Cheers, London!

The English and Irish often say "Cheers" instead of thanks and I love it because of what it implies: beer is a great way to say thank you. Maybe it really means "cheers to your health", or "be cheery". I'm not sure, but either way it's a great expression. And I'm saying "Cheers, London" as a way of saying "THANKS." My week in London was great. I truly had so much fun on the Emerald and British Isles and I was kind of sad to leave. So here's a quick re-cap of my last few days...

If Saturday was the tour of public transportation, then Sunday was the tour of markets. The East End of Central London has a lot of crowded markets that take up the whole street on Sundays, with locals and tourists alike shuffling through crowds as vendors yell out their prices. It was really fun. If you ever go to London, try starting at the Old Spitalfields Market (semi-enclosed and the most civilized) before making your way over to the Brick Lane Market. There's also Borough Market on the South Side of  the river, which reminded me considerably of Reading Terminal in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately I was much more focused on controlling my buying impulse than I was on taking pictures, but here are just a couple. I did find a great vintage sweater for 5 pounds that is sure to help keep me warm as the temperature drops here in Germany (I looked it up today and Kiel is at 53 degrees N latitude - that's even with parts of Alaska!). But here are the couple pictures I took:

Flower market

Furniture Store on Brick Lane Market

More Flower Market.

We also went to check out some Guy Fawkes Day fireworks, because they were going on all weekend and we felt distinctly British celebrating this holiday. For those of you who are unsure, Guy Fawkes Day commemorates a day when Parliament was almost blown up by a bunch of Catholic conspirators. But everyone was saved because one of the conspirators warned a relative (who was Catholic) to stay away from the Parliament building on the 5th of November. And Guy Fawkes was actually NOT a conspirator, but rather an ammunition expert hired by the conspirators to handle the actual explosives. Unlike the other guilty men, he successfully avoided being hung, drawn, and quartered by jumping off the scaffolding and breaking his own neck. Much less messy.

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November/ Gunpowder, treason and plot."

We're not nearly as cold as we look. All things considered, the weather was much more mild than it could've been.

Not bad for an iPhone camera.

On Monday I did a little more exploring of my own and here are some things I saw, along with tips on how to make London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, perfectly reasonable/free.

Trafalgar Square is one of my favorite places in London. It is, in my mind, exactly what a city should be: communal, bustling, friendly to pedestrians, full of street performers, and bordered by a grand museum that everyone can enter for free.

And the National Gallery is free!

For those of you who have seen First Position, the ballet documentary, here's the Aspiration Bridge! It connects the Royal Ballet's rehearsal space to the Royal Opera House.

Ballerina at the Royal Opera House.

Every Monday the Royal Opera House hosts a free lunchtime concert. It's advised to get there at about 10 AM to pick up one of the tickets, and the actual concert is at 1 PM. I was treated to an excellent baritone singing very dramatic German suites.

Forget paying for the Eye (16 pounds) or the Shard (25 pounds). Another great way to get aerial views of the city is to go to the top of Heron tower, a building in the banking district on the East side. Just act like you want to go up to the Sushi restaurant at the top and meander a bit before heading back down. Do NOT go into the sushi restaurant unless you're wearing a suit and prepared to drop probably 50 pounds a head. I pretended like I had less time than I originally realized and immediately got my coat again and left.

View from the 38th floor of an all-glass, outside elevator.

This is Temple Bar (not to be confused with the district in Ireland), the only remaining gat from when London was a Roman city.

St Paul's Cathedral is absolutely stunning.

There's also a great memorial behind St Paul's Cathedral that is dedicated to people who died in order to save someone else. It's tucked away in a little park called Postman's Park.

Here are a few of my favorites:

And if you want a good shot of Buckingham Palace when there aren't hoards of people, go in the evening! I imagine that, during the summer, it's crowded no matter what. But this is definitely an improvement upon 11:30, when everyone is crowded around for the Changing of the Guard. 

My final major tip (this one is gold): If you ever want to see the inside of a cathedral but don't want to pay the ridiculous amount that they're asking to view a religious space (and, in my opinion, world heritage site), look up when they have services. They can't charge for a religious service, and you'll be able to see the inside sans fee. Granted, this requires that you are comfortable with all different religions (in European cathedrals, Catholicism and Protestantism, mostly), but you often also get to hear music, which is a plus. The All Souls' Day service that I went to had an excellent choir that sang all in Latin and gave me chills. And yes, it was technically Anglican, but it was almost identical to a Catholic mass except for the sweetness of the juice that they served at communion. Westminster Abbey was very welcoming to all different kinds of people, be they tourists or locals, Catholic or Protestant or non-religious.

I got admonished for trying to take a picture inside (which has little to do with religious respect and everything to do with copyrights, I'm sure), but suffice it to say that Westminster Abbey is superb. Very different from many other Gothic cathedrals I've seen.