A Day For The History Books

Once upon a time there was a common country girl named Kate.  But far away in a castle in London, there lived a handsome royal Prince named William.  All the girls in all the land wished and prayed that they could become William's Princess.  Fate brought country girl Kate and the handsome Prince together.  They fell in love and nine years later, on April 29, 2011, the Prince made Kate his Princess while billions watched.  And they lived happily ever after.

The End

I guess it's not the end.  It's actually more like the beginning.  It's a fairy tale story that touches the heartstrings of any girl who has ever watched Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Cinderella, or The Little Mermaid.  We've all done it.  Hoped and dreamed that our Prince Charming would one day find us and sweep us off our feet.  And some of us, like me, were even able to find him.

As I watched the Royal Wedding of William Prince of Wales and Kate Middleton yesterday, I couldn't help but feel like I was witnessing one of the most historical moments of my lifetime so far.  When I think back to where I was during some big moments in history during my lifetime, only a handful come to mind.

1. The day O.J. Simpson was pronounced not guilty of murder.  I know this seems strange, but it WAS a big deal.  I hardly understood what was going on, but I remember being in my fourth grade teacher Mr. McCall's classroom.  Lots of the teachers had the news on their television and were extremely upset and surprised about the final verdict.
2. September 11, 2001.  I doubt anyone in the world, but especially anyone living in the United States will ever forget this day.  I found out right after I got to Stockdale High School that morning by friends in front of my locker.  It was scary and there was a lot of uncertainty about what would happen after that day.
3. The day Barack Obama became President of the United States of America.  I may not have voted for him and I may not agree with all of his policys and actions as President, but no one can deny that it was a big day in the history books when Obama became the first African American President of the USA.

And now, I will always remember that I was living in Newcastle upon Tyne, England when Kate Middleton became The Duchess of Cambrige by marrying Prince William of Wales in what was the most watched wedding in the world's history.

As fun as it might have been to go down to London to be part of the chaos that was the Royal Wedding, I quite enjoyed just watching it live from the comfort of my flat with all of my fellow SGU SO's and their children.  It was especially fun since I was just in London in March with my siblings, and I not only recognize the famous places passed on the Royal Route from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, but I have walked along almost exactly the same route.

I invited all of the SO's over to my flat for a Royal Wedding Tea Party complete with tea, scones, cakes, and finger sandwhiches.  It was a lot of fun "oohing" and "ahhing" over Kate's absolutely stunning wedding gown.  Which, by the way, looks surpisingly similar to my Mom's wedding gown worn almost 27 years ago.  Apparently, Mama's got good taste.


Mama may not be a Royal, but she sure looked like a Princess on her wedding day.

My contribution to the tea party was a homemade Union Jack cake.  Although, I felt a little unpatriotic making a red, white, and blue cake that wasn't an American flag.  But, it turned out perfect and I am constantly surprised at my ever increasing abilites in the kitchen.

That's "made from scratch" whipped frosting too!

I did a little decorating for the party, because honestly, how could you not when all the stores are full of wedding paraphernalia.

It was a really fun day with the girls.  I am sure that we will all remember where we were the day the Prince and Kate were married.  It's a day that will be put in the history books....well at least the UK history books!

One big group!!

Here Comes The Sun

"Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right"

-Beatles, "Here Comes the Sun," Abbey Road

It definitely has been the longest, coldest, and loneliest winter I have ever experienced in my lifetime this past year living in the UK and having Josh in medical school.  But on Monday, March 21, 2011, the sun was shining brightly on the Fairman sibs in London.  And as my Mom tells me I used to say when I was 2 years old, "It was a boootiful day," and everything was even better than alright.

After seeing both the Tower Bridge and the London Bridge, we decided to make our way to one of the less visited but equally as well known tourist spots.  Abbey Road.  We took the metro to St. John's Wood which is just a little outside of the major part of the city.  From there, we walked down the street to Abbey Road and the famous crosswalk.  Suprisingly, there were only a handful of people at the same spot.  For as many tourists as there are in London on any given day, I expected there to be more people there.  I mean gosh, I know there are about a bazillion Beatles fans out there. 

We got a few pictures of the street sign.  As well as the crosswalk by itself.  Actually, in the UK a crosswalk is called a "Zebra Crossing" because of the alternating white and black lines.  I quite like that name.  So yes, we were at the Beatles Abbey Road Zebra Crossing. 

The street sign.

The Abbey Road zebra crossing.

 Of course, we had to try and recreate the Beatles Abbey Road picture from their album cover.  Here is what it originally looked like.

Abbey Road Album Cover

Can I just say that recreating this picture is NOT as easy as it looks.  First of all, there is LOTS of traffic at this little intersection.  And in the UK, there really is no rule that says pedestrians have the right of way.  If you are caught in the street while a car is coming, you are really risking your life.  Cause chances are, they don't plan on stopping.  On top of that, the random person we asked to photograph us while walking across was not brave enough to step out onto the street with us, so the angle at which it is taken at is a bit off of the picture.  After a couple of tries, this is the best we could come up with.

George, Paul, Ringo, John

We actually had a really fun time at Abbey Road and even though it was just a short time that we were actually there, it was extremely memorable.  There is even a Beatles Coffee Shop right outside of the tube station where we stocked up on Beatles memorabilia.

 After getting our Beatles fix, we headed to Picadilly Circus and Oxford Circus for some shopping!  Bert's favorite. :)  He was actually a really good sport through it all.  Picadilly Square reminds me a lot of Times Square, not that I've actually been there, but from the pictures they seem similar.  We walked along Regent Street going in and out of the shops.  We made a few purchases here and there, nothing to extravagant.  If I had unlimited funds, I could have spent a lot of time in this area.  They had just about every shopping store you can imagine.



Anna, Rachel, & Bert at Picadilly Circus.

 Our last stop in London was Hyde Park, which honestly, I think is a little overrated.  Maybe it's because we had been walking all day long and my feet were tired. Maybe it's because I woke up and tweaked my back and it was having spasms off and on all day.  Maybe it's because the park is massive and we walked across the entire thing lengthwise, which took an hour, to get to the "Princess Diana Memorial" only to find out that it was a children's playground dedicated to her...and it was closed.  Whatever the reason, I thought that St. James Park was MUCH nicer and could have done without Hyde Park...no matter how famous it is.  I didn't even take any pictures of it because I was disliking it so much at the time.

We ended our stay in London with dinner at The Shakespeare Pub.  The food was just okay, but the company was great.  Bert, Rachel, Anna, and I had such a fun time there and I can't wait to go back with my husband. Hint Hint.  (Have you noticed a trend here?) I really want to go back.  :)

  

London Bridge is falling down

Well okay, not really anymore.  But it was falling down some 50 or so years ago.  The previous London Bridge is currently standing in Lake Havasu, Arizona, which I've been to a couple of times.  It was sold to a man in the United States in 1968 for a little over 2 million dollars and rebuilt in Havasu by 1971.  The current London Bridge opened in 1973.  So to clarify, there is a London Bridge in London and a London Bridge in Havasu, and I've now been to both.  If you're confused...Wikipedia it!

Now that we're all up to date on our London Bridge history, I'll get to the really fun stuff that the Fairman siblings did in London on day number two.  We got up fairly early on Monday morning and enjoyed a large buffet style breakfast at the hotel.  We discussed our game plan for the day and decided our first stop would be Tower Bridge. 

To me, Tower Bridge looks like a toy bridge.  Don't get me wrong, the bridge is huge, massive in fact.  You can't really miss it.  But it's painted light blue, white, and red and to me it looks a little out of place in the very historic and old city of London.  Plus, the London Bridge, which everyone has heard of, can be seen from Tower Bridge and it is a little underwhelming in comparison. 

After looking at the bridge from a distance, we decided to do the Tower Bridge Experience and go up in the two towers for a tour.  The tour was surprisingly interesting.  None of us are at all like our Dad in that we don't spend hour upon hour looking and reading all of the different signs and boards in a museum.  For example, he spent 7 HOURS at the British National Museum when my Mom and him were here in November.  7 HOURS!!!  Poor Mama.

It takes a lot to hold our attention, but they had a display of all of the world's most famous bridges which included both the Brooklyn Bridge and San Francisco Bridge among many others.  There were about 20-25 bridges in total.  Wouldn't it be cool to visit them all?!?  The bridge lifts about 1000 times a year for boats to go under.  I wish we could have seen that, but unfortunately there was no lifting happening last Monday.  Maybe when I go again with the hubby (hint hint) we can watch the bridge lift. :)  The tour also took you down under one of the towers to the steam room to show you the mechanics of how it lifts.  Pretty cool.

At the top of Tower Bridge

Anna has this issue with keeping her eyes open during pictures.

By the time we got to the top of the Tower Bridge, the sun was beginning to come out and it turned into the most beautiful London day.  The views were spectacular.

Views from the Tower Bridge

The Gherkin.  One of London's skyscrapers.

Anna gets left out of this because she can't keep her eyes open.

  Next we headed down to the steam room under one of the towers to check out all the equipment used to lift the bridge.  There was also a display of different stunts that have been done on the bridge.  For instance, one man has jumped it on his motorcycle while another jumped a bus.  Pretty crazy stuff.

And as if we hadn't taken enough pictures of the Tower Bridge, when we finally got down to the other side of the River Thames, we took a few more.

There was also a great view of the Tower of London which is Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress built in 1078 by William the Conqueror.  It has been used as both a prison and a place of residence and in earlier years, controlling it meant controlling the country.  We didn't pay to go in, but if I get to go back with Josh, going there will be on my list of things to do.

Tower of London

We then walked down the river to the London Bridge.  As I said earlier, it really isn't nearly as impressive as the Tower Bridge, but at one point, it was the only bridge crossing over the River Thames until 1750.  It is still cool to say we've been there none the less.

Our second day in London had started out strong with two awesome bridges before lunch time.  Next up is the second half of our day with some other famous sites.  Check back soon for more London fun!

 

MIND THE GAP

Last Sunday Bert, Rachel, Anna, and I took the train to London.  I had a few concerns about London prior to going.  Rumors claimed that the people in London can be rude, cold, and extremely unhelpful but I have to say that those in doubt of the amicableness of Londoners were proved wrong.  From Sunday to Tuesday we were greeted with nothing but kindness from the people of London.
 
Yes, it was overcrowded and noisy. 
Yes,  there are about a million taxis and 10 million tourists. 
Yes, everyone is constantly in a hurry.
 
But we had a fantastic time and I only wish we could have stayed longer.  London is such a huge city and there are so many amazing things to see.  You could spend a week there and not see and do everything.  Maybe I can convince Josh to go back sometime before we leave in May...hint hint. :)

We arrived in London midday on Sunday and our first order of business was getting out of Kings Cross train station and getting checked into our hotel.  We had to get on the "tube" aka the underground train with our luggage in tow (a challenge in and of itself).

 The underground map looks like a rainbow spiderweb of lines, all darting off in different directions with various stops along the way.  Of course, the "line" that led straight to our hotel was closed for the duration of the weekend which meant that we had to find an alternative route to our hotel.  By the time we arrived at Victoria Sation, we felt we had mastered the tube.  We just had to make sure to "MIND THE GAP" while getting off the underground train. 

"The Gap" is the space between the train and the cement.  They must have had problems with this in the past, because they say it over the loudspeaker on the train EVERYTIME it stops (which is about every 2 minutes) as well as have it written everywhere!

As soon as we had checked into our hotel, we were anxious to start exploring London.  Our first stop was Buckingham Palace which was right up the street from our hotel.  THE PLACE IS HUGE!  Why didn't I marry a Prince of England again??  Just Kidding Hubby!  I wouldn't want to live in the UK permanently anyway. :)  They had guards outside and everything.  Does anyone ACTUALLY live there?  I'm interested to know.  I'm not sure I would like thousands of people peeking into my gate everyday.

Buckingham Palace

After seeing the Queen's Royal Palace, we took a stroll through nearby St. James Park.  It is very beautiful, with lots of flowers, a small lake, and more wildlife than you would expect in the middle of a large industrial city.  It reminded me a lot of St. Stephens Green in Dublin, only better.

St. James Park (that's the London Eye in the background)

Some of the funny looking ducks.

Fields of Daffodils

Next we stumbled upon Big Ben.  I guess stumbled probably isn't the right word since it's kind of hard to stumble upon something so massive and magnificant.  The clock just shoots into the sky and it's golden orange color is absolutely impossible to take your eyes off of.  I took so many pictures of Big Ben, I just couldn't get enough of it.  I've been to Paris, and the Effiel Tower is pretty impressive, but Old Ben just might take the cake. 

Notice the red double decker bus!

Then we walked down a little way to see the houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey where Kate Middleton and Prince William are marrying in April and where Princess Diana's funeral took place.

Houses of Parliament

Westminster Abbey

While we were near the Houses of Parliament, we got our first look at the River Thames and the Westminster Bridge.  It had a great view of the London Eye.

We made the decision that we HAD to go on the London Eye.  So we crossed over the Westminster Bridge and proceeded to the ticket line.  The price of the tickets is a little expensive, but I think that it was worth it.  Up on the wheel, you felt like you could see all of London.  It was an incredible view.

Bert, Me, Rach, & Anna on the London Eye.

View from the top!

Once we got off the London Eye, it was getting dark. And let me tell ya, London in the dark is fabulous!  I wish that I had a camera that could capture exactly what it looked like at night, but alas, my point and shoot just doesn't do it justice.  Oh well, here are some pictures anyway.

We ended the night with margaritas at a Mexican restaurant. YES, I said Mexican food.  I. Was. Thrilled.  I haven't had mexican food out in sooo long.  Makes me crave Rubios, Baja Fresh, Chipotle, Mauricios, and Taco Bell even more than I did before!

The first day in London was jam packed, but oh so fun. Stay tuned for London Day 2 post!!