London Marathon Trip - April 17 through April 26th...then leave again for another marathon!!! (Part 2 of 2)

Oof....I'm almost a year behind on my blogs. 

April 23rd - Westminster Abbey Tour, The British Museum, Abby Road

Westminster Abby - I had no idea how amazing Westminster was going to be.  There are so many famous people buried here.  I think we were here for several hours so we could see everything.

Tomb of the unknown soldier.  You are not allowed to walk here.

I had no idea so many famous people were buried here.  Isaac Newton!!

 

Tomb of Mary Queen of Scots!!! WHAT??  Her tomb is seen below

Mary Queen of Scots

Tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer!

Most of the tombs in Westminster have these very elaborate, detailed "effigies" on top.

It's a little strange that people are buried in the floor of the church and you can basically walk on top of them.  I'm not sure if there's a right or wrong way to navigate around the stones because all the tourists just walk everywhere.

If you don't know, Handel was a composer.  I played a lot of his music in high school orchestra

The marriage license of Prince William and Princess Catherine.  We were not allowed to take pictures in this particular area of Westminster, but I didn't care.  I was tired of not being able to take pictures.

From the sign: Funeral effigy of King Edward III. 1377!!!  You weren't supposed to take pictures here, but I said F it! This is one of the oldest effigies of royalty that exist today.

Most intersections had this painted on the ground.  It was a good reminder because they drive opposite of us.  And you forget which way the traffic is heading when there are one-way streets.  It really messes you up. lol

The entrance to the British Museum

The British Museum had a lot of very interesting exhibits. However, my thoughts on the museum dissolved very quickly after seeing the Moai statue and reading the description below it.  Long story short, this statue was stolen from the island by British colonist (of course they don't say it was stolen)  And somehow it was 'gifted' to Queen Victoria and then she 'gifted' it to the museum.  But then it dawned on me that everything in this museum was stolen.  And the write up that they have for the statue has been completely white washed.  In the description, they say "From about the 1600s, islanders began to topple the statues."  That is completely false and the reason I know is because I have actually been to Easter Island!  The reason that the 'statues were toppled' is because the Dutch colonists that first invaded the island and took it over to raise their sheep, were Christian and they thought the statues were some kind of false God that the local people worshiped.  So the Dutch colonists toppled over the statues, not the local Rapa Nui people.  After seeing and reading this, I felt like my eyes were opened.  I felt like everything in this museum was a lie and I couldn't believe anything that was written. I felt like everything in here was probably white washed and I felt stupid for ever believing the things I read.

Moai Stone head from Easter Island.  

The sign under the Moai statue

The Rosetta Stone: The stone contains the same decree written in three scripts: hieroglyphic (a formal, pictorial script), Demotic (a cursive script), and Greek.  It was 'discovered' in 1799 in Egypt

Until we visited the British museum, I had no idea that The Rosetta Stone was an actual stone with 3 languages translated from one to the other.  It was kind of amazing to see actually.  

Like I said, there were so many amazing exhibits.  But they weren't rescued from marauders by Indiana Jones like you want to believe...they were stolen from their countries of origin and brought to this museum.  I guess the good thing is that they ARE in a museum and they ARE protected....but still...this history of how these were obtained isn't really authentically shared with the public. 

I think it's funny how afternoon tea is such a big deal!

The Lamb and Flag bar.  It's one of the oldest pubs in London.  We tried to hit a few of these old pubs to check them out, have a drink and buy a glass.

We walked to 'Abbey Road' where the Beatles took their famous picture.  It was interesting to see, but holy hell....all the tourists were terrible.  Obviously, I'm there to take pictures too, but I'm not actively interfering with blocking traffic.  This is a regular street and a regular cross walk.  However, people were stopping traffic for minutes at a time and take a million pictures and they didn't care.  Cars were honking at them and some cars had to 'push' people out of the way because the traffic was getting backed up.  I blame social media...mostly because you would see a group take pictures...then they would look at the pictures...decide they weren't good enough....block traffic again to take the same pictures.  I took a video and posted it on TikTok.  I didn't think anything of my post.  BUT, my video blew up.  I got almost 125,000 views.  And people in the comments were UNHINGED.  They were arguing and fighting with each other and calling me names.  It eventually ran it's course, but for about 2 weeks my TikTok blew up.  I just had to laugh because all the people that were fighting are never going to go to London and they are never going to visit Abby Road...and I did.

Abbey Road Studios!

I had to go to Paddington Station so I could get a Paddington Bear and book..not for myself but for my step sister's daughter, Yara.  Also, when you get off the train you always hear over the speakers "Mind the gap!"

April 24th - Walk around London

Walking around London we just happened to walk passed this Cassina store.  Cassina is a brand that falls under the Haworth umbrella.  I thought it was pretty cool that I was in another country and just happened to walk by this place

We went to Shakespeare's original Globe Theater for a tour. The original original building had burned down long ago, but they rebuilt the building on the original site and they built it like it was decades ago.  It's an open air theater and only operates in the summer.  While we were there, they were practicing one of the plays for the summer.  Again...we 'weren't allowed' to take pictures, but I was just so over not being able to take pictures anywhere...so take pictures I did!  

My secret picture of them practicing for the summer play sessions. More info we got from the tour:  Tyler gave our tour at the Globe. 1599 was the first version of the Globe.  The play 'Much ado about nothing' is what they are practicing in this picture. 2pm was the only time for plays to run back in Shakespeare's time because of the open air theater and the light of the day.  Back in the day, you could stand to watch a play for 5 pounds.  All forms of class are and were welcome for plays back in the day.  Groudlings are the people who sat way down in front.  Rich people sat in the boxes.  Actors use to have a scroll with their words on it.  During Henry the VIII's reign, women were not allowed on the stage.  The current building was built in 1988 and Sam Watermaker was the new theater builder

The Tower Bridge.  We walked over it again...it looks so small from afar but when you walk across it, you realize how massive it really is.  I got to run over this bridge during the marathon which was amazing.  At one time people used to live on this bridge.

London used to be a fortified city. There are very few places where the old brick walls still exist, but here were some pieces of it.

Leadenhall Market.  I have never seen Harry Potter, but apparently this area was featured in Harry Potter.  It's just an open air market with a covered roof.  The buildings are really cool though.

 

The Cheshire Cheese Pub - another one of the oldest pubs in London.  This one is a very quintessential Old London Pub.  Dark, lots of heavy wood, no windows.

April 25th - Tower of London Tour 

The Tower of London was by far the most touristy thing that we did.  It was packed!  The crown jewels are stored here (no pictures of course inside the building), Cannons, armor and weapons from long ago are stored here.  It's a little fortified city in the city.  We didn't stay too long because the volume of people here was incredible and my bull crap tolerance level was pretty low by this point. haha

This is Henry the VIII's suit of armor.  The joke is pretty obvious here....

Ravens are a big deal at the Tower of London. There is some legend that says that they protect the area.  Seeing the Ravens was my favorite part. haha

This was the only picture that I could take of the Crown Jewels.  The line was crazy long, but it went fast because you ride this people mover conveyor belt in a single line and it moves you past all the crown jewels.  It's a good set up, because otherwise this line would never move.  It's dark in the building.  There are guards everywhere.  The jewels are beautiful...they look exactly like how you would expect.  We did learn one thing though...some of the crowns and other ceremonial pieces are so heavy that during the coronation of King Charles I guess they still had to use a fake crown or something because otherwise the crown would have snapped his neck from the weight.  The largest diamond in the world is in the crown jewels and it's over 3000 carrots.

At Greenwich park is the Prime Meridian. It's where 0 longitude starts.  And all the standard measurements are. It's really amazing to see. However, it's all behind a paywall.  You have to pay like $25 to get in the gate to see the line on the sidewalk.  We were like 'aw hell no'. So we took pictures through the fence and called it good.

They did have a 'poor person' line that outside of the wall that you could stand on and take a picture so we did that instead.

After walking all day, we headed to this old train bridge that they turned into pubs and stores underneath 

We sat here and had a beer.

London is very old school.  Some places still get milk delivered in the mornings!

April 26th - That Friday, We took off from London back to Grand Rapids.  Because running the London marathon was a surprise to me, I had already planned on running the Toledo Marathon, which just happened to be the weekend we got back from London!  So, when we landed in GR, we drove to Gary's dad's house where we had left Gary's vehicle.  I sent all my London luggage with Gary to go back home and I got in to my Jeep and drove to Toledo with different luggage that I had stored in my Jeep.  Once I got to Toledo, I just collapsed in the hotel for the evening.

April 27th - The next morning, I ran the Glass City 5k.  I think I just spent the rest of the day relaxing in the hotel room!

April 28th - The next day, I ran the Glass City Marathon!  It was a good run but it POURED the entire time.  Luckily it was warm, so being rained on for 41/2 hours wasn't that bad.  After the race, I got into my Jeep and drove home.  What a whirlwind trip with TWO marathons!

I got ducked when I was in Toledo!!