Great Britain, part 2: Westminster

Once Jim's conference was done we checked out of the amazing hotel and headed up to London. Every time we got on a train we remarked that our kids would love to be there with us... but they weren't old enough to deal with all the walking we would be doing. Sorry, kids, maybe next time!

Anyway, we got into London that afternoon and went to our hotel -we had booked it through a travel agent, and prepaid, so we didn't expect any trouble. Oh well, things don't always turn out so easy, do they? Somewhere along the line a travel agent stopped using our name to book the room, and used a generic name ("Smith"). Eventually they figured things out and sent us to our room... We went through the maze (this was an old georgian? rowhouse turned into a hotel - fire doors everywhere, back stairs, front stairs, etc.) and opened room 8. How depresisng! It looked like they had built four walls around a double bed and called it a room! I almost cried... until we noticed that there was someone else's stuff in there. Jim went to check it out, and found that we were supposed to be in room 18, not room 8. A desk clerk error, quickly repaired, and we found ourselves in a much larger room (although not as large - or as nice - as our room in Brighton). The view outside our window? A bunch of mattresses covered in plastic, and the wall of the house next door. Lovely.
We did a little walking around that afternoon, mostly to find a map of London and dinner for that night. We ended up buying most of our dinners at the local grocery store - cheaper than eating out, and still getting to try cultural foods (we really enjoyed the sausage rolls!). In the evening we looked over the map, watched for the local weather forcast, and decided what we wanted to see the next day.
Thursday was supposed to be gorgeous, and it was. Sunshine and 70's, perfect for being out and about. We headed out after breakfast on our walk to Westminster Abbey. Surprisingly it didn't take long - it seems further on the map... We paid our fee and went in to find an amazing church. The architecture changes your attitude and demeanor. It is so overwhelming - so large, so intricate, so beautiful! You could see how it put forth the idea of the glory of God. Of course, it put forth the glory of man, too, with all the big memorials and graves. They were interesting, too, though, seeing how much history is in that one place. (Funny thing - Jim didn't know that the graves were inside the church. He imagined it like most churches - with the graveyard outside.) In our country it is hard to find old places that are kept up so well. It was hard to comprehend how old this really was! Most of what is there now was built in the 1200's! However, there were monks at that spot in the 900's. While we walked around trying to digest that thought, Jim added on the thought of places with even older buildings - like Rome, Greece and Egypt. Imagine!
Jim's favorite grave in the church? The Plumber's grave, in one of the cloisters. Just think, serve your church well, and you might get to be walked on for centuries. (Oddly enough, someone else found this grave to be amusing, too, and took a picture. I don't know the rest of the content of the site...)
Another interesting thought - they have a small gift shop and snack shop in one of the cloisters... right on top of some of the graves. Important people??? Not anymore!