Eclecticism

Day 118: Today we started off at Westminster Abbey, including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries special exhibit, which has an incredible view of the abbey (but doesn’t allow photos) in addition to the extra artifacts on display. The abbey is beautiful, and it was neat to glance around and constantly be seeing another tomb or memorial with a historical name I recognized.

As we were waiting for our entrace time to the abbey we walked around the blocks surrounding it, getting some gorgeous views of the Palace of Westminster (Parliament) and Big Ben (technically the Elizabeth Tower; Big Ben is the bell), seeing New Scotland Yard, and some statues of famous people — including Abraham Lincoln. So yes, we went to London to visit a Lincoln memorial. ;)

After Westminster we walked over to Buckingham Palace, then took a stroll through Hyde Park to the Marble Arch (which is under renovation, so is currently serving as a Vodaphone advertisement), and then went on to Selfridge’s department store. Which may seem like a slightly odd tourist destination, but we had recently watched a surprisingly interesting PBS documentary on Henry Selfridge and the store that bears his name, so we had fun wandering through.

Finally, we ended the day with a visit to the London Eye ferris wheel and its beautiful views of London.

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Day 117: We kicked off our day at the Tower of London, heading in as soon as the gates opened and starting by going straight for the Crown Jewels (which, phrased that way, sounds much more heist-y than it actually was). It’s a great way to make sure you can better appreciate them — it wasn’t much later at all in the day when we saw lines forming, where we were able to head right into the exhibit. Once done with those, we spent the rest of the morning just slowly working our way through the rest of the Tower exhibits at our own pace.

Once done with the Tower, and after taking some time to rest, we headed off for a Jack the Ripper walking tour of Whitechapel run by and ending with a visit to the Jack the Ripper Museum. This was a fun way to see a lot of the back streets and areas that we wouldn’t have wandered into on our own, all while getting an amusingly sensationalized (and occasionally conspiracy-theory-enhanced) account of the Jack the Ripper murders and mystery.

After that, since we didn’t have anything else planned and figured we could both use some more time to rest, we just settled into our hotel room and watched Mary Poppins, which seemed like a perfect choice after a couple of days exploring London.

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Day 116: Our first day of exploring London!

We started with a visit to the British Museum, which is a huge, gorgeous museum packed with loot artifacts stolen acquired from across the globe. It’s also so popular that I found it impossible to really enjoy the visit — there’s absolutely no opportunity to actually stop and appreciate anything, because there are simply so many other people crowded in, pushing through, and all to often either stepping directly in front of you or physically pushing you aside so that they can see whatever you’re trying to look at. Honestly, as gorgeous as the museum is, and as impressive as its collection is, the actual experience was something of a disappointment. That said, we made the most of it, and did see a lot of neat stuff.

Once we finished with the museum, we came back to the hotel to rest for a while. Then we were off again! We took a cab up to Shakepeare’s Globe, walked across the Millennium Bridge and around St. Paul’s Cathedral (sadly, there was no old woman selling crumbs to feed the birds for tuppence a bag), saw a rainbow over London as we came back across the Millennium Bridge, and then watched an incredibly good performance of Macbeth at the Globe.

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Day 115: We’re (finally) off the boat and in London! The QMII docked in Southampton this morning, and we were very ready to move on. While the trans-Atlantic crossing was a really neat thing to do, with a lot of fun ties to history, we’re now pretty sure that that’s not a thing that we’d be intereste in doing again. Seven days at sea is a long time, and when you factor in the obviously high risk of getting ill…well. It was worth doing and the first half was a lot of fun; the tedious latter half, though, we’re happy to see the end of.

So, we disembarked in Southampton, caught a cab to the Southampton train station, a train to London Waterloo station, a London black cab to the Tower Hotel, and checked into a room with the most incredible view I’ve ever had in a hotel room.

After getting settled in, we walked across Tower Bridge and got dinner. Once we got back to the hotel, my wife (who was hit much harder by the bug that I was) needed rest, so I went out and took a two-hour walk enjoying the London evening and taking photos before finally coming back and heading to bed.

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Day 114: Another day of holing up in our stateroom to concentrate on resting and trying not to let whatever bug bit us get any worse. I almost forgot to get a picture, but then remembered that I’d planned ahead and made sure to include some thematically (in)approprite viewing choices for us, including this one on the history of the Cunard Line.

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Day 113: Most of the day was spent hiding in our room, so as to rest and avoid possibly infecting anyone else. The second big gala event of the voyage was tonight, with a 1920s theme, and as we didn’t want to entirely miss it, we got dressed up and ventured out for about an hour (masked the entire time, aside from a couple brief moments to have our photos taken). Once we’d been there long enough to say we’d been there, it was back to our room and back to bed.

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Day 112: The day started well, with another history lecture, a cute new haircut for my wife, and an attempt at afternoon tea. However, about the time tea started…disaster! Well, no, not disaster, but a hearty amount of grumbling and annoyance. A few days ago at dinner before the Red and Gold gala event, we had a couple sit at the table next to us, and one of them was obviously ill: sniffling, sneezing, coughing, and bleary-eyed, all the time assuring us that he “wasn’t contagious” and it was “oh, nothing, just some little virus thing”. In hindsight, we should have excused ourselves, but between wanting to enjoy the evening and general social pressures, we stayed…and today was the day when we started feeling the effects of that decision. COVID testing has come back negative, so we’re hopeful that this is “just” a cold or flu.

So, we cut tea short, went back to our room, and spent the evening resting and preparing for our upcoming London adventures…otherwise known as watching Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary. That counts as research, right?

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