London is for History-Lovers

London is most definitely a tourist city, which is easily seen by some of the food prices in restaurants. Of course, you’re probably not going to London for the food, necessarily—you’re going because it’s London, and there’s a lot of history to see here. The interesting thing is that the history you’ll find in Britain might not even be British.

One of the first places I went while I was in London was the British Museum. This place is as interesting as it is massive—there are thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) of artifacts dating from modern times back to the oldest piece in the entire museum: a stone tool dating back 1.8 million years. As I was walking around, I kept having a post-colonial thought crop up in the back of my mind: This museum is full of stuff that rich, white men took from other cultures.

I was so mesmerized by the British Museum that I wasn’t paying close attention to where I was walking—I simply walked from expansive room to expansive room, snapping pictures as I went. There probably is a set order in which you can cover the museum, but I had a whole week in London, so if I had spare time, I went back to the museum and looked through more exhibits. It also became kind of a shelter for me, since it rained frequently during my trip (well duh, it’s London).

The rooms are set up chronologically in some parts of the museum and culturally in other parts. I ended up walking backward through time during one expedition to the museum. I went from renaissance Europe back into medieval Europe (YAY!), wandered through a room full of clocks, then found my way into some ancient Roman stuff. That led me to ancient Greek stuff, and the next room took me back even further.

You can literally spend two full days of a trip to London walking around in the British Museum. If you’re a history buff, you’ll want to be here like flies on a gut-wagon. The museum normally has special exhibits that change every few months—while I was there, it was an exhibit of sexuality and eroticism in Japanese folk-art, or something like that. Entrance to the whole museum is free, but the special exhibits actually had an entrance fee—I didn’t go into any of the special exhibits, though, because I was just exhausted after looking through the place for seven or eight hours my first day.

Another really awesome place for anyone interested with history is Westminster Abbey. From the outside, the place is absolutely gorgeous, and the architecture is really something to behold. Be prepared for a line, though—I waited outside for about twenty minutes before I even got to the front door. There is an entrance fee here, but you can always flash a student ID card to get a slightly cheaper rate—instead of paying ₤20, I paid ₤16 or something.

Once I was inside, it looked like tourist central. Walking into the church, there are attendants walking all around in red and green robes, and some of the robe-wearing people were leading tours throughout the building. I didn’t have a tour guide, but there was a table full of what looked like cell phones—these are actually little audio devices that kind of “lead” you through the building, stopping at points of interest or famous people who are buried in Westminster Abbey. These devices are the only electronic devices allowed inside the church, as there is absolutely no photography allowed—the robed attendants were quick to pounce on anyone who was even holding a camera.

The strict “no cameras” rule is because Westminster Abbey isn’t just a place to rake in tourists—it’s still an active house of worship. There are a few priests wandering around in the crowd of people, and there was even an announcement over a PA system inside the building to invite anyone to sit down for a moment of silent prayer. I actually had a conversation with a very nice priest who explained the setup of the front of the church, where all the clergymen sat, who sat where, etc.

I was specifically looking for two graves—one for Richard II, and another for Geoffrey Chaucer. Richard II was king of England during the late-fourteenth century, which means that he was ruling over England at about the same time that Pearl was being written in the northwest midlands of the country. Pearl is considered part of the “Ricardian” era, as Ricardian poetry is a very small, very specific genre of British literature, so I figured I should see his grave. Also, I was looking for Chaucer’s grave, since he’s the father of modern poetry and all. I took a class on Chaucerian poetry a couple of years ago during my graduate work, so again, I figured I should see his grave—I even waited until all the attendants were looking away and a large group of tourists was staring blankly at the floor marking Alfred Lord Tennyson’s grave, and I even touched the stone of Chaucer’s grave. It was magical.

The last big stop for a history buff is the Tower of London. Obviously, this is a huge deal, since the oldest part of the tower was constructed by William the Conqueror. William wanted to show his power over the English people, since they were quite unhappy with the Norman Conquest, as England was, you know, conquested.

Over the centuries, more and more fortifications and buildings were constructed, thus creating the Tower of London that we know today. One of the biggest fortifications was the creation of the moat—in theory, the moat was dug, and the water from the River Thames right outside the Tower of London would flood into the moat and surround all the fortifications, making it totally impregnable. It didn’t work. At high tide, water from the River Thames would flood into the moat—along with loads and loads of disgusting human waste. (“Imagine what that would smell like on a warm summer day,” the tour guide said. “It was Britain’s greatest line of defense! Nobody would want to invade a poo-stained castle!”)

The Tower of London is most famous for the bloodshed that’s occurred there over the centuries under how many different monarchs, I don’t know. We’ll just say “a lot of them.” The most famous of these most famous incidents of bloodshed was probably the murder of the boy princes, ages 9 and 11. The princes were killed in one of the towers, which was then renamed the “Bloody Tower”; after they were killed, their bodies were locked in a trunk and hidden, thereby allowing their uncle, Richard III, to ascend to the throne of England.

The Tower of London is a spectacular place for history people, since there are stories to be told about every corner of the place. I would highly suggest going on one of the free tours—the guide we had was very knowledgeable, and he was a riot to listen to (“If you lived in any part of the British Empire, let’s have a big huzzah!” he told the group, and most of the tour group huzzahed in reply. “And as for you Americans…You don’t get to huzzah with us, because you made your choice!”) The entry into the Tower of London was ₤18, but it’s very well worth it—plus, the guided tour with a snarky guy dressed up as a beefeater is entirely free, so again, well worth the trip. 

Wait...so you people don't use trucks?

One of the biggest shocks I’ve had since coming to Europe was the automobiles. Coming from an oil-boom town in North Dakota, I’ve seen some big vehicles, and most of them are oilfield trucks with suspension lifts, making the trucks stand something like seven feet tall at the tops of the cabs. The size difference between European and American cars is a little jarring at first, but even the types of cars that Europeans drive are far, far different than American vehicles.

From the time I could drive, I’ve driven all kinds of cars in America, from little four-cylinder cars to 15-passenger vans. After getting my learner’s permit, I drove a 1990s minivan with my mom and blasted a 1970s chart-toppers cassette-tape; upon getting my normal driver’s license, I graduated from the minivan to a 1977 Ford F-150 with a 400 V8 engine and dual exhaust with glass-packs (because I wanted a loud, cool truck). I named him Frankenstein, since we replaced a lot of his parts with parts from other trucks we had at our house; alas, Frankenstein’s undying hatred of mailboxes destroyed him (with help from an icy road), and I moved on to Old Blue, a 1978 Ford F-150. I drove Old Blue through my stay at community college, then bought a truck for myself, a small 2001 Ford Ranger that I named the “Power Ranger.”

As far as vehicles in Britain go, the cars are far smaller than American ones. I was watching the Discovery Channel a few weeks back during my lunch break, and there’s always a car show on. There are two guys: one guy buys a junker car, then gives it to the second guy, who’s a mechanic. The mechanic fixes up the car and gives it back to the first guy, who then sells the car again. They had a pretty generic car from the UK on the program in this particular episode, and they each kept saying how massive, how huge, how monstrous this car was—and my Power Ranger pickup, which is a small pickup truck by American standards, was only a few inches longer and wider than this car.

When my sister came to Europe about the time she graduated from high school, I was still only a freshman or sophomore in high school—hence, just another dumb kid. I seriously thought that she was joking when it came to how small the cars were here. She also drove a 1970s Ford truck for a while, and she said that most European cars would fit into the back of her truck—and she really wasn’t lying. Most of these cars really are teeny.

For the months that I’ve been in Norway and across Europe, I’ve seen just two big vehicles. One of them looks like an import for the United States—a suspension-lifted Ford F-250—and when it goes down the street in front of my house, the other cars on the road have to pull over to make room for it to go past. The other one I’ve seen is a big, black Hummer H2. I didn’t really figure on seeing any Hummers in Norway, considering Norway seems like a very ecologically-aware country that imposes taxes on people’s cars based on those cars’ emissions.

Pickup trucks in Norway (and Europe, for that matter) seem pretty scarce. Whereas most construction workers in the United States drive pickup trucks to their job sites, or most oilfield workers drive 4x4 pickups to their rig locations, construction workers in Norway drive vans—and seemingly, these vans are no bigger than the minivan with which I started driving. Instead of having an open-box pickup truck like Americans, the carpenters that have been working on my street for months turn these little minivans into mobile workstations, converting the back half of the minivan into a place to store lumber, supplies, power tools, hand tools—you name it. I've asked people around ACN where all the pickup trucks are, and they usually say that there aren't that many in Norway. It almost seems like the word "truck" is only given to semi-trucks with huge cargo trailers or dump trucks, or other large construction vehicles.

When it comes to vehicle brands, there’s a little bit of a difference there, too. Back in the United States, if you drive a Mercedes Benz, most people will think that you’re well-off, since the Mercedes Benz brand gives off a posh vibe to Americans. I walked out of my apartment one of my first days here and saw the garbage truck rumbling up the street—with a huge Mercedez Benz logo on the front of it.

Coming from a family that, at one point, drove three 1970s Ford trucks and one 2001 Ford truck, it’s been a really interesting experience in Norway and Europe so far, seeing how different cultures utilize vehicles for both work and play. Coming from an area of North Dakota where pickup trucks outnumber cars by a significant amount also makes for a significant change. And now, I just want to drive my little truck again. 

The London Expedition

This post is certainly long overdue, but things got pretty hectic at ACN for the past week. On October 14 while I was in London, I had my students turn in their papers to the office assistant at the school; as soon as I hit the ground in Norway again and made it back to my apartment, I started grading these 70-odd papers.

As for my trip to London, I think it went pretty well, all withstanding. Getting to and from London wasn’t really as big of a hassle as I’d imagined it to be, but getting around in the city was a little difficult, since I’m so stubborn.

On the afternoon of October 12, I got a ride to the Rygge airport by someone from ACN. I got to the airport a couple of hours before my plane was set to depart, and there wasn’t any issue in the airport (although the ticket counter attendant said, “Have a nice flight,” to which I replied, “You, too!”).

I chose to fly with an airline called Ryanair again, the same airline I used to get to Belgium. The problem with Ryanair is that you don’t fly into the main airports of big European cities like Brussels or London—you fly into smaller airports that are usually an hour’s travel away. For my trip to Bruges in Belgium, I had to fly into a place called Charleroi, which was about an hour by bus from big train hub in Brussels; similarly, my trip to London took me to Stansted airport, which is a two-hour bus ride into London. Even though I had to take a bus into London from Stansted, my total airfare for this trip was $42. Yes. $42.

I could have taken a train from the airport to the center of London where I was staying, and that would have cut my travel time in half, really. There are trains that go from Stansted straight into the Liverpool Street tube station, and from there, I could have taken the tubes all the way to my hotel. I didn’t take the tubes because I had printed walking directions from one particular bus station to my hotel, and I figured that would be simpler than trying to go through the tubes and learn the tube-routes, having just stepped into the city.

Walking around London on a Saturday night is quite interesting, as there are people everywhere. Of course, being it was a Saturday, everyone was standing in the streets, standing outside of pubs and taverns smoking, or waiting in line to get into the big London clubs. I started reading my map, and I started walking, avoiding the crowds where I could. Instead of going straight to my hotel, I ended up wandering into Trafalgar Square, and I knew I was in the wrong place. What Google Maps claimed was a 45-minute walk from Victoria Coach Station to my hotel quickly turned into a 2-hour trial by fire, taking wrong turns, backtracking, walking (terror-stricken) through a pitch-black Green Park. I tried flagging down a taxi after simply giving up on getting to my hotel, but none of them would stop for me—so I kept walking.

I finally got to my hotel on Charlotte Street after walking nearly 2.5 miles from the Victoria Coach Station. I had already made my hotel reservation online, and I printed the confirmation and brought it with me—only, when I got to the address listed for the hotel, there wasn’t a hotel at that address. There were no signs that I could see, and I stood there, defeated. I saw a few English gents in cooks’ clothing standing outside a pub that served “gourmet hot dogs,” and I told them my plight. (“Y’walked all’uh way from Vitoria? Yer fookin’ crazy, man!”) One of them bounced down from the pub’s entryway and buzzed the door at 68 Charlotte Street, and a very nice Indian man came down the stairs and took my hotel confirmation.

The man’s name was Kumar, and he walked me away from 68 Charlotte Street to an entirely different building, which was my hotel. From the look of it, the building had once been an apartment building, but it was renovated to become an apartment-hotel hybrid (the place was even called an “aparthotel”).

The hotel was really…interesting. There were four floors to the building, and I was on the first floor; on each floor, there were four “hotel rooms,” two shared bathrooms, and a small kitchen. On the fifth floor, there was a fully-stocked kitchen and a dining room—each morning, you could go into this kitchen and cook whatever food was in the fridge, but then you did your own dishes once you were done. It really was an interesting setup, and it did save me a little money in the long run, not having to buy breakfast for seven days.

I hardly ever saw other people, but I certainly heard them—the walls were paper thin. I was lying in bed on the first night, and I heard someone cough in the next room, but it sounded like he was sitting at the foot of my bed. If I were staying in London for a couple of nights, this place would have been ideal—just a place to rest my head after a long day of sightseeing. Staying there for seven nights, though, seemed like a stretch. Plus, if I were traveling with someone, there’s no way I would stay in any aparthotel again. The place was in a central location, and everything I wanted to see in London was within walking distance of my hotel (almost everything), so in the end, I really sacrificed comfort for location. Most people would probably say I should have taken the tubes more, but really, I didn’t mind the walking, and my feet never hurt throughout the entire seven days of walking I did.

That first night in London, I had no idea where I was going—again, a 45-minute walk turned into 2.5 hours of mindless, panicked wandering. Three days later, I was telling people directions. It really took me by surprise how quickly and easily I learned my way around the city. Because I don’t like having strict plans while I travel, I would wake up in the morning, research what I wanted to see in the day, memorize the way to get there with Google Maps on my laptop, and then go. If you ever get to London, ask people on the street for directions—for as big of a city and as busy of a city as London, everyone on the street was incredibly nice and helpful. Even people working in businesses will give directions if you’re really stuck. London is obviously a huge tourist spot, so half the time, you’ll end up asking a tourist for directions, anyway.

Because the streets were so familiar to me by the end of the trip, I walked straight from the aparthotel to the Victoria Coach Station at 6:00 in the morning on October 19. I took my bus back to Stansted, waited around at the airport for a few hours (better two hours early than one minute late), and flew back here to Norway. It really was a great trip, and I think I’m starting to get the hang of traveling (and maybe even a touch of the “travel-bug”).

Trainspotting

If you’ve been looking through the ~150 pictures I put up on Facebook, you’ve probably guessed that I had a fantastic time on my trip to Bruges in Belgium. I’m back in Norway now, settling down from all the stress and excitement of traveling. Before coming to Norway, my main reason for not traveling was just that—the literal travel aspect of things. I’d love to go see this and that and the other thing, but I’m not a great traveler. Whenever I start making plans and realizing that those travels plans all have to interlink and overlap and become one cohesive unit, I get stressed and tend to fret about dates and times and alarm clocks not working and watching the train slip out of the station—without me on it.

For all the airports I’ve been to, I’ve almost always had someone to pick me up or drop me off at the airport. This makes things really easy, since I only have to worry about my flight that way. Being in Moss, though, I had to find my way to the Oslo-Rygge airport (I ended up taking a cab); then, once I had flown from Oslo-Rygge to the Brussels-Charleroi airport, I had to find my way from Charleroi to Brussels, which is an hour south of Brussels and the main train-hub in Belgium. I did my research and found a shuttle bus that took me straight to the Brussels-Midi train station, so that wasn’t really so bad.

As I looked around the Brussels-Midi train station, I couldn’t find any train officials to actually get a ticket to Bruges. I found an information desk, but plastered across the front was a large, handwritten sign (written hastily by an annoyed employee, I assume) which read, “NO INFORMATION ABOUT TRAINS.” It seems odd to put an information desk in a train station that has no information about trains, but hey, it’s Europe—what do I know.

In the Brussels-Midi, they don’t have any officials selling tickets that I saw, but they had touchscreen kiosks that printed tickets for you. The machines would only take a credit card with a microchip in it (whereas most American cards still have the magnetic strip you have to swipe), or the machines would take cash, but only in the form of Euro coinage. I went to a few different stores in the train station and broke down some Euro bills, and I finally had enough coins to buy a ticket to Bruges. I entered my departing station and my arriving station, and the machine spit out a ticket that didn’t have a train time on it.

The odd thing I found out about the trains in Europe is that you can hop on any train bound for your destination after you buy a ticket, no matter what time of day it is. So long as the date is correct on the train ticket, you can take any train to the arriving station. In North Dakota, the train only comes through twice, one eastbound, the other westbound; in this scenario, there really isn’t any worry about train times, since you always know that the train will be there sometime, late or not. If you miss it, you miss it, and you come back tomorrow and try again.

Because I couldn’t find what time the train left, I had to start looking at the screens hanging in the station. Just like at the airport, the screens scroll through which trains are arriving, which ones are departing, what times the trains get in and what times they leave, and what platform each specific train is at. As I looked at the screen, I had this horrifying feeling. I couldn’t see Bruges on any of the signs. I started looking at the walls of the station to find the train times when a French couple came up to me and blathered off a question about a train stop, to which I had no reply. I searched the memory banks of my brain for anything French that I could remember. Oui—no, don’t give them hope. Omelette du fromage—no, how does that help? I’ve got it! “Parlez vous anglais?” They replied with a curt “No” and walked away, but just after that, I found my train to Bruges.

My dealings with Amtrak have apparently ruined me, as I only think of trains in terms of my point of departure and my point of arrival. Believe it or not, the trains still run when I’m not on them. All the trains listed on the posters in the station had the very first and very last stations on them, meaning that my stops were probably going to be somewhere in the middle of the train’s route. I found a train from Brussels-Midi to Oostende, and Bruges was the stop right before Oostende and the end of the line. As I climbed the stairs to get onto the platform, the train screeched to a halt and the doors whooshed open, so I jumped inside, sat down, and pulled my hat low just in case it was the wrong train. In a little over an hour, I was in Bruges, and the train station was a two-minute walk from the hotel.

The biggest issue of the trip was the languages. I’ve been in in Norway for almost two full months now, and I’ve started retraining myself to automatically try and think in Norwegian when I get lost and see road signs. This didn’t work in Belgium, obviously—the country is surrounded by different languages: German, French, and Dutch. Furthermore, I was in a tourist town, so the people who were there were from all over Europe. I did run into a few English speakers, but they were few and far between. The people at the hotel and the museums were generally fluent in English, since they’re used to speaking to travelers. Going to restaurants was always difficult, though, unless they had pictures of the food on the menu. When servers came by to take my order and asked what I’d like, I mostly said, “Yes, please,” trying to tap into my adventurous side. 

Getting from Bruges to Brussels to the Charleroi airport on the way back wasn’t nearly as difficult as I imagined it would be. I looked online to buy shuttle bus tickets from Brussels-Midi to Charleroi airport, and from the website I was looking at, it seemed like that was the only option to get tickets. I planned to leave Bruges on the 6:30 A.M. train back to Brussels, but I decided that it would be better to have a little more “uh oh” time in case I couldn’t get a ticket to Charleroi and had to work out other options; I ended up leaving Bruges at 5:36 A.M. As soon as I hit the Brussels-Midi station at about 6:30, I hoofed it to the other end of the station and caught the 6:40 bus to Charleroi airport, and I was sitting in the terminal by 7:45, a whopping four-hour wait before my plane departed.

By the time I made it back to Norway yesterday, I was exhausted, but I never did take a nap. I just went through the rest of my day and went to bed at the normal time. I slept in this morning, but I knew I didn’t have to be anywhere today. Overall, it was an awesome trip, but the traveling still gets me pretty wound up.