2/20/12
Monday morning, yes it is feels the same in London as it does everywhere else. I did not want to wake up I did want to sleep longer, but hark the gentle calls of London beckoned me, and I arose from my bed a little cranky but ready to take on the day. Classes this day were a little different. Monday usually consists of a lecture in the classroom, a break, and then a tour this week the tour went first since some students (including me) had to give a presentation in the afternoon. So we had to be up bright and early to meet Andrew at our tube stop so that we could go check out the Banqueting Hall on Whitecastle (Whitecastle is a street in London). Banqueting house was really cool. We had to take an underground system that is different than we normally do that went really fast and made me a little dizzy and kind of sick but at least we made it to our destination quicker! Eventually we made it to the Banqueting House where we had to watch a movie giving a general history of the building and then we finally got to see the actual banqueting hall. Even though we only got to really see one room it was very beautiful and pretty much worth it.
So these paintings on the ceiling of the banqueting hall were commissioned by Charles I. Fun fact: Charles was also executed by his own people in this banqueting hall. The people were getting a little p.o.-ed by his extensive taxing as well as his consistent disintegration and reintegration of parliament and so they decided it was best to just get rid of him and not instate any other king at the time. And so England was without a monarchy for a time, until they decided to bring back the king, and with Charles I without a head they gave the role to Charles II, can you guess who that would be, you got it! Charles I's son!
The Banqueting House was really cool, but with only one room to really see the tour didn't last too long and so before we knew it we were back at home for lunch (or in my case a nap) before we had to go out to the classroom for class/presentations. Mine went pretty well. I did not use a visual aid since the instructions did not inform us that we had to, but in my evaluation he said that I was quite humorous, so I was satisfied.
The rest of the day was pretty slow and kind of uneventful. I apologize, therefore, for not posting anything that night but as you can tell from the nap I took earlier I was very tired. I did manage to make dinner for everybody though! I made cheeseburger macaroni. NO not the Hamburger Helper kind, but the real kind of casserole, and I was told it was pretty darn good!!
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| oh yea, be jealous. |
2/21/12
Tuesday consisted of a slightly longer tour than the previous day. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral!! Can you guess how excited I was? If you guessed extremely you would be correct. Can you guess how mad I was when I found out we couldn't take pictures inside? If you guessed extremely yet again, congrats you win a prize! I got some nice pictures of the outside though...
The bottom picture isn't really St. Paul's but right outside of it. It was a tent town of people who were protesting. I didn't see too many of the protesters but judging from how many tents there were, there are tons of them!
So inside the Cathedral was amazing! It was gorgeous and parts of it were really fun. It is where Diana and Charles were married and there are some cool monuments to important people like at Westminster Abbey. It was mostly a lot of government and military people, nobody that too many Americans would know really good. The coolest part of the Cathedral (as well as the most terrifying) was the Whispering Dome. If there is anything that people really know about St. Paul's is that it has a huge dome that can be seen in all different parts of London, well it turns out that people can actually walk way up into the dome and walk around it. The cool part about it is that if one person stands on one end of the dome and someone on the other side and they whisper to each other they can hear it! So we spent about half an hour just whispering sweet nothings to each other.
I was really tired when we got back to the flat. It was an awesome but very long day, so I was really happy when it was time for dinner and in honor of Fat Tuesday Alyssa made pancakes for everyone. They were pretty awesome! The rest of my night was completely stressful since I had applications to fill out for this summer to do research. A great end to the night.
2/22/12
Ash Wednesday!! It was a pretty uneventful day. In the morning we had class and then I pretty much wasted the day by taking a nap. I would say I was upset with myself but to be honest I needed to sleep so bad! I made up for it later though since the group had to go to see Comedy of Errors.
It was a good show and by Shakespeare so of course I was really excited to see it. The cast did a good job of making it very funny and for the most part I could understand what was going on!
After the show we took a nice walk to a Tube station that was a little farther away than the one we had gotten off at and so we got to enjoy the nice scenery. I was wearing heels and so my feet were killing me, but I had this to look at.
I love London at night.
2/23/12
Well Wednesday was actually a pretty interesting day. We had class with Natania but she didn't actually run the class, she invited a good friend of hers to speak with us, an actor. He was really cool, made us do some really embarrassing things like pretend to be a lark and flutter around in a park full of people as well as yell "I loathe thee" at others and ourselves, in a park full of people and to perform an entire sonnet aloud, in a park full of people. By the end of the experience I still wanted to vomit from embarrassment and plan to repress certain parts of the day into the deep recesses of my brain where they will never bother me again, but now to the interesting bit, go to the site IMDB, go ahead I will wait here...
Ok now type Jonathan Cullen into the search...
ready? ok now scroll down a little bit and bam! You have seen him before if you saw the movie Finding Neverland!! And if you haven't seen it yet watch it! He is the doctor!! I was just a little excited about that.
I am sad to report that the rest of my day wasn't as exciting. The day was beautiful and I had planned on going to the park to read and just enjoy the sun but I am a college student and so a good majority of the time those dreams are squished by the fact of impending paperwork which always seems to need to be done IMMEDIATELY. I was a little cranky when I found this out but I did get it done, so there! The only thing that got me through the day without a complete mental breakdown was the knowledge of the fact that we had a three day weekend and the next day was Friday which would be full of fun and adventure!
2/24/12
And full of adventure it was!! I woke up to see the sun was shining and it was going to be a beautiful day! For once I would not need to bundle up and worry about the cold, well that was one fact I was unaware of actually until after I had already ventured out in my jacket and scarf all the way to the Tube stop and so sadly I had to deal with being hot and sweaty as I saw some pretty awesome stuff. Any way here is the cool stuff...
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| Tower Bridge |
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| Gargoyle on Tower Bridge |
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| Tower of London: view from Tower Bridge |
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| Tower Bridge |
So get this, as you may have noticed from the picture captions Tower Bridge is right by Tower of London, so you may think that the names correspond due to their close proximity, that's what I thought at least, according to some chick here (this may not be true but I thought it was a fun fact) the real reason for the Bridge's name is because of the two towers that were build into the bridge to hold the hydraulic engines that raise and lower the bridge. I prefer to believe that the Towers of the bridge were built because it was right by Tower of London but that also may not be true. Either way the bridge is lovely and walking across it was magnificent. It was a sunny day with a gentle breeze that drove me crazy just because of my hair but kept me nice and cool so I could enjoy the sights.
When we got across the bridge Jenna, Hanna, Lizzi, and I sat in a little patch of grass to watch the river and enjoy the sun on our faces. It was glorious! We then ventured down along the side of the river and just enjoyed the building we passed.
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| Reminded me of a dojo |
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| London Bridge |
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| Monument to the great fire of London |
This is just one example of some of the lovely shops that are around, and don't worry those who know me, I haven't changed into a girly girl over here, I just can't deny the fact that some of this stuff is gorgeous. But as you know I also find the darker shops in areas like this hence I found these places.
One is a tattoo place and the other just sells really cool clothes. One of these shops that we went into though had some people working there who were, well the nicest word would be rude. There was this lady who was legitimately dressed like a vampire, it was really way too much for even me to appreciate, and she went right ahead with telling all of us what was wrong with our outfits. She was a real witch (see what I did there?) to Lizzi and Hannah and she told me I dressed too sporty. Have you ever seen me? I do not dress sporty I wanted to point out her plethora of wardrobe "oopsie-daiseys" but I was seriously scared she would bite me. The rest of the time at the market was pretty cool though, and I definitely plan on returning!
After the market Hannah, Jenna, and I were pretty beat so we went back to the flat, Super Lizzi went on exploring the city though with energy that I just can't even comprehend. Since it was Friday and the three of us didn't feel like cooking we went out to a pub called O'Neils for fish and chips. Now I know last time I took a picture of the fish and chips we got...
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| I do not know where it could have gone |
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| Thank you Vanna |
It was just gorgeous! It was a great call on Jenna's part! Lucky for us though we got an extra little show for coming on this particular night!
A couple of minutes after we got there there was suddenly loud horns being blown and music being played and hundreds of bicyclists rode into the square and starting going in circles around one of the fountains. We were mesmerized but did not know what was going on. Finally one of the guys got off of his bike close enough to us that I could go up to him and ask about it and that is when we learned about Critical Mass London. It is an even that takes place the last Friday of every month to raise awareness for bicycle safety in the city. It was awesome and a great sight to see. Unfortunate Jenna Hanna and Lizzi wanted to get a better look and so they made me climb the monument (pictured several pictures up) in order to be at a better viewing height. I wasn't too excited for this and they all got a good laugh at me as I struggled my way up but at least we weren't up there for too long.
It was a pretty awesome end to the night.
2/25/12
Saturday a day for sleeping in, much to Jenna's frustration, I will admit it was my fault that Hannah and I slept a little this morning since I had kept her up talking until about 3:30 the previous night. That is alright though, plenty was accomplished on this day.
The first stop was Leicester Square, since it was Saturday and we hoped to be able to see a show that night. Unfortunately we had some trouble finding the area for discount tickets, I don't know where we got turned around, but we were not in too much trouble since on our misguided journey we passed a couple of theatres with shows playing that were pretty interested in seeing. First we tried to see Zach Braff's new show, All New People, but there were no seats together so the three of us would have had to be separated to see it. On the next stop we were a bit more lucky in the Theatre that was showing Chicago. The seats weren't together in the sense that we were sitting right next to each other, but more in a line one behind the other, but it seemed decent enough for us so we took the tickets. Now we had time to kill between morning and 8:00 pm, when the show was playing.
Before we left Leicester Square there was a book shop (or a few) that Jenna and Hannah thought I would enjoy, and oh boy did I! There were first edition books everywhere and a book store all about spiritual healing, the occult, and astrology. It was awesome! The books were pretty expensive though, and my wallet just couldn't handle the emotional strain of being torn from even more money, and so I left without any books and we headed to Regents park. On the way there though we passed some more cool shops, like the Beatles store and the Sherlock Holmes Museum store. Yes I went in, and yes I spent money, oops.
It was a really pretty park, and would have been peaceful if there wasn't a little girl screaming and having a temper tantrum. Normally I would have been upset that a little brat was disturbing my peace by really it was funny, and I felt bad but I couldn't help from laughing as she just stopped walking her smile suddenly became a frown and she just started screaming. It was hilarious and the reason behind it was nonexistent. There was also a little boy, who was just adorable, and his dad was teaching him how to use his skateboard. It was awesome because this little kid was so proper. At one point he looked up at his father and said to him (no say this in your head with a little kid british accent) "it's quite difficult isn't it?" It was so CUTE!!
When we were done with lunch we went to a little place, you may have heard of it, Abbey Road!!! It was so awesome!! And a little scary, for real. Obviously so many people want a picture in this intersection, and so they start walking across and stop, in front of moving cars to pose for this picture!
Do you see that car there? Yea the driver is getting really annoyed and honking the horn while slowing down only minimally, these people almost got hit so many times. Because it is not enough to be stupid and stop in a busy intersection once, but they had to many times in order to get a good enough picture. Now I like to think that I was a little more sensible in my picture.
But then again...
Yea that would be me, in the busy intersection. but look, not too many cars!
Later that night we got pumped since we finally were heading out to see Chicago! On the way we some some pretty awesome stuff, like a floating egg
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| You didn't believe me did you? |
Despite the odd seating it was an amazing show, one that I would love to see again and again. Or just buy the cd, since the music was really the best part, to me anyway, Jenna loved the dancing, and I can't wait until the day that I hear Jenna is in one of these shows showing off her dance moves, go to Youtube and look up Ripon College Dance Team, you will see, my friend is an amazing dancer!!
Later that night when we got back to the flat I watched the movie Chicago online as I did my laundry. Jenna and Hannah went to bed. And as they were sleeping I had to keep going in and out of the room which if you were here you would know why that was bad, our door squeaked like crazy whenever you would open it. I didn't want to wake them up though so I greased the hinges with some vegetable oil to quiet the door down. Sunday morning was hilarious when Jenna opened the door and had a horrifying look on her face as she tried to figure out where the squeak went. You had to be here, but to me it was quite hilarious. Tehehe.
These days are just so great, I feel I am being spoiled over here with every passing day.
For those of you who have never seen Chicago, here is a little taste of it, from the movie.
Chicago-Cell Block Tango
2/27/12
Well today stood up to the typical Sunday reputation. I slept until noon, well we all slept until noon. The day was not all lost, however. We finally got some much needed shopping done, we topped up our Oyster cards, and Hannah and I finally headed over to Rymans for notebooks and folders. All of my papers are now well organized and no longer all over our room. The rest of the day I will admit was a little slow, just some homework, a little tv show, and a mini nap. But then I made some dinner (hamburgers and Hannah made chicken rice) and was right back to work, getting this blog done, finally! Again I am sorry this has taken me so long, but if you were here you'd understand, there is so much to see and hardly any time to write about it.
Yet I love you all and so I write about it. Until we meet again friends, family, and strangers. I hope you enjoy reading as I enjoy writing all of this for you!
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