddington Bear was found) in a pub that was rather nice for being in a train station. Paddington Station has an entire three story food court, rather like a mall. It includes a Krispy Kream, three cafés (including a Starbucks) a nut and dried fruit store, a pharmacist (or chemist as they say here), a clothes store, one pub, a tie and scarf store, one pub, an ATM machine row, and a Hilton Hotel that extends from the second floor of Paddington to about seven more floors above grounds level. Anyways, after that we went to the Tower of London on the Tube (underground/subway) and rose out of the earth to pouring rain and many steps (we had brought our stroller which was apparently not a good move). We bought admission to the Tower waited to go inside the gate, only to find that it wasn’t like a big building but more like a mini city, so we were still stuck in the rain. We went into the keep (Who of my friends paid attention in social studies? My mom has at least five books on British history and we’ve only been here for a month!), or the central building of a castle, where at least half of the people were sheltering. Guess what the keep, where royalty lived in regular castles, was full of. You’ll never guess, so I’ll just tell you that it was full of weapons, armor, and wooden horses. It had been converted into an armory in about five hundred years ago and housed swords, people armor and horse armor as well as a real chopping block and axe that had been used together. I could see the axe marks on the wood of the chopping block, but there was no dried blood. The wooden horses were part of the Line of Kings, a thing that some king started, possibly Henry VIII, where each king’s horse was carved and stood next to a mannequin with that king’s armor and carved head. The horses were in pretty good condition, but the heads weren’t doing so well. Then we looked at two more floors of weapons and saw a display about Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes was part of a group of people who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 (I know this because they’re circulating commemorative two pound coins for the 400th anniversary) but was discovered the day before it happened. With all of its leaders gone, England would have been a mess and would be nothing like it is today. It’s called Guy Fawkes Day because he was the one who was going to light the gunpowder that had been put under the Houses of Parliament. He was a freako Catholic terrorist just like some modern Muslim ones (think 9/11) and was mainly trying to get rid of the Anglican bishops.

After we finished in the White Tower (keep), we went to the Jewel House where the Crown Jewels are kept. We had to wait in line while watching videos of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation through like three rooms. Then we went through vault doors (were they real or just for the tourists?) and saw about ten scepters and some solid gold plates. There was also a coronation dress (I guess that’s what it’s called; it was a cross between a dress and big robes). We got on a people mover (flat escalator) thingie and passed the crowns. There were about ten of them, but the ones that stick out are Queen Victoria’s and Queen Elizabeth’s, as well as the crown used for all of the modern coronations. After we got off that, there were more gold dishes and a giant gold punch bowl about the size of a four-seater restaurant table. The ladle for the punch bowl was as tall as a cane and had a scoop as big as a soup bowl.

We went on the Tube to the London Eye and once again found rain to greet us. Thomas, my dad, and Cindy went on the Eye while the rest of us stayed on firm ground and had hot dogs and gelato. Notice that these are the same groups we divided into for the Empire State Building- the land dwellers and the observers. While the observers were on the London Eye, the land dwellers found my dad’s cousin who grew up in Scotland and last came to the US in ’93 at age seven. My mom was the only land dweller who had ever met him, but since he was a kid then she just started asking random guys. She found him after the fifth guess and we met him and waited for the observers to come off the Eye. Dinner followed at a nice Steak House next to Paddington Station, and then we had coffee and hot chocolate at the Paddington food court. Since the last train to Hungerford had been at 6.00pm, we had to take the 10.20 train to Reading and transfer to the last train to Hungerford. Except it turned out that we missed the transfer by ten minutes.

(dun dun dun duuuhhhh, dun dun dun duuuuhhhhhhh)

Stranded at the Reading train station at 11.00, both my mom and I thought deliriously that we would have to stay overnight at the station. Luckily my dad got us a taxi, except it was 65 pounds ($130) to get to Hungerford and he had already paid the full train fare to Hungerford. I also ended up in the worst seat in the taxi, a little flipdown seat kind of like at a baseball stadium. The only upside was that we didn’t have to walk the 10 minute walk on our sore, exploding feet from the train station to our house. We arrived at about 11.30 and were in bed at midnight. That morning I slept until 9.30, even with the sun shining through my almost nonexistent window shade for five hours.

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21 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

hi sophie we miss u

when u were talking about the trane station it sounded alot like the ones in france.
also the white tower (keep) sounded interesting. but the jewle house sounded extremly butifull i mean with the crowns and jewls, septers, gold, wow!!! (oh ya and the people mover was awsome and sounded like alot of fun.)
it must have been nice to meet ur dads cousin.
oh ya the dun dun dun duhhhhhhh stuff was extremly funny ( it made me laugh really hard)
the taxi seet sounded extremly un cofterble, poor sophie =(. ( but like u sad atlest u didnt have to walk)
every one misses u sooooo much
cant w8 till u come back

ss

July 3, 2007 12:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ps
i never got to menchone about how much i love ur tittle

ss

July 3, 2007 12:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh ya also happy early 4th of jully

ss

July 3, 2007 5:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh ya i miss spelled seat

ss

July 3, 2007 5:42 PM  
Anonymous Elyssa said...

hey,

a couple days ago there was a Princess Diana tribute concert in London.

they played a bunch of Broadway songs. i watched it on t.v and it reminded me of you

July 3, 2007 5:45 PM  
Blogger Carrie said...

wow! what a cool day in london! reminds me of a time i missed a train in italy.....i'll tell you about it some time.

very cool that there was a krispy kream - ours here shut down for some reason. very sad.

and the new house sounds very neat!

July 4, 2007 8:33 AM  
Anonymous deen said...

wow...i understood almost none of that with my meager comprehension skills...lucky me!!!oh well, it sounded like y'all had lots fun and i absolutely can't spell today (i keep havin to backspace and re-type, highly annoyin)...ne way, the taxi fare was absolutely outrageous by my standards (likely by many peoples), and i hope you had a super time and keep havin fun there!!!

deen

ps when you come back r u gonna have an english/british accent and talk all funny (flat, lift, etc)???

just wonderin...

have fun !!!

deen

July 6, 2007 8:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

when i put sad (at the end) i ment said.

(the stuff in the parentheses)

ss
and hi im laura i <3 u!!!
ss is not me thats steph i am with her and i am laura ok bye tata tootleoo dun dun dun
DDDDDDDUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!
teehee

July 6, 2007 8:37 PM  
Anonymous deen said...

oh yeah...one more thing...was that ALL in one large day , or was it over multiple days???

deen (again!!!)

July 6, 2007 8:39 PM  
Anonymous deen said...

wow...i understood almost none of that with my meager comprehension skills...lucky me!!!oh well, it sounded like y'all had lots fun and i absolutely can't spell today (i keep havin to backspace and re-type, highly annoyin)...ne way, the taxi fare was absolutely outrageous by my standards (likely by many peoples), and i hope you had a super time and keep havin fun there!!!

deen

ps when you come back r u gonna have an english/british accent and talk all funny (flat, lift, etc)???

just wonderin...

have fun !!!

deen

July 6, 2007 8:39 PM  
Anonymous deen said...

k then laura!!! (and ss!!!) some how the long one i posted today got done 2 times b/c i think ss/laura tried to post @ the same moment as me and it didn't work...

deen

July 6, 2007 8:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

thats awsome, deen

u know the postzing thing

ss

July 7, 2007 10:39 AM  
Anonymous sophie said...

elyssa: i didnt hear about the concert
toobad
could be because we were getting ready to go to italy on the third
sounds really cool

July 9, 2007 7:31 AM  
Anonymous sophie said...

deen: stuff is way more expensive in england than many places, but apparently its just because the dollar is weak
still i end up having to buy souveniers an d stuff in england since thats where i am
i probably wont talk british when we com back, but i have found some useful words like "bit"

July 9, 2007 7:34 AM  
Anonymous sophie said...

Laura: are you okay?
i dont think we should allow you and steph to get together =)
too hyper and everything

July 9, 2007 7:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

lalalalalalalalalalalala

im singing

hi sophie miss u

lalalalalalalala

im still singing

miss u

ss

PS

lalalalalalala

July 10, 2007 4:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

if u loisten to the word (well its not exactly a word) PS, WELL IT SOUNDS fuun

ss

ps

rthat wasent sapposed to be capitalized

July 10, 2007 7:06 PM  
Anonymous Uncle Chuck said...

Sophie,

It is very comforting to know that you can get Krispy Kreme and Starbucks abroad! It's almost like civilization.

July 11, 2007 6:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hi its me AGAIN (hahahaha)

lits see if u can unscramble these words

i sims u

(ohhh so hard) wink wink

ss

July 13, 2007 10:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh oops its LETS c if u can unsacramble....

sorry for my spelling doodoos

ss

July 13, 2007 10:16 AM  
Anonymous delilah said...

ok deen a day trip means one day just for your information

not that your going to read this though......

July 30, 2007 2:40 PM  

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