Day 21: New Europe Tours: London

The gathering place for New Europe’s free London walking tour.  They’re getting people queued up and broken into groups.

The next day we went to Hyde Park for the New Europe walking tour of London.  New Europe is a walking tour group in major European cities and I’d gone on their Berlin and Munich tours in the past.  They break up into smaller groups that go from site to site explaining the history, backstory, and some trivia and humorous anecdotes about the city.  They don’t charge any money, leaving it up to us to decide at the end how much to tip.  Every time I’ve gone on one of their tours, the guide has always been enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and has left me with a much better understanding of the history that’s present in these European cities.  In addition to the free tours, there are several other pay tours they offer, including at least a pub crawl and in the case of London, a tour of the old city of London and the “Grim Reaper” tour of places like the Tower of London.

The Wellington Arch, which was modeled after the French Arc de Triumph but was far less impressive.  The Duke of Wellington is one of the most famous people in English history, famous for his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, but who also fought and won dozens of battles in Europe and India.	A monument to the Indian, African, and Caribbean soldiers who fought with the British in World War I and II.  In all, these totaled over 5 million people.

The changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace.	Judging by the number and type of monuments, the British have quite a sense of their history – there’s even a monument dedicated to the British artillerymen who died in World War I.

Buckingham Palace.

London’s clubbing district which contains numerous “Gentleman’s Clubs” (no, not those types of clubs – these are the ones where refined members of society socialize in smoking rooms and make bets about traveling around the world in under 80 days).	Trafalgar Square, named after Admiral Nelson’s victory over the French fleet.  Nelson is at the top of the victory column, and the National Portrait Gallery is behind it.

The Household Cavalry is a ceremonial cavalry regiment stationed in London.  In addition to posing for pictures, they also have a museum open to tourists.	We walked by Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives.  The street used to be open to the public though after the IRA lobbed a mortar shell at the house in 1991, security has been increased to include fencing off the street to the public.

Big Ben (which is technically just the name of the bell) in Elizabeth Tower.	Westminister Abbey, the place where the British monarchy has historically been coronated.

 

The tour ended at Westminister, with the Palace of Westminister (pictured, where the British Parliament meets) and the Abbey (not pictured here).  This photo was taken a few days after our tour.

Day 20 and 21: Shakespeare’s Globe Theater

What better way to celebrate our first night in London than by going to the rebuilt Shakespeare’s Globe theater and watching his play, “Henry V”?   Shakespeare performed at the old Globe theater, which burned down in 1613, was rebuilt, and then later demolished in 1644.  The modern version was built in 1997 and continues to show Shakespeare in the same manner the English saw the plays 400 years ago.

The stage with the “groundlings” standing around it and the more refined nobility sitting in the balconies surrounding the stage.

Dad and I opted to be “groundlings” – the standing-room only section around the stage (the attendants will make sure that you stand throughout the play).  The rates are very affordable (about $7, which is about 1/10th of what we paid for ballet tickets in Russia) so long as you don’t mind standing the entire time and if you feel lucky about the weather (thankfully it didn’t rain on us).  Apparently this stipulation isn’t too clear to some of the other tourists in the area… but if you want the luxury of sitting then you’ve gotta shell out a bit more than that.  Seating is on hardwood benches (you can rent cushions and backrests for a fee).

I have to say that seeing Shakespeare in the new Globe was an amazing experience.  Even if you aren’t a big theater/Shakespeare type of a person, you should see it.  For one, most of my Shakespeare experience in the past came from public education, where everyone is dragged through the book, trying to recite old English lines without any sort of visual context to go along with it.  I rather enjoyed Othello and Hamlet myself, but it’s hard to really be engaged just by reading it (and besides, when you drag out the reading over the course of several weeks with other competing classes and in-depth analyses, it’s difficult to just enjoy the story).

The Globe at night.	Even for the groundlings, it was pretty packed.

In contrast, seeing Shakespeare was a much better experience – even if you don’t understand exactly what it means to bite your thumb at someone, since it’s all being acted out on stage it’s easy to pick up the intent behind the lines.  Of course, they’re also professional actors which helps convey the emotion, sarcasm, etc. throughout the play.  In the Globe the actors also interact with the audience – at times processing through the audience to get to the stage, at other times talking to the audience as if they were say the crowd trying to crown Richard III, etc.  They even include occasional song and dance routines which I presume is how they did it back in the day as well.

We ended up going back the following night to see Richard III – both plays I’d never read before (nor had much of an interest in reading) but they were both great experiences. For a couple extra pounds you can buy programs which explain some of the backstory behind the play to give it more historical context and they make good souvenirs as well.

Finally, to top it off, on the second night when we saw Richard III, I ran into two college classmates completely by chance.  Sarah and Jordan were on their way back to Med School after doing some summer research in Africa and in their layover in London they decided to go out and try to see a play.

Seeing Shakespeare in the Globe was the highlight of my time in England and one of the highlights of the entire trip. I highly recommend it for anyone traveling to London.

Day 20 and 23: The British Museum

The British Museum has free admission, so that and its proximity to the hotel meant we split up our visits based on time available.  We saw it our first afternoon in London and came back later in the week to finish up what we’d missed.

The British Museum, ironically, has a lot of stuff in it that isn’t British.  It contains numerous artifacts stretching back across the ages, ranging from the Rosetta Stone to ancient Egyptian statues to prehistoric tools. 

An exhibit on currency displaying the results of hyperinflation.  The bill in the top left corner is a 50 billion Zimbabwean dollar note, issued in May 2008, which was worth $1.22 in June 2008, and $0.06 in July.  The inflation rate that month was about 231,000,000%.	There it is: the Rosetta Stone, containing the same royal decree in hieroglyphics, Demotic text, and ancient Greek, which became the key to the modern world understanding hieroglyphics.  It was inscribed over 2000 years ago, found at Rosetta in 1799 by the French and captured by the British in 1801.

It was interesting to see the English take on the American Revolution:
”The wars and colonial struggles of the eighteenth century caused a massive increase in government expenditure, inspiring a search for new sources of revenue, often from previously privileged classes.  England sought to tax its American colonists on a par with its own citizens, although they were not represented in parliament.  The problems of governing across the Atlantic, the more egalitarian American society and the extremely rapid growth of its settlements all added to the tensions which produced the American War of Independence (1775-83). 

The Americans could not easily appeal to traditional rights and had to take their stand on the revolutionary principle of the natural rights of man.  The success of the revolt showed a people deposing their ruler and creating a republic based on a new social contract.  France had allied with America during the war, but emerged financially exhausted, exacerbating its own social and political tensions.  Ideas of the natural equality of man, pockets of hatred for the traditional ruling classes and the financial and political weakness of the monarchy combined in 1789 to inspire the French Revolution, the greatest challenge the old order of Europe was to face.”

Counterfeit currency produced by the BBC for use in an episode of “Doctor Who.”  Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction show about a man in a police box that flies through time and space to save the human race.	Model of what Olympia looked like in Ancient Greece, where the Greeks held their Olympic games.  The tall, white, columned building in the center held the statue of Zeus, considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

I definitely recommend the British Museum if you have any interest in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, or Persia. 

Day 20: The Ruskin Hotel

While in St. Petersburg, I put in reservations at the Ruskin Hotel for our stay in London after doing some Internet searching and rating reviewing.  It’s listed under the category of “Bed & Breakfast"” – not in the traditional sense of an English family renting out some rooms for guests, but they did offer a full English breakfast (as opposed to a Continental breakfast…) every morning that was quite good complete with service and all.  Our four-night stay only cost 252 pounds (about $400) which is pretty affordable for London.

The downsides?  We had a shared bathroom and shower (though we had a sink in the room), it’s fairly old (not run-down old, just fair wear-and-tear old), there wasn’t any air conditioning, and the Wi-Fi signal didn’t reach all the way up to the third floor – though there is a reading lounge on the first floor where people congregated to enjoy the Wi-Fi.  Finally, the lift (elevator) was out of order.  It wasn’t anything fancy, but we reasoned that the majority of the time we’d be out exploring the city anyways and would only be coming back to rest so there was no need to go all out.

There are plenty of upsides to the place.  For one, it is literally right across the street from the British Museum.  The breakfast was another plus – they took your order, which included sausage, toast, ham, eggs, and hash browns, not to mention tea.  The hotel was about a five minute walk from the Tube.  Finally, the rates were affordable and the service acceptable.

Day 20: Arrival in London and The Tube

Tower Bridge over the Thames.

We arrived in London on August 14th, which is two days after the end of the Olympics.  No matter – all the Olympic paraphernalia were still up, Olympic souvenirs were on sale, and we avoided some of the crowds and steeper rates.  So we arrived in London from the EuroStar and set off in the now-common procedures of securing some local currency and figuring out the mass transit system.

In London, our main mode of transportation was “The Tube” (or “The Underground”) – that is, the subway.  Every travel guide I read about England recommended getting an “Oyster” mass transit card since that offered significant discounts versus getting separate tickets (either that, or the regular tickets are overpriced to encourage people to use Oysters).  Like most RFID mass transit cards, you can touch in and touch out quickly at the subway stations and it also lets the government track your travel habits.  You can also use the Oyster on busses and most other public transport services in London.  One more thing – don’t wait in long lines at the travel info center to buy an oyster – there are numerous oyster dispensing machines elsewhere in the station without the need to wait in long lines.

Distinctive uniform of the British police.  You can tell by the reflective vest that they put a high premium on safety.	Dad waits in line at the travel center to get our Oysters.

The Tube is considerably different in feel than the other metro systems we’d experienced on the trip.  The Soviet-style metros were generally speaking deep underground with wide walkways and high-ceilinged stations, in line with Stalin’s original propaganda message of the subway being an underground palace for the proletariat.  The Polish metro is new, clean, and modern though their ticket machines need some work.  In contrast, the Tube is a lot more cramped than any of the other systems, the metro in Seoul included.  The walkways are narrow (and very tube-like) with many twists and turns, which definitely gives them some character and makes you feel like you’re navigating some sort of underground labyrinth.  The train cars themselves are also tube-shaped, which makes them feel more crowded as well. 

Still, the Underground is an efficient and relatively cheap way of getting around the city (the exact cost varies depending on your origin and destination, but it costs about $3 one-way with an Oyster (by cash it costs nearly $7), or about three times as expensive as the Moscow metro.

Oh, well now that you put it that way, I guess I won’t use it when the train is moving.	Typical car in the Underground.

Day 19-20: The Way to London

Warsaw-London: Approx. 1075 miles
Total distance traveled since Vladivostok: Approx. 9455 miles

At the end of our tour we were back at the Central Train Station and spent our last hour or so in Warsaw spending our remaining zlotys (with fresh memories of excess Ukrainian hryvinas on our mind) so we were able to procure dinner, breakfast, and lunch for the next day (which was good, since we wouldn’t arrive in London until roughly noon the following day). 

For the first time on the trip, our train was not the Soviet-style sleeper cars anymore.  Instead, it was a Western style non-sleeper train that departed Warsaw around 6:30 PM.  Some random last miscellaneous thoughts about Poland: outside of train stations, there really isn’t any signage in English (surprising, since Ukraine actually has quite a lot).  Polish has a number of words in common with Russian (ulitsa for street, shest for six, etc.) though it’s a very difficult language to learn and pronounce correctly (Greg said he once got into an argument while traveling in China over which language was more difficult – the results were inconclusive).  And it must be tough being a country surrounded by more powerful rivals (kind of like Korea being stuck between China and Japan, or Israel for that matter).  Honestly speaking, having grown up and lived in the United States it’s hard to really understand what that is like – the only foreign power to seize US soil since 1812 was the Japanese (who took over two Aleutian islands and were evicted about a year later) and as great a threat as Al Qaeda is, in truth the greatest threat to the US in the foreseeable future is our ballooning debt. 

Sunset over Poland.

Anyways, we arrived in Berlin sometime around midnight and had about an hour layover there.  Although we would have liked to spend more time sightseeing in Germany, we were on a tight timeline and I’d personally spent a few weeks in Germany in the past, and my Dad lived there for several years, so we mostly tried to catch up on sleep.  In the morning, we arrived at our destination (Köln, aka Cologne) where we had to switch trains to the German ICE which would take us to Brussels.

Arrival in Köln.  The train pictured here is a high-speed ICE (Inter-city express) train, the same type we would be taking to Brussels.

Now in the past I’d mentioned the various reception and service in trying to get tickets, namely at Kiev and Warsaw.  I have to say that our experience in Köln was typically German.  We followed the signs to the Deutsche Bahn travel center (Deutsche Bahn is the German train company, which translates to “German Railway”).  We entered a separate room away from the noise and busyness of the tracks, pressed a button and received a number.  Soon enough, our number came up on the screen telling us which counter to go to where a Deutsche Bahn employee, complete with vest and tie, greeted us and asked what he could to help.  I said that we were looking to catch the next train to Brussels.  “Today?”  “Ja.”  “Hmm…” (apparently we were being quite unordnung in not reserving this further in advance)  He punches some keys on the computer, looks at the screen, and remarks, “Ah yes, there’s a train leaving for Brussels in twenty minutes…” – he shows us the price, we agree, and before long he hands us the envelope with tickets in it, gives us directions to get to the proper platform, and wishes us a good day.  Definitely the most orderly, professional, and efficient ticketing counter I’d seen on the entire trip, and typically German.

“Thank you for riding Deutsche Bahn, goodbye!”

So before we knew it, off we went to Brussels in Belgium, topping out at about 150mph on the trip.  Once in Brussels, we got tickets for the Eurostar which would take us under the English Channel and into London.  We had to get our passports stamped for the first time since crossing into Poland (which is definitely convenient compared to what my Dad experienced the last time he was in Europe, though it doesn’t look quite as impressive on the passport) and enjoyed the relatively short two-hour trip (the Eurostar tops out around 180mph).  Welcome to England!

London’s St. Pancras station, our port of debarkation into the United Kingdom.

Day 19: Communist Warsaw

The “Palace of Culture and Science” – the tallest building in Poland – was a “gift” from the Soviet Union to their Polish satellite in the early 1950s.

As we moved back towards the modern city center, Greg talked about some of the Soviet influences upon the city.  At the end of World War II, quite predictably, Stalin made sure that a pro-Communist government was installed in Poland and that the original Polish government (in exile in London) would remain in exile until the collapse of communism at the start of the 90s.

In the post-World War II world, Stalin redrew the boundaries of the Poland, giving East Prussia to the Poles (Hitler invaded Poland over the “Danzig Corridor” which separated Germany from East Prussia), ceding a lot of eastern Germany to the Poles as well, while keeping the East Prussia port of Konigsberg for themselves (later renaming it Kaliningrad and expelling the German residents.  It remains a possession of Russia to this very day though isolated from mainland Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union).  The Soviets also annexed a fair amount of Eastern Poland and forcibly relocated the inhabitants to the rest of Poland – not quite land as much as they took in 1939 but still about 77,000 square kilometers.

I thought the Soviets kicked the Germans out in 1945.  Actually, this building was the former Central Office for the Control of Publications and Performances back during the Communist era.

Greg also spoke about some of his experiences growing up in Communist Poland during the tail end of the regime (he was 11 when the government collapsed).  He spoke about the heavy rationing due to shortages where he and his mother would each wait in a separate line all day long to procure basic necessities.  The prices stayed low, you just had to wait (two years for an automobile or washing machine).  To overcome the appalling efficiency of the planned economy, people often resorted to the black market, where used products were actually more expensive than new ones because they were readily available. 

Remnants of Communist rule – hard working heroes of Communist labor memorialized to inspire their fellow workers to greater deeds in service of the state.

He explained how anger over the shortages fed the growth of the Solidarity movement (the first non-Communist trade union to emerge in a Soviet bloc country) at the start of the 80s, with roughly a third of the Polish population members by 1981.  Despite fears of a Prague or Budapest-style Soviet crackdown with tanks in the streets, the Soviets made it clear to the Communist government that they wouldn’t commit Soviet troops to restore order in Poland.  Eventually, the Communist Polish government instituted martial law for two years and outlawed Solidarity, which forced the movement underground.

Greg said that the lack of a Soviet response to the emergence of a non-Communist movement opened the door for the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc.  Solidarity re-emerged in 1989 and forced semi-free elections which led to the breakdown of the Communist party and the restoration of democratic rule at the end of 1989.

Something non-Communist for balance – the Polish tomb of the unknown soldier, with remnants dating back to 1918.  The battles fought by Poland are listed around the structure going as far back as 972 AD.