Why Do I Keep Doing This To Myself?

Having spent almost two weeks back in London and with almost nothing to show for it, on Thursday I decided I should probably get out and do something. In the end, I decided to go and see St Paul's Cathedral. After having a shower and getting ready to go, I checked my book and discovered the place closes at 4.00pm - and it was 2.30pm now. Bugger.

The next day, I requested an early-morning 'kick me out of bed' call from Lee so I'd be able to do my sight-seeing at a more sensible hour. This time, I was out the door by 10.00am and made it to church on time, as it were.

Now, let me say it clear and loud out front: I am an athiest, I do not believe in any God or higher power or any other religious hocus pocus. My main interest in seeing the Cathedral was to inspect its architectural and artistic achievements, of which I was not disappointed.

There appears to be a common theme running through a lot of the historic buildings on this side of the world: more, more and more. Everything is decorated, be it the walls, the ceilings, pillars, sometimes even the floors. It doesn't always work - I thought Cardiff Castle was overdone, as one example - and I'm not convinced it all works at St Paul's.

The sculptures are all very impressive, but to be honest I was most impressed by some of the more mundane features of the building. For example, a closer inspection of one of the pillars revealed an incredible amount of detail that must have been a complete nightmare to carve.

Having soaked in the main area, it was time to tackle the 259 stairs up to the Whispering Gallery.

Regular readers will already be aware of my problems when it comes to heights, so just imagine me emerging from the doorway after trudging up all of these steps, only to come face to face with a sheer 30 metre drop straight down. I won't sugar coat it: I almost shit myself. I literally had to sit down for 10 minutes to wait for my heart to stop racing. Luckily, the ceiling of the dome has been meticulously painted and adorned with sculptures, so I at least had something nice to look at.

But that wasn't the highlight of this area! The Whispering Gallery is, as its name suggests, an area of the dome where you're able to hear the whispers of other people from practically anywhere else in the massive circular room. Aside from the many other stupid tourists shouting at the wrong part of the walls, the effect is amazing - you really are able to hear people from all around the walls as though they're almost there next to you.

Having calmed down a little, I braved the edge of the barrier to take a look at the lower level from up high, then continued up the next set of 119 stairs to reach the Stone Gallery - 53 metres above the Church floor. This area is on the outside of the dome, giving you a pretty good vantage point to look over the city. It also had a massive stone and steel fence protecting me from going over the edge, so I wasn't quite as panicked here.

Finally, I tackled the final 152 stairs (for a total of 530) to reach the Golden Gallery. Now 85 metres from the Church floor, I originally expected this area to be enclosed within the very top of the dome, as there's another section you can see up the top from the Whispering Gallery. But no - it's another outdoor area, except this time there's only a small metal fence protecting you from becoming a messy splat on the pavement. There was a small kid up here with me who was bawling his eyes out - I knew exactly how he felt.

After spending a few minutes cowering in the doorway, I plucked up enough courage to head out on to the balcony and take a few pictures of the horizon. Admittedly, it was a sensational view, but I was far too petrified to truly enjoy it so I took the stairs back down as soon as I could.

Downstairs, below the Church floor, is the Crypt. This is where lots of important people throughout history are commemmorated, including Lord Nelson, Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale and the amazing architect himself, Christopher Wren. I probably spent a good 30 minutes wandering around in here, but by the end I was merely glancing at the epitaphs than reading them. The most recent one I saw was from 2001.

That's basically it, really. I'm sure that those with faith will happily talk up St Paul's Cathedral as some sort of evidence that the divine spirit touched everyone who helped to create it, blah blah blah. That's fine. Myself, I see it as an amazing monument to human achievement, which made it well worth visiting.

Before I left in the morning, Lee and I had arranged to meet up for lunch as I was going to be near where he worked. Upon leaving the Cathedral, I turned on my phone so he could call and discovered I already had a voice mail message. Having run out of phone credit a week earlier, I wasn't able to call him back or even SMS. The best I could do was wait until he called. In the meantime, I walked back to Bank station.

When I arrived, I checked my phone and found I'd missed two calls already - stupid phones! I had no way of contacting him myself, all I could do was wait and hope he tried one last time. Just as I was about to give up hope, the phone rang and I was on my way to lunch!

After a nice pub meal, I went back to wandering the streets but it wasn't long before I could barely keep my eyes open so I headed back to the flat. After grabbing some groceries, I put my key in the front door - and then slammed straight into it. My key wasn't working, which was odd considering I've never had a problem with it before. I couldn't call Lee as I had no phone credit, so not knowing what to do I decided to just park myself on the steps and hope someone would turn up soon. Thankfully Margaret arrived quickly and, even better, she had a key to the second lock!