Day Five: Loving London, Les Mis, and Leicester Square

 

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It's a diet coke and combos kind of night here in London. I expected tonight's blog to be a challenging one to write long before we left Logan Airport five days ago. I knew we would be arriving back to the hotel later than usual because of seeing Les Misérables and because there would be so much to discuss from the day too.

We started pretty early today. 7:30 breakfast call and an 8am departure. A few of the kids decided to not double set their alarm clocks and they almost made us late...and with London traffic, that is a definite no-no. That said, we hit the road into town on time and began the longest day of our tour so far.

Today, we had our third blue badge guide of the tour. Nikki hopped onto the bus for a three hour bus stop. Just like her colleagues, she knows so much information about the places that we were seeing that I could never remember all of the details. I will try to catch everyone up on the major points though.

We were able to hop off the bus to see the Albert Memorial up close and in person

Nikki also took us off of the bus to explore Buckingham Palace. 

Queen Victoria is sitting on her throne overlooking her dominion.

Palace guards guarding palaces

The bus tour that Nikki led was really good. Exceptionally good, actually. She was very aware that the group might be tired and scheduled several hop-on hop-off type of stops. The first, as mentioned above, was at the Albert Memorial. She explained who he was to our group of American youth and that his one true love, Victoria mourned his loss for the rest of her life. She made an effort to teach important milestones in British history to the kids, but she also added a flare of humor and sarcasm that flew through the group with ease. It wasn't long to hear the entire bus (including Martin, our driver) laughing at her jokes. 

At Buckingham Palace, she explained that the flag atop the palace used to indicate whether the King, or Queen, was in residence, but after the passing of Princess Diana, and the Queen not being home at the time, the royal tradition changed. Now, the flag can fly all of the time, but there are other protocols to determine if the King is there. 

Hey look kids, Its Big Ben...

...and the Parliament Building.

On the bus, we were able to see a bunch of other important sites too. I am highlighting a few of the more notable ones.

10 Downey St. Down this street lives the Prime Minister of England!

The Household Calvary

St. Paul's Cathedral was the location of our last hop-on, hop-off with Nikki. We had a few minutes to grab a coffee, use the loo, or take some photos. I quickly walked the grounds hoping to catch some nice shots of the things she had described.

Flowers outside of St. Paul's Cathedral 

This is a view from behind the Cathedral 

In this location, during WW2, a German bomb landed but didn't explode. It would have destroyed this beautiful building if it worked. 

The majestic view of this building is awe inspiring.

The Millennial Bridge is just down the way. It was featured in Harry Potter!

One of my highlights, when traveling abroad, is seeing things that put the world into perspective. Today, as we were making our way through London traffic, I saw a man pedaling a UPS truck. It was weaving in an out of city busses, taxi cabs, and construction vehicles. I makes total sense and yet, it makes no sense at all. It makes me wonder what Brown can't do!

I plated with editing features of my phone to capture this picture over the Thames

When we said goodbye to Nikki, it was bittersweet. It was the first time that I had realized that we would be leaving London pretty soon. I mentioned last night that the city hasn't really been my favorite over the years, but I really do feel like the past two trips here have been changing that. I have seen more of the real world in which people live their lives here and that has helped quite a bit. Nikki made a recommendation to Maria that we check out the Borough Market. It was kind of a last minute thing, but it was totally worth it. I will most certainly recommend it for future trips too. It is a market that you might find in American cities...local products, food carts, and tons of things to smell, eat, and drink. 

Kason and I wishing our buddy Hobbes was able to join us in London!

I love these 'people first' places. The aroma was intoxicating and the vendors are all locals. I ended up buying some coffee infused rubs and sauces for my BBQ smoker at home while quite a few kids grabbed a snack. The longest lines I saw were for Mac and Cheese and Paella. If we weren't on our way to lunch, we would have stayed much longer.

The food for our EF tour has been above average this year...so far. Today, we went to a Polish restaurant. It was part of the program because we were headed to the theater later in the evening. I enjoyed it. Most of the kids enjoyed it too. I heard from one of our students who requires a specialty meal and she said it far exceeded her expectations. 

There was a cool vibe in this restaurant. 

The meal consisted of a Polish sausage, onions, potatoes, and carrot and leek salad. The sausage was huge it was cooked perfectly. I really was surprised at how much I enjoyed the salad too. I would totally hit this place up on my own if in London.

After lunch, we headed towards Leicester Square and the Theater district. Our walk was roughly 30 minutes, but it was a nice day and we had some great views. 

We ride the Eye tomorrow!

As I sit here, almost finished with tonight's entry, I am kicking myself. I meant to take pictures of all of the pop culture statues that encircle Leicester Square, but I forgot. Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, Charlie Chaplin, to name a few, are memorialized in this popular meet-up spot. We had visited on Day Two and I knew we'd be back. My b!

We had a few hours of last minute London souvenir shopping and dinner ahead of us. Our kids split into groups and ate from all over the world. I heard one student tried a cheese covered corn dog. Another ate some Thai. A few even ate a Royal themed restaurant called, "Burger King."

I was missing home, a little bit, and decided there was only one place to eat. 

It is funny, when showing the kids my dinner spot, several of them thought that this location was related to the Saugus one. I explained that it wasn't and that the name is based on a region near Hong Kong. I am preparing, hopefully, a TikTok review, of the London location and hope it is ready during our train ride tomorrow. The quick 411 is that this was good for the price, but not the best Chinese food I ever tried. I did like the portion size and I even tried food that I knew I wouldn't like...such as Salt and Pepper Calamari and a mystery cracker that was Prawn flavored.

We gathered again and headed to the Sondheim Theater, only 300 ft from Kowloon, for our show.

I know that theater isn't for everyone, but I am glad everyone was able to attend. One of my chaperons was telling me about a conversation that had had with one of  the students. The basic premise was that this young man said he had no real interest in going to the theater, but he was happy to be going and seeing if maybe it was something he'd actually enjoy in the future. I think that is really mature and it speaks to why I believe one must travel to learn. The entirety of our experiences shape who we are, the good, the bad, and the overly dramatic! 

Les Mis is my absolute favorite play. The cast tonight did a great job. Eponine's vocals overtook the entire theater and Javert and Jean Valjean confronted each other with everyone on the edge of the seats. When poor Gavroche was shot, I heard several of our students weeping. I am sure that some of the students didn't love the show, but it would be hard to admit the cast was anything else but spectacular. 

One the walk to our transfer (Martin had timed out and couldn't pick us up tonight), I was thrilled to hear so many kids expressing their love of the show. Theater should move us if done well and it was done well tonight.

I wish I had taken more pictures of the kids today. I apologize for not having more to share. As I began writing this, I realized that we are actually in Day Six now. The clock has crossed past midnight here in London and is actually approaching 2am. We have a late wake-up call tomorrow before we visit the London Eye. The weather, if the forecast holds up, should present some sun for us as well. After that, it is off to France and mainland Europe. Half of our trip will be behind us and this time next week, our #Eurotrip24 will only be a memory. 

Mr. Lavoie, relishing the fact that he finished before 2am, but also feeling great that the kids seem to be having a wonderful time.