Wrap Up of the Trip Part I

So, I'm finally home and dealing with the aftermath of jet lag and the cold that I managed to get while I was in London, but refused to acknowledge. I do want to wrap up what the rest of the week was like, though.
St Paul's Cathedral is simply amazing. The current building was designed and built in 1666 by Christopher Wren. It's also the second largest cathedral in the world. There's St Peter's in Rome and then St Paul's. The building is breath-taking inside. When you first walk in, it's very light and peaceful, with light colored walls and simple lead glass windows. This part is how Wren designed it, and what he wanted was a certain amount of peace for reflection. As you walk down the Nave towards the Choir, the ceilings and walls are then covered in glass mosaics. The Victorians decorated that way. It is beautiful and I swear you could stare for hours and still see new details all the time. The building took a direct hit during the Blitz in 1940, and the high alter was destroyed. When it came time to rebuild, the British people put in a small chapel behind the alter for the American service men and women who died on British soil. The outside of the building, and of many other buildings in London still show signs of the damage from the Blitz. Those holes will never be filled in as a reminder to what Londoners went through. I learned during the walk about the Blitz that of the 60000 civilians who were killed during those bombings, 30000 of them were Londoners. But the spirit of the British and indeed of Londoners remained high due to Winston Churchill. He had a phrase that he used, KBO, which stood for Keep Buggering On. I love it. People just went about their daily lives, refusing to give in. Anyway, after I wandered around for hours, I asked at the information desk if there were any more tickets to that evening's preformance of Handel's Messiah. And to my great surprise, one of the women who volunteers at the Cathedral opened her bag and gave me one of her tickets. I was speechless. I thanked her, and went back to change and get ready for the concert. What I didn't realize at the time was that because she is a Friend of the Cathedral, they were different tickets from the general public ones, and meant that I had amazing seats. I think I was in the fifth row. The concert was simply fantastic. It was just beautiful, and went by so quickly. As I was leaving, I happened to see the woman who gave me the ticket, and thanked her profusly for it. An interesting fact that I learned during the Blitz walk, the Friends of the Cathedral are actually left over from WWII. Churchill decreed that the Cathedral must be protected no matter what, so a group of volunteers were gathered for a fire watch to protect the building and they did so and after the war the group became the Friends of the Cathedral.
Westminster Abbey was just as amazing. Besides being the resting place of some of Britain's most famous citizens, it's also where all the Coronations are held. The Coronation chair is directly behind the alter, and it's the same chair that has been used in every coronation except for two since the year 1300. The building is just so beautiful, but I think my favorite tomb would have to be that of the Unknown Soldier from WWI. It's right as you walk out of the Abbey, and the letters on the tomb are made from melted down weapons from that war. Here photography is strictly not allowed, and maybe because it was a house of God, but it was much more respectful to those who are resting there. I do think that I liked the Cathedral more than the Abbey, though.
I was at the Abbey on Thursday morning, and then went on the Blitz walk, which was just fantastic. I learned so much about that time; and I really wish I could remember some of the stories that the tour guide provided because they were great. The weather was pretty lousy, it was very windy and it was raining on and off. What I didn't know was that in North London, there was a tornado that touched down. There was quite a bit of damage done, and there are many families who won't be able to be home for Christmas.
Friday I went to the Tower of London, and I'll write more about that in my next post, this jet lag thing is just too much right now...