I just got back from London trip 2. This time, we were able to breathe a little more and actually got a chance to do quite a bit.
Day 1 (Friday):
We woke up and decided after breakfast that we were going to walk over in the direction of the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament. I don't know how many of you know London, but it really isn't a walking city. We walked and got some Starbucks for lunch ('cause they have sandwiches and caffeine- two essentials in my book). We also corned a souvenir shop on our walk that I was able to get most of my gifts and what not at for around 15 pounds. Note- that includes me, my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my grandpa. They were little things though. Also, find the locations with 15 for 1 pound postcards. I split that with Rachel and Logan, so we paid practically nothing each for 5 postcards. As we continued our walk, we encountered a tourist office, where we pre-ordered our tickets for the London Eye that day and perused the broadway shows that were being offered. Sadly none were really in our price-range AND in a good seating area. We finally made it across one of the bridges to the London Eye, where we exchanged our receipt for our actual tickets and then saw a 4D video about the London Eye. It was free and 4 minutes long. I liked it other than the 3D aspect solely because 3D usually makes me really dizzy. We finally ate our sandwiches and then hopped in a bubble and took our ride around the wheel. I got some great pictures of the city from it, but it was hard getting my camera to focus because of the glass. After that, we took a siesta of sorts in the green at Westminster Abbey because we had pretty much been on our feet all day at that point. We then started our walk back to the hostel, which required a stop at the tourist office to book our tickets for Westminster, and a stop at a shop on the way back. Cutting that out, we calculated about an 1 and 40 minutes worth of walking from Westminster to our hostel. We decided for dinner to try out a nice little Indian restaurant a few blocks away from the hostel. I was pretty tired by the end of this, but this is only the beginning of our adventure.
Day 2(Saturday):
Logan and Rachel had made friends with "Canada" as we called her, or Sam which is her real name the night before while I had been showering, and she tagged along with us on our adventure. We originally planned on going to the Houses of Parliament and touring Westminster, but we were only able to visit the houses. I really enjoyed the tour, other than the fact that you can't sit down the entire time, and you also can't take pictures. However, I did come out of that with a classic picture that they took of me when we were going through security before entering. The picture was taken while I reached up to move my hair. After this, we decided that we needed to have a traditional English lunch, so we popped on over to a pub nearby. I tried some bangers and mash, Logan and Rachel opted for the chicken and mushroom pie, and Sam went for the fish and chips with "garden" peas, aka non-mashed peas. She didn't feel good after, so we sent her back to the hostel while we decided to try and find the Camden market. That didn't turn out quite as well as planned. Apparently we didn't make it far enough but it was starting to get late in the day so we headed back towards our hostel after Rachel did some quick work figuring out which bus takes us where. For dinner, we collected Sam and went to a Chinese restaurant near to our hostel as well after realizing that the pub Logan wanted to go to was the same as the one we went to for lunch. They all have different names, but belong to the same chain.
Day 3(Sunday):
I have no clue how they did it, but Logan and Rachel had me up at 6something in the morning because we had decided to go to Westminster for a service. The one that sounded best to Rachel and Logan for our schedule for the day was the 8am communion service. The day started out rainy, but after the 30 min service, it was sunny (I should note that we had beautiful weather ALL weekend). We tried out this little French themed cafe before heading over to the British museum to wander around a bit. I think we calculated about a 2 to 3 hour visit there before meeting up with Emma, a friend of ours from Hollins who is studying with the Hollins program at the University of London. She took us around the area of the university to show us where the classes take place and we stopped at a Pret A Manger to grab lunch. After that, Emma pointed us in the direction of Platform 9 and 3/4 for Rachel and Logan, but we decided to take an hour detour in the gift shop of the British Library. When we had found it, we realized that it was only open for an hour more, so we just decided to chill in the gift shop. I wouldn't have minded looking at some of the other stuff, but obviously, time would not permit that. Once they kicked us out, we finally made it to King's Cross for the obligatory Harry Potter pictures with the trolley in the wallpapered wall. We then went to Mangosteen for dinner (that is a Thai restaurant, and yes, that is our 3rd and final night of Asian cuisine).
Day 4(Monday):
Windsor Castle is pretty awesome. That is all we basically were able to do that day because we had to hop trains to get to Windsor and then we spent about 3 hours or so touring the castle grounds. Other than a brief cloud of rain which sent us into the closest building, the Middle Ward giftshop (notice a trend?), it was sunny with a crisp wind. I fell in love with the architecture of the castle, which led to my purchase of a book about it. While on the grounds, we saw Queen Mary's Dolls' House, the State Apartments (some of which had been burned in the 92 fire but are fully restored if not remodeled), the changing of the guards there (somewhat), and St. George's Chapel, complete with the grave of Henry VIII and his 3rd wife as well as symbols for the 24 knights of the garter or something like that, which the newly married Prince William and his father are both a part of. Once we finally left the grounds, we found a wool shop right there that we perused for a bit and then started our hunt for a lunch, which turned out to be at a pub where I tried a steak and ale pie. After that we hopped on the trains back to town and then went over towards the university to meet up with Emma and surprise some of the other Hollins women there because they were having their own little version of the HDP (History Department Party) with one of the History professors at a nearby pub. It was nothing like the HDP back at school, which is good because I would probably not be able to write about it. Basically we were sitting around a table catching up and discussing different things with the professor. I felt a little bad for Logan because she doesn't go to Hollins, but she fit perfectly with us. It was nice to see some of my friends again, even though I wasn't able to see all of them. It did make me miss home even more, especially knowing that this Saturday they are going back to the states. After a happy hug, but a sad departing, Emma, Rachel, Logan and I went to Benito's Hat, which is a lot like a Chipolte for those of you who have been to one. So now we have added Mexican to our list of food we had (recap: Indian, Chinese, Thai, English/French, Mexican). We stopped for some frozen yogurt after that and then said our final fairwell to Emma as we went back to the hostel.
Day 5(Tuesday):
Our flight was not until the evening, so we had plenty of time to fit in an attempt to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham and an actual tour of Westminster, complete with the tombs of many famous monarchs and poets and even scientists, such as Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, as well as some still more amazing architecture, and a final stop at a giftshop. This was however not our last shop. We did have to stop by the university for a sweatshirt and shirts for Rachel to take back to her family, but after all of this, and an Italian lunch, we raced ourselves back to the hostel, collected our stuff, got one more picture by the telephone booth, and ran like the wind to the bus, then the train, then the gate. We finally got to our houses around 1 am. We unfortunately had to split a taxi because the bus stopped at midnight, and we got in at 12:15.
So, we are at today, which consisted of me waking up late, showering, napping, eating lunch with my new Japanese roommate/housemate Mayuko from Osaka and rushing off to one of my last classes. We found out today that we have to write a summary along with the presentation, so Sunday, my mom's birthday, will be one very long but very necessarily productive day seeing as my presentation is at 11am the next day. We (the American students) are still trying to figure out if we have to come after our presentations, or at least that last week we are here. If not, then I have two weeks to finally relax and enjoy the city and beach a bit more. I am thankful that we do not have a final exam in my class. Oh, I should probably explain why I can't work on my project over the next few days. I leave for Venice tomorrow afternoon. I will spend the evening, all day Friday, and a bit of Saturday morning/afternoon in Venice and be home Saturday evening. I could work on the plane or at the hostel, but I also foresee a lot of sleeping left over from the London trip sneaking into my schedule while there, especially with my sore ankle. Always be prepared if you have old joint injuries. I think that is everything, so I will update after Venice, and then of course over the next few weeks as I finish up my time here.
