The Halfway Point

This is going to be a long one since this weekend I WENT TO LONDON!!! The family went after our Mediterranean cruise 3 years ago and I quickly decided London was my favorite city in the world. After this trip, I can confirm it still holds the top spot! But first, the beginning of the week...

Nothing much happened except for class on Monday and Wednesday. In class on Monday, I had to read my paper aloud and then critique it afterwards. A helpful hint before turning in any future papers...read your paper out loud before turning it in. It's not that the paper was bad (she had mostly good things to say) but reading it out loud shows you where you need transitions and things like that. Overall, that class was good and I got excited for our excursion this upcoming weekend! The other class was on Wednesday and I only said one stupid thing...haha! I also wrote my first paper for that class towards the end of the week so hopefully that will go well!...now onto London!

Day 1
The people I was going with were already in the city for an excursion at the BBC so I rode the bus into London to meet them. They told me to stay put and they would come to me...two hours later they found me...haha! I got a lot of work done in a park by the Marble Arch so that was an experience. We then wanted to drop our bags off at the hotel. We hopped on the Tube and the hotel was about a forty minute ride. By the time we got there we were tired and wanted to rest up for a full day tomorrow. We went to dinner at the Banana Leaf (an Indian place) and luckily Sameer was with us to help us! Then we went back to the hotel and hung out for a little while before going to bed.

Day 2
Our first stop was Westminster Abbey. I had never been and was a little hesitant to spend 16 pounds to get in...but it was completely worth it! Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take pictures inside :( The first thing we saw when we walked in (they take you in the side and then you leave out the front) was where the Royal Wedding happened...ahhhhh! So that was cool! Behind all that is a series of rooms that hold the tombs of a lot of kings and queens...it was cool to see since I am learning about a lot of them while I am here. There was also a poets corner where a lot of poets and writers are buried. Probably my favorite part was the Royal Wedding Exhibition where they had a lot of photos from the day. All in all, Westminster Abbey is my new favorite place in London! After that we went to Buckingham Palace and took lots of pictures. We wanted to go see a play while we were here so we went to look into tickets...as a student you can get relatively cheap tickets! That didn't fit into our trip but I think we are going to go on the last week here. Then Antolina and I split up from the boys and walked along the pier by the Thames. There is this really great stretch of pier where people dress up in costumes and it is just a really cool vibe. We had dinner along the pier and then headed back to the hotel to get some rest for the next day!


More to come later....but I just got really tired of typing :)