Okay, so I need to catch up. On Thursday we went to Westminster Abbey and on the way saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. I don’t mean to undermine these amazing icons of history…but I really expected Big Ben to be bigger.
Onto Westminster Abbey…so, this is an amazing work of architecture. Who can sit down one day and think, “I am going to build this amazing building with all of these intricate details.”? And then we move on to the inside. You had a self tour with these phone/walkie talkies. When you got to a specific area, there was a sign that told you what number to put into the phone thingy. Then there was a narrative on the specific area in which you were. Basically, we were walking all over the many, many kinds and queens who are buried there. There were some intricate, golden, memorials erected in honor of some of the royalty buried there. Really amazing “death masks” depicting these incredibly pious dead people with their eyes closed and their hands folded in prayer. There was a lot of Mary and baby Jesus. It was such a monument to Man. Each monument was designed to surpass the royalty that followed; such a memorial to the people…so very little God. Such time and effort dedicated to building and crafting the things that moth and rust destroy…
Should I even get into the “worship service” that happens everyday? It’s in the middle of the nave and during which, tourists are free to wander around. We were very surprised to see that it was led by a woman.
Some thoughts on London:
- It is very, very clean. Even though you can’t find a trash can if your life depended on it; it is really clean. Even the subway.
- It was very cold.
- You think you will be able to understand the people; but sometimes you won’t.
- The bathtub in our room was like a coffin; long but very narrow.
- The cars are very small and British looking.
- There are many “grocery” stores on all the streets.
- You can’t sit at the bar at the pubs…you have to grab a table.
- Not so much fashion going on.
- The food was better than we anticipated…we ate Thai and street food…but of course we had to have fish and chips in a pub.
