Introducing: the Black Lung! Part one: London Calling

Unless otherwise noted, all photo credits go to Niki Erickson, an awesome photographer, a fantastic friend, and a really top notch traveling companion. Thanks, Niki!

Hey all! As you know, I recently had the trip of a lifetime in the UK and Ireland with my friend Niki. It was so awesome and we did so many cool things that it will probably take a few posts to get it all up.

First, an explanation of the title. Everyone in the UK smokes. Seriously. You think it's a problem here until you go there and realize that it's an epidemic overseas. So Niki and I were talking about how gross it was, one thing led to another, and suddenly I had a new superhero alter ego: The Black Lung! Basically, the Black Lung's mission in life is to stop people from smoking. She has a whip, and she travels around whipping people's cigarettes out of their hands. Then she says something obnoxious like, "Saved your life!" or "I'm doing this for you!" or "Someday you'll thank me!" Then she speeds away. I suspect that she has super speed. Anyway, we spent our entire time in Europe whipping people's cigarettes out of the hands. We got pretty good at it. And really, someday they'll thank us.

The Black Lung, ready to unleash herself on the unsuspecting British public, Superman style. Also, I LOVE these phone boxes.

OK, so the start of our vacation wasn't great. We had the red-eye flight from DC to London, and of course it was delayed. I'm not sure what time we actually left, because I fell asleep as soon as we got on the plane, but I think it was at least 2 hours after our scheduled departure time of 9:50 PM. I had never flown red-eye before, and I really hope to never do it again either. It was pretty terrible. I actually slept a lot (maybe 6 or 7 hours), but not a great, relaxing sleep, and I was supremely uncomfortable. Plus you feel gross. I don't think Niki slept at all. So when we got to London on Saturday around noon, we were both feeling a little worse for the wear. Plus, the extreme lateness of our flight made us miss our time at the Harry Potter Studio Tour! Seriously terrible.

After some adventures with public transportation (favorite line of the Underground is Bakerloo, because I like the way it sounds when the announcer is talking) and some walking the wrong way, we finally found our hotel. We stayed at the Victor Hotel, which is near Victoria Station in a pretty nice part of London. That means it was expensive and our room was tiny. And it was on the 4th floor of a building with no elevators. I thought we were going to die when we were carrying our suitcases up those stairs, especially since "near Victoria Station" meant about a 15 minute walk, plus the time we were going the wrong way and the jet lag/lack of sleep.

On the bright side, when we got to our hotel, we called the Harry Potter people and they kindly let us reschedule our tickets for Monday without charging us a thing, so instead of rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off, we were able to shower and nap for a couple of hours. Then we headed down to the Tower of London area so that we could eat some food and go on a Jack the Ripper tour.

Here's something you should know about the UK-their restaurants are different from ours. It was kind of stressful. I really wanted the people to tell us where to sit when we came in, and to come to our table and give us our bill when we were done. But they didn't. Mostly you have to seat yourself and then when you're done go up to the bar to pay. This is what we figured out anyway. We did have a few good restaurant experiences, especially at a really delicious Lebanese restaurant in London, where we had great service, but mostly we weren't giving out tips, if you know what I mean. (We really were, because we are lovely, generous people, but I'm not sure everyone deserved one).

Our Jack the Ripper tour was pretty cool. It was really interesting and kinda disturbing. We walked to the different murder sights and they told us about the victims and the suspects. And it was our first experience with UK weather. It kept raining and being super windy and cold. After that, I took my raincoat with me everywhere. We were also amazed by how few people were out and about on the streets. At least where the tour was, it was really quiet. It was pretty creepy.

 

Random sign we saw in London. Magnify so you too can wonder why it says "Infants and Cookery" over that door.

 

After our tour, we went back to our hotel and slept the sleep of the just. We were really, really tired. We also discovered something that would plague us for the rest of our journey-the sun rises crazy early that far north. After waking up in a panic at about 5:30 Sunday morning, we learned to close the curtains of our room.

The next day was Sunday, so we went to Church at the Hyde Park ward. Apparently every other tourist in London was there too, because it took at least half an hour for them to pass the sacrament. Niki and I were both still so tired that it was very hard for us to sit and ponder that whole time without nodding off. But we mostly did it. It was a little disappointing though, because a bunch of the people were American. Whither all the British Church members??? Honestly though, after our church adventures of the next two weeks (spoiler alert!), I'm just glad that we were able to easily find the chapel. Good job with that, London.

After church we went to Buckingham Palace and watched the Changing of the Guard. Pretty cool, although there were a million people, and it was really hard to actually see anything. But we could hear the band, so that was nice. At one point, they were literally playing the theme song from Pirates of the Caribbean. Very weird. Also, I'm not sure how long the actual changing of the guard lasts, but it's basically forever. We were there for at least 45 minutes, and they were still going. In other news, why do they wear those funny hats? I understand that it's traditional now, but how on earth that ever get started?

I may have looked silly, but I was prepared for all weather eventualities.

Niki could see the whole thing much better than I could because of her superior height. Curse my averageness!

 

For the rest of Sunday afternoon, we traveled around London looking at cool stuff. We took our pictures in the ubiquitous (and fantastic) red phone booths. We went to Westminster Abbey and walked past Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and the London Eye. We crossed the Thames twice, including on the Tower Bridge, which is really cool. The one thing we didn't get to do was go through the Tower of London. We just didn't have time. Next time, though.

 Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, the Thames and me! Look how happy I am!

 

Not actually falling down, although I was pretty tired. (Awesome drum sound indicating that I just made a joke. Yay me.)

No, we did not ride on the London Eye. Honestly, does this look like something that I would like? High and spinny?

 

Sunday night we went to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. We came to be really grateful for the maps all over London (and also bitter against them) because we totally got lost while trying to find the theater. On all the maps, there are two things listed: The Globe and Shakespeare's Globe. They're not the same, and they're not in the same place. We think that the Globe must be the original sight of the theater, but we're not sure because we never made it there. But in any case, the path to Shakespeare's Globe is confusing and not well marked. I don't think it's even on an actual street that you can drive on. Only open to foot traffic as far as I could tell. It's on the banks of the Thames, and it's really beautiful. And super authentic, which is impressive. There are no chairs on the main level of the theater. If you have tickets for that area, you just stand up the whole time. I think I would have passed out. As it was, we had seats in the Middle Gallery on really uncomfortable benches. Still better than standing up all night.

Huzzah and well met, Shakespeare's Globe!

The play we saw was The Tempest. It's actually a really weird play, but they did a great job, and we enjoyed it a lot. I was especially excited because the part of the spirit Ariel was played by Merlin from Merlin!!! That's right, Colin Morgan and I were totally in the same space for almost 3 hours. Pretty great stuff.

We did it!

 

The next morning we finally got to go to the Harry Potter Studio Tour. We were really glad, because it's awesome! It was really cool seeing the actual sets and props. My favorite part (besides the Butterbeer, which is yum) was the outdoor sets, like 4 Privet Drive and the Hogwarts Bridge and the Knight Bus. They also had the giant chess pieces there. We also loved Diagon Alley. So cool. I can't believe I actually stood outside Weasley's Wizard Wheezes! At the very end of the tour, there's a room filled with thousands of wand boxes with the names of every person who ever worked on any of the HP films. Sitting in the room is an old guy who literally knows who everyone is and what they all did in the films. So impressive. We also saw two sets of LDS missionaries there for their P Day, elders and sisters. They seemed to be having a great time, and who can blame them?

 Mmmm...Butterbeer...

 Much like Harry, I was uncomfortable riding in the sidecar of the flying motorcycle.

 Hogwarts! Movie magic is pretty astonishing. It looks much bigger on film.

 

Uh oh. It's the Mormons! Quick, pretend like we're not home!

 

 Just being crushed by the magical patriarchy. You know, the usual.

 Potions class! Although considering my non-success with Chemistry in Muggle school, I'm not super sanguine about my chances here.

 

Oh Weasley twins, I do love you. But I will not be buying any Puking Pastilles, thank you very much.

The wand room. I'm doing a terrible Vanna White impression here, but one row to the right and three boxes up from my hand is totally Rupert Grint's wand box! Seriously, why can't I point correctly?

Ahhhh! I'm no good at chess!

After that, we left London on a train to Manchester. We were both really excited to leave the giant city behind (even though we'd gotten really good at riding/navigating the tube), but Manchester is where our adventure really started, because Manchester is where we rented a car.

To Be Continued...