April 21: London with Bryce

I left work just after 4 PM Friday, April 20 to finish packing and drop off my laptop bag before meeting Bryce in London that evening for our last weekend together. We splurged a bit and stayed at the newest Club Quarters – London Trafalger Square. Where most CQ can offer the discounted rate because you sacrifice space, this new location was sparkling and spacious, but still offered much better rates than any other large name-brand chain, like Marriott. And we were practically on top of Trafalger Square right in the middle of Northumberland Ave.

That night, we grabbed dinner at a nearby pub so Bryce could experience British pub food; his bangers and mash was fantastic. We then made our way around the corner from Trafalger Square and down Jermyn Street to meet Adrian and Travis, my friends from high school, at a pub called The Red Lion. We had a great time catching up and chatting until the pub closed at 11 PM, a routine I’m getting used to, and we walked back to the hotel. It’s actually kind of nice being forced to ‘call it a night’ before midnight.

Saturday we got up, ate the large continental breakfast included in our room rate, and then walked it off down The Strand and Fleet Street to St. Paul’s. I, of course, showed Bryce the Accenture office on Old Bailey just around the corner first.

At St. Paul’s Bryce paid our incredible ₤9.50 entrance fee (EACH!) and, still reeling, I paid the extra ₤3 (EACH) for a 90 minute guided tour of the cathedral for us. Yes, that’s $50 for two people to tour St. Paul’s Cathedral. I will never say that Chicago is expensive again. Adding on the tour made it really worth it, though. Not only did we learn a great deal more than we would have on our own, we were also the only people there for the 11:30 AM tour so we got a private session with the guide until two more joined us halfway through. St. Paul’s Cathedral was designed by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of 1666 leveled the church that had stood in its place before. We were shown several areas that were off-limits to the public, such as the southwest staircase that circles around the inner tower where each step relies on that beneath it for support, creating an incredible counter-balance flight of stairs circling for more than two storeys.

After the tour of the cathedral and the crypt, we mustered our strength to climb the 400+ stairs to the top of the cathedral. We took a breather in the whispering room, where you can talk to each other across dozens of yards if you’re both up close to the rounded wall of the dome. Bryce and I tested it out with him on the opposite side of the dome from me. I looked over at him in shock when I clearly heard him speaking by pressing my ear close to the wall.

Hundreds of stairs later, we were finally at another stopping point, where we could walk all the way around the lower part of the dome and get a very good view of London. This was not enough, however, and we continued another 172 steps to the very top of the dome and got a fantastic panorama view of London.

Once again exhausted from going up and then down so many stairs, it was definitely time to find a lunch spot. We ate on a patio overlooking the river and St. Paul’s very close to the Tate Modern and then walked along the river walk to the London Eye where we met John Rolston, in town for work for the week, and took the tour. Each ticket was ₤14.50 with no discount or two-for-one offers for my train ticket or for John’s day Travel Card. To reiterate some of my earlier sentiments: London is absolutely unaffordable. And if the exchange rate continues to spiral downwards, the US is likely to become the next India …

Back to my story. We went up in the eye and got another incredible view of the city falling and then rising beneath us as we went around in our capsule on the great wheel. It was certainly a theme of Bryce’s and my Euro-trip to experience bird’s eye views of the cities we visited: top of Notre Dame, top of the Arc de Triomphe, top of the Musée d’Orsay, hilltop of Sacré Coeur, top of St. Paul’s, and the London Eye.

We then changed and ate a quick dinner before walking to the Adelphi Theatre where we had tickets to see ‘Evita’. Though we sat as far back as you can get (I booked us the cheapest seats available through seetickets.com), we still really enjoyed the show. The music was beautiful; all day Sunday I had ‘So what happens now?’ and ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ stuck in my head.

Bryce’s flight back to Amsterdam where he was catching his flight back home was at 7:30 AM out of Heathrow, so we had to say our good-byes at 5:30 AM when he left the hotel. 4 months apart, then 7 intense days spent together in 3 different cities in Europe, and now we’re back to a long-distance, cross-Atlantic relationship. Hopefully the remaining two months of my assignment here will be broken up by another visit by him, but if not, it will not be until my cousin’s wedding the weekend of June 22 when I fly back for good until we see each other again.

I spent the rest of my sad Sunday with Penny and Anna from the Paddywagon tour sitting out in Hyde Park along with hundreds of others who came out for the nice weather before heading back to Woking in the evening. It’s been a fast-paced week and a half.