Day Two - Hampton Court, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, & Spamalot!

We actually slept in until 9:30 this morning, and still - even with going to sleep at about 8:00 the night before - we were dragging ourselves out of bed. The time difference is a killer, but worth the trouble :)

We took a train out to Hampton Court - home of Henry VIII and his six wives (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived - just in case you were wondering!) It was different than I imagined it, which made it even more fascinating. However, I couldn't help but think of what a creep of a man lived there: someone who was so selfish that he tore apart a nation, eventually causing 1000's of deaths - Ireland didn't stop fighting the war Henry started until just 5 years ago, mind you - left young children without mothers (or a father!) and all so he could have his own way in EVERYTHING. He was a total bum. I can think of so many other words to describe him, but my kids read this blog :)

To me, there was a lingering feeling of . . . not necessarily evil, but wrongdoing and sadness. The town of Hampton was beautiful though - let's not blame the town for the faults of its most famous resident.

Here is Hampton Court Palace below - then next is a shot of a very small portion of the gardens:

By the time we were back in London, it was almost 5 PM. We stepped out of the underground station (subway) and our breath was totally taken away! Right in front of us was Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Okay, I've seen these landmarks on TV and in photos hundreds and hundreds of times, and wasn't even particularly excited to see them, but boy was I wrong about their magnificence. I had forgotten that the Houses of Parliament used to be a palace, and what an intricate one it was! The architecture is really like nothing I've ever seen before. Big Ben (which is actually the bell, not the tower itself, we learned) is just one of its amazing features.

The top picture is our immediate view when we stepped out of the underground station. It was such a "Reality check: YOU'RE IN LONDON!" moment :) The next few are pics of the Houses of Parliament:

Then just next door was Westminster Abbey, which was the reason we had gotten off at that tube station (the underground). It was also stunning . . . and quite different than any other cathedral I've visited.

We were too late to tour inside, so we took a bunch of photos of the outside, and came back a few days later to take a look inside. I'll just tell you about the inside now, instead of later. First off, there is hardly any room at all to walk around because of all the tombs. There is a very small amount of space for chairs, and it made me wonder where they packed in all those people for Princess Diana's funeral. The tombs, however, were the most fascinating part anyway. I never thought I'd say that - haha ("Oh, I LOVED the stone boxes that held all the dead bodies!") It's a unique place to say the least, and I really, really recommend seeing it one day. It's just hard to describe in words! Most of these places don't let you take pictures, so I'll insert some from online.

The first is a close up of Queen Mary's tomb (not a big fan of hers, by the way - I'll explain why in my post about visiting Oxford), and the second is the full monument that houses both Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Mary's tombs. In life, I can only guess what these two would've thought of this arrangement! They didn't have the closest of relationships as sisters - again, thanks to their rotten shared father, Henry VIII.

Anyway, there are at least a hundred tombs like this - all packed together - in the main chapel of Westminster Abbey. You'd think it was spooky, but it's really kinda cool. I can't say I'd want to attend church there, though . . . it doesn't feel like a place of worship, really. At all.

That night we ate at a place I found in the Frommer's guide to London: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. The building was originally built in the 1200's, then it was nearly destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 (along with just about everything in London). It was rebuilt in 1667 and now houses this really weird pub. Well, at least we thought it was weird. One of the funny experiences we had there went something like this:

As a sidedish to my prime rib, there was something I'd heard of but never seen before - Yorkshire pudding. So I asked the watier: What exactly is Yorkshire pudding? (thinking: does it have goat guts in it? string beans? what?)

Waiter (with stunned stare): Well, it's Yorkshire pudding. Like what you'd call a "popover" in the U.S.

Me: Okay, um, thanks. (thinking - I've also heard of a "popover" but it's nothing we commonly eat in the US, right?)

It turns out that Yorkshire pudding is a totally tasteless puffy pastry sort of thing. We couldn't figure out what would link it to anything even romotely close to a turnover, or whatever the guy was thinking that we eat here. Then we later asked what Trecle pudding was and got the same "You stupid Americans" stare. The waiter said, "Well, it's just what it says it is: TRECLE pudding." Um, yeah, duh! Stupid us, huh? This was one of only two times in Europe that we were treated rudely at all; otherwise, everyone was more than friendly! We totally loved the people in both countries we visited.

The pubs we saw in London weren't like what American bars are. They are sort of more like . . . well, Chilli's, but with a lot more people standing around and blocking your way from sitting down and eating :) Also, I expected a lot of smoke in these places, but we never once encountered smoking in buildings, so it must be banned just like it is in most US states. It was the same way in France, which was great!

Anyway, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is one of the oldest pubs in London. The coolest part about it was that Charles Dickens used to eat there, so they have an original copy of The Tale of Two Cities displayed. I liked that a lot better than I did my undercooked meat and my over-roasted potatoes.

Here you see The Man (the myth . . . the legend . . . ) at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

After dinner we went back to our hotel but found we weren't as tired as we thought we'd be, so we actually went out again and saw Spamalot! The Man had seen it in New York, and really liked it even the second time around. It's super funny, so if you like the show "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" you should see it. If you don't like that movie, well . . . you better skip this one and see Wicked instead, haha.