An American Student in London On: Sightseeing in London

Picture London as a 2000 year old attic. The Romans started stacking bric-a-brac there when they moved in in 43 AD, like the London Stone on Cannon Street. The Angles, Saxons, etc. piled their stuff on top, like Westminster Abbey. The Normans put in some organizers, a Tower of London here and there, and the various royal families that followed all filled in whatever space was left. Enlightenment explorers were goddarned packrats the way they collected odds and ends. Industrialization was a major renovation, but by this point all the old junk was so entrenched that it seemed better to just work around it. The Germans thought they might move in, and used the Blitz as a yard sale, but in the end, the English decided they'd just as soon stay and held on to most of their stuff. The 21st Century seems mostly interested in temporary storage, like the soon to be demolished sporting goods store that now surrounds the London Stone. Like any good old attic, London's best discovered by rolling up your sleeves and diving in, exploring. It helps to know a little about what you're getting into though. This guide is not at all comprehensive, but it's meant to offer just a little tour of London's sightseeing highlights for American students, to clear off some of the dust as it were.

A good rule of thumb to start with is when in doubt, go for the most "London" sight you can think of. Old cathedrals are nice, and Westminster Abbey shouldn't be missed, but you could honestly check out an old ornate cathedral in any town of size in Europe. Westminster has the added bonus of its star-stocked crypt, packed to the gills with very English luminaries. You can very easily imagine the denizens of Poet's Corner down at the pub, arguing over a fat and blustery Samuel Johnson, and every so often making snide comments about that café across the street where Rimbaud and Baudelaire sit and look snooty.

Despite actually being built by the French Normans and not actually being a "tower," The Tower of London probably offers the most thoroughly "London" experience in the city. Inside, you'll find the mix of conquest, romance, religion, and general historical madness that England does best, and if you go on one of the free tours guided by a famous "Beefeater" guard, you'll get a measure of English humor thrown in for good measure. While you're there, you can walk a couple hundred feet and touch London's original Roman wall. Centuries of history thrown together in one city block? So London.

Things like Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, on the other hand, are almost a total waste of time and money. The figurines are not actually all that lifelike - and admission is expensive. There's enough to see in London that you really should only pay for the best of the best, and wax figurines of mostly American celebrities? You can do better.

Buckingham Palace is an interesting case. On the one hand, it has a certain appeal as monarchy undiluted - pure regency, which is as English to the American imagination as tea and biscuits. On the other hand, your average visitor doesn't get to see much more than a large blue-gray building. If it weren't for its conspicuous placement and the garish statue across the way, it could pass quite easily for an old office building. It isn't monarchy unadulterated. It's monarchy pragmatized. Conclusion? See it, but don't daudle, and don't go out of your way. It's an easy walk from many other sites and worth a stroll if only to help you answer your family's questions when you get home, but it's not worth an extra trip. If you go between July 31 and September 30 - and only between July 31 and September 30 - you can go inside its state rooms. These actually are monarchy unadulterated, a self-contained world of casual opulence. See it, even though it means transferring about £14 from your decidedly inopulent pockets to the Queen's gold-plated coffers. The Changing of the Guard? Nice if the weather's decent, but also bizarre and incomprehensible. When I went, the Royal Marching Band actually played a 15-minute ABBA medley. Go if you're a royalty junkie, but to understand what's going on, you'll need to do some homework first.

The Houses of Parliament in Westminster Palace also offer more to see inside than out. You have to see Westminster Palace, across the street from the Abbey and featuring the most famous clock this side of Captain Hook, known popularly as "Big Ben" (which is technically not the name of the clock or tower, but the tower's bell). It's neat and easy to see. Fair enough, but once again, the real experience lies inside. To Americans, Parliament probably means wigs and "I say, sirs," but it's actually more like a very witty and important all-girls school. Sarcasm is the order of the day, as the opposition relentlessly tries to ridicule the party in power, and the party in power relentlessly tries to come up with snappy comebacks. A visit to the House or Senate in America will most likely yield a Congressman speaking to an empty room; a visit to Parliament is more likely to yield a "Know how I know you're gay" competition. The Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday mornings, when all of Parliament gets to fire away at the Prime Minister, is the best show, but also its busiest time. And yes, if you go the House of Lords, you can still see officious old guys in wigs.

If you can't make it inside Parliament, you can find some important old guys outside of it, so long as you're willing to accept them bronzed. Statues litter London, but the area around Westminster boasts the highest concentration and the most important subjects. All in all, you really shouldn't concern yourself too much with seeing things like statues. You'll tend to bump into them anyway. The same goes for monuments. Admiral Nelson's pillar in Trafalgar Square, for example, is plenty impressive and shouldn't be missed, but you aren't getting out enough if you don't wind up in Trafalgar Square for some reason completely independent of statuary. "The Monument," commemorating the Great Fire of London in 1666 is a little more out of the way; it pops out from a pretty standard city block without warning, but its better lumped in with a visit to St. Paul's - London's flagship cathedral, boasting a grand view of the skyline from its dome - than forced to stand as an attraction on its own. By and large though, London's monuments are just too numerous to really impel a broke, busy student to visit. The blue plaques, which mark houses where important people used to live, fall into the same category, common enough that you practically trip over them and not quite interesting enough to demand your attention.

Statues, monuments, and plaques are all so damn static. In London, there's plenty to see that's also something to do. For example, go to a Premier League match. Arsenal's the hot ticket right now, and therefore also the most expensive, so if you aren't a devotee of any one team, you're probably better off going to one of the lesser clubs, Fulham or West Ham maybe. Find a football expert (they're everywhere) and let them be your guide.

Or go to Shakespeare's Globe. London's theater scene is rightly celebrated as one of the world's best, and you'll be bombarded at all hours by advertisements for various big-name musicals. Tickets are easy to get, and if you go to a show on the day you can probably find half-price seats. The city appropriately has some great Shakespeare too, starring the likes of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, obviously a great option for theater fans. Shakespeare's Globe offers something a bit different though, Shakespearean plays presented in traditional Elizabethan style. The audience stands in a sort of pit in front of the stage, and actors bound on and off, interacting with spectators. If you want to see Shakespeare, particularly Shakespearean comedy, at its liveliest and most engaging, take a trip to the Globe.

Or wander around Harrod's. You can go nuts shopping in London if you want to. Whole neighborhoods in Covent Garden, on Oxford Circus, around Chelsea, offer little except swanky clothing stores. In addition, London's plethora of open air markets, covered in more detail below, offer less expensive and more eclectic options. But it's Harrod's that reigns supreme in London shopping. It's so big and it's wares are so varied, that you really should wander around for a little even if you hate shopping. They even sell fossils there, wooly mammoth tusks and all that.

Spend a weekend afternoon-into-evening-into-night in Camden Town. London's got a plethora of open air markets, all with their own personalities. Some specialize in food and produce, others in clothing. Kill a couple sunny weekend afternoons checking them out and you'll find a good, cheap meal at the least. Camden should top everybody's list though, particularly students'. A friend once described it as "Hot Topic meets Morocco." On the Tube ride over, you'll notice the number of tattoos and Doc Martens steadily increasing; you're heading to the heavy metal capital of London. Nowhere can compare if you're looking for a new corset or a spiked jacket, but the market also hosts lots of young, up-and-coming, non-heavy metal designers. The food's great too, and if you swing by late in the evening and wander a bit, shopkeepers might offer you discounts while they try to clear out the last of their food for the day. As night falls, Camden morphs into one of London's best nightlife districts, particularly for young, low-budget crowds. The unparalleled late-night greasy food options at least justify a couple nights worth of pub crawling. Word is that this is also one of the best places to hunt for celebs, especially Amy Winehouse.

Another one of Camden Town's virtues is that it's explorable. A short walk to the south lands you in the neighborhood of Kings Cross, another decent place to drink. Go west and you'll find Primrose Hill, a park with one of the best views of downtown London. In the end, to get the most out of London you're going to need to explore and move beyond guides, including this one. You won't see it all. I don't think anyone can, but hopefully this gives you some idea of how to start taking stock of that 2000 year old attic.