Study Break

Today I finally realized that I should maybe start studying for all of my finals on Wednesday. Needless to say, my head hurts, and my eyes are tired from staring at my computer all day long. BUT. They aren't too tired to aid me in recounting the wonderful days from last week.

Wednesday:
Instead of going on a day trip, we got to go see the Houses of Parliament. Parliament...cool. They like make the laws and stuff, right? And liiiike....Sherlock Holmes jumps out of the Parliament building into that big river near the end of the movie, right? Ok, yeah. cool.
No, actually I really loved touring Parliament. They gave us the most wonderful little booklet/pamphlets as we waited to enter the building, and I am not joking when I say that I was in the group with the best tour guide ever. He takes first place. Gold star, blue ribbon, MVTG (most valuable tour guide). Let me give you an example. So he's going off talking about the rooms and telling us all sorts of history and information, and then he says, "oh, and that's a bust of Queen Elizabeth...that reminds me, I need to buy stamps..." Funny, right?
Now whenever I'm sitting in front of the TV watching Parliament, I can say "I've BEEN THERE!" We also watched the speaker enter the house of commons. It was pretty anticlimactic, but kind of fun to watch.
After Parliament, we went into the Cabinet War rooms and the Winston Churchill museum. It was fun to wander around the war rooms, and the Churchill museum had some pretty high-tech displays. Not to mention that we had audio guides too. Score.
It was kind of a rainy day, so we went back to the center right after the museum. I can't remember what I did that afternoon. Welp, I'm sure it was good.
After dinner that night, Brittany, Kira, and Mary convinced me that I should go see Wicked again with them. I didn't need much convincing, since I hadn't seen it for a few months, and I really really liked it. Once we got there, I knew that it was a good choice. The cast was completely new, and I had a different view of the stage, but still awesome tickets. Good stuff.

Thursday was my last day of classes! Wahoo. I had all five of them, and then quickly got ready and headed out for a walk to the National Gallery. It was so sunny and warm out, and I loved people watching as I walked through Hyde Park, around Buckingham Palace, through bits of St. James park, and then through the crowds at Trafalgar Square. I had never seen this area so busy before. The sun certainly brings people out of their homes. I saw men in suits with bright red socks sitting on park benches, people taking dips in the Serpentine Pond in their knickers, couples making out in the grass, etc etc etc. Oh springtime. I also got stopped for directions. That always makes me feel good.


St. James Park

I took a couple of swings past some paintings for Classics, and then took another swing past a few of my favorite paintings before jetting back on the tube for dinner. It was an excellent afternoon on my own.


I had never seen Trafalgar Square so busy. Very fun to people watch a bit.

I'm pretty sure Thursday night was fun too...but cramming for finals has pushed those memories out of my ears. How depressing.

Friday was really fun. The whole group took a boat cruise from Westminster Pier down to Greenwich. The sun was out, and it was great just to hang out with everyone and take a look at the city from the river.

We watched this video about 3 times as we were getting ready for the morning. "THIS BOAT IS REAAAALLLLL!!"



London Eye


Tower Bridge


Mary Kate, Karalyn, Kira, Brittany

Once we hopped off in Greenwich, pretty much everyone walked straight up to the Royal Observatory. For those of you who don't know, Greenwich is where time started. Yep. That's what they told us. It's also where you can straddle the Prime Meridian. That was essentially the biggest highlight from the museum.


I skyped for my first time ever with Michelle and talked to Amber later that night. She said, "...you straddled WHAT?!?"


Look ma, I'm in two hemispheres at once!




Greenwich.

We left Greenwich soon after the Observatory, with a little bit of walking around the town, and we even popped into the Greenwich market and had a look around. The food looked really good, but we were all holding out for Borough Market.

Borough is a great place...in case I haven't stressed that enough. This time I let Brittany work her magic with the baklava men and she got me the most delicious "diamond" baklava. Thanks Brittany, you're a pal.


Borough...lots of people = hard to get good pictures.

After we got back, I decided that I wanted to go for another walk. So I did. This time I stayed in Hyde Park, and I took my ipod. I spent about an hour and a half and managed to get over to the east side of the park, where I haven't spent a ton of time. It is so beautiful here.





Later that night, I went with a few girls to Harrods. It was a cool place to see, but basically the coolest thing for me was seeing the decoration of the actual walls and ceilings. Everything else was too expensive to even touch. We didn't stay very long.
Like I said, that night Michelle and I got on her computer and skyped with Amber back in Provo. Fun fun fun.

Well...I think that was a long enough study break. So long, in fact, that I'm going to sleep now. I'll leave Saturday-Mondays events for tomorrow. Toodles.