The Rest of London

Sorry it has been so long. The process of ending my first course in London and moving to Swansea kept me pretty busy. I’m going to finish with everything I saw in London to kind of catch you guys up.

So, I left off with our trip to Westminster Abbey, which was nearly two weeks ago! That Tuesday we visited Parliament. We had a guided tour throughout Parliament and when we were inside, there was a debate going on in the House of Lords, so the guide was really bummed we wouldn’t get to see the room. Then he thought for a while and was like, “Oh, I may be able to get you in to watch a bit of the debate.” This must not happen too often if he wasn’t too sure it would work! Anyway, we got in to watch from a spectator’s balcony, and we got to hear the Lords discussing the bill on dropping 50 of their representatives. The House of Commons had passed the bill, and the House of Lords could only delay it, it is going to be passed at some point in time. This was very cool to get to see, but it was hard to understand them with their accent but more so because of the politician language and terms I was unfamiliar with.

Parliament

Lauren, Allie, Shannon, and Me in front of Big Ben

Another pretty view of the building

That Wednesday we had class for three hours and then went to the “East End” with John (our professor). He took us out to eat Indian cuisine which is very popular in Britain because of the immigration from South Asia. We went to a buffet which was great because we could try a little of everything. We walked around the East End and there was a clothing market with so many dresses, custom tees, hats, etc. We didn’t spend much time there so the girls all went back the next day to do a little shopping, Jake didn’t want to join us.. imagine that.

The clothing market

Bangladeshi residence right in front of a college student residence.. Kind of interesting to see such different places of living in the same area.

Next, we headed to the 2012 Olympic site. London chose the East End to house the Olympic site in order to improve the area, because it is not a very well developed part of the city. The Olympians housing will be housing in the future, there will be a park built for the occasion, all to ensure sustainability in the area after the Olympics.

The 2012 Olympic Arena

The 2012 Olympic Aquatic Center

Millennium Dome, 2012 Olympic Basketball and Gymnastics Arena (in the bottom right corner). We didn’t get very close to this building, so I attempted to snap a shot from the train.

That night we went to club Jalouse in Picadilly Circus. Thursday we had no class, but we got up to go to Platform 9 ¾ from Harry Potter. This is at King’s Cross station. We searched Platform 9 for it and could not find it. We walked up to someone to ask where it was and before we said a word he says, “Harry Potter?” They obviously get a lot of questions about it. He directed us back out and around to Platform 8.. This was a little disappointing in itself. When we got to it, it was even more disappointing, it was a wall-paper looking, fake brick wall with half a trolley attached so it looked like it was half way through the brick wall. Not as cool as we thought it would be, but still fun to do. This is the day the girls went back to the clothing market.

My wonderful Platform Nine and Three Quarters pose

Friday was a trip to the South Bank (just south of the river Thames). We crossed the London Bridge and walked through Borough Market, which was this huge market of fresh meats, produce, and cheeses. They also had ready to eat food like bratwursts and soups. This was fun to see, but again since we were with John we didn’t spend a lot of time here. We walked along Thames and walked by Shakespeare’s Globe which is not where Shakespeare’s Globe actually was, but was a remake of the building. You can get a 5 pound standing ticket to a play. The feel of the theater resembles the days of Shakespeare in the way that everyone stands around this small stage. Few props are used and if you can barely see it’s alright, because the point of plays back then was to hear them not necessarily see them. We continued walking to Tate Modern, a modern art museum. We spent some time there with John and then he left us to roam around by ourselves. The main exhibit was a large display of ceramic sun flower seeds all across the floor. The artist wanted it to be interactive and whoever came to see it could walk around and play in the exhibit, but the seeds were cracking from being stepped on and was creating a dust in the museum. The museum closed it off so you can no longer walk on it.

John on the London Bridge

That’s me with the London Bridge in the background

Tate Modern

The Sun Flower Exhibit

Me and Lauren, St. Paul’s Cathedral in the background

The next morning Lauren, Jake and I went back to the Borough Market. I got a few things, but had to haul them around all day because we went a few more places before going home.

Borough Market

Another walk across the London Bridge

Next, we went to Abbey Road. Jake really wanted a picture walking across the same crosswalk as the Beatles, so Lauren and I did as well. After that we went to Wimbledon to see the tennis facilities. We ended up just kind of seeing the courts from a distance, but it was pretty.

Abbey Road

Wimbledon

That night I decided to get some quality studying done so I walked around Kensington Park for a couple of hours and then went to the Imperial College library to study. The park was so pretty. It had 4 large sculptures from Anish Kapoor, who did the bean in Chicago. Those were really cool to see, and I also saw the Peter Pan statue.

Peter Pan Statue

A view of the park, on the far left and the far right, you can see two of Anish Kapoors sculptures

This is The Tower on the Imperial College Campus where I studied ad where we had our reception early on

Monday was a fieldtrip to the Imperial War Museum. We met John there and he walked around with us unloading all of his little bits of knowledge to us. After he left we stuck around for another hour and a half, it was a reallyinteresting museum. We had class for three hours that afternoon.

Imperial War Museum

Tuesday we joined another one of John’s classes to hear a speaker, Graham Brady. He is a former Member of Parliament and he basically just talked about everything John had taught us already, but was still interesting to hear what he had to say. Wednesday was our last day of class. We had a presentation of an image that showed something visually about anything we had talked about in the class. That was a pretty fun project. We also had a final exam, which was pretty easy. We have quite a few essays to write but can send those to John later. I’m still not too far with those, but will work hard this week! That night the girls went to a club to celebrate our last night in London, Jake didn’t want to come dancing with us. :(

Well that’s the rest of my time in London. Next post will include Swansea!

British Politics and Culture

Last Thursday was our first day of class, British Politics and Culture. We met for a few hours to start discussing the history and culture of England, then went to the British Museum. This museum is full of artifacts from a lot of different cultures. We spent the most time in the Greece: Parthenon section and then the Celtic and Roman Britain and Europe sections. These are some of the historical things we learned about Britain’s past the first day.

Outside the British Museum (sorry you can't see us too well)

Inside the British Museum, glass dome architecture of Norman Foster
Norman Foster also designed the Gherkin, the pickle shaped building below, as well as City Hall of London (this was in a picture of ‘modern London’ in the previous blog) - Pretty amazing buildings.

Gherkin

This was the night we went to the show The 39 Steps at Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus. It was a fun show to see. After that we went to Inamo, a restaurant with the menu projected onto the table so you could see what you would be ordering on your plate. It had a little touch mouse pad to move and click to select what you wanted, no waiter, just you and the virtual menu. You could play games like battleship with the person across from you.. I beat Jake :) Everyone at my table was nearly finished before I got my food and the fact that we didn’t have a specific waiter right off the bat, made it hard to get help when we needed something (like your food). Other than that, I loved the restaurant, it was very trendy and the food was awesome.

Lauren and me at Inamo

The projected menu on the table (I could see the Dragon Roll on my plate before I ordered it)

Friday we had class and went to the Museum of London. Our teacher, John, took us and we actually spent very little time inside the museum, he seemed more interested in taking us for coffee and cake. So we “had a chat with him” and learned a bit about everyone. Friday we went to a club called Miss Q which was really fun. Saturday we went to High Street Kensington to do a little shopping around, see a different part of London. We saw Harrods, which is a high-end department store that has over one million square feet of selling space. That night we went to another club called Traffic. When we got there we were standing by the door, debating whether or not to go to a different place because the line was so long. Then we got asked if we wanted in, just like that, no line. We thought that was pretty cool, and we had a good time dancing.

Harrods

Jake, Lauren, and Me in Traffic

Sunday Lauren and I kind of roamed around Chelsea and we all cooked dinner at home. Monday we met John at Westminster Abbey. It was really beautiful and John explained the history behind the church and a lot of the people commemorated in the church.

Westminster Abbey Courtyard

Westminster Abbey (we couldn't take pictures inside)

Well that catches you up a bit, and since Sunday was my last blog I wanted to say happy birthday to Nicole, 1/17 and to Grandpa Dave 1/19. Maybe that will get a comment out of Granny and Grumps :P I like hearing from you guys too! Miss you all!

Yes the grass is that green! And we were near a lot of parks, so you don't see it many other places in the city! But they get such constant light rain, which I think is probably why.

Alright, Still haven’t gotten through all the pictures from that first day we had our walking tour. Next up was the parliament area. We saw Big Ben which we will be going inside of during a class field trip.

Big Ben

Then we walked down government road, we saw the Prime Minister housing (above).

Supposedly this is the area in the 7th Harry Potter where they’re breaking into the Ministry of Magic. Recognize the statue?

And Diagon Alley/The Leaky Cauldron

Continuing on we saw the Tower of London, which is not really a tower but a royal palace and fortress. It was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was used for royal residences. It depicted the new ruling of London, then later was used as a prison. It is off the Thames river, where we also day the Tower Bridge. Across the Thames River we saw a more modern part of London. This includes City Hall and a new architectural building called the Shard. It will have a jagged top so it looks like a shard of glass. You can see its construction in a picture below.

The Tower of London, fortress wall

The four towers of the Tower of London

Tower Bridge

The modern area - City Hall is the round building on the left, The Shard is being constructed on the right

The next day, after our first class was postponed, we thought we’d get a hearty meal at the original Hard Rock Café, which is near Buckingham Palace.

Shannon, Allie, Lauren, Me, and Jake

That night we had a reception with the rest of the students studying abroad through this program. They are all here for the semester. Also, that night we ventured around Piccadilly Circus to find the Icebar. It was pretty cool, but kind of cheesy and touristy. We had a pretty fun time once we found it! We didn’t know the exact address, so we swore from then on, we would know exactly where we were headed when we left our flat! .. We’ve still been struggling with that, which you’ll hear more about later!

Shannon, Allie, Lauren, and Me

I really like the roomies. We've been having a good time experiencing London together.

I heard Miss Nebraska won Miss USA! What else am I missing back home?!

Some Royal Sites

Nicole, the first day we were there, no one could tell us about our class and what was going on with that. Then our second day (what was supposed to be first day of class) was postponed because our teacher was stuck on the underground. But yes, I remember what I'm here for :)

Next on our walking tour we saw the Royal Albert Hall which is still venue to many great shows in London. This is across the street from the Prince Albert Memorial, which shows Prince Albert in the center surrounded by four sculptures depicting the Victorian industrial age as well as four depicting different continental groups.

Royal Albert Hall

Prine Albert Memorial

Some more things we saw in the morning were Kensington Park and Kensington palace. The Queen's cousin Prince Michael of Kent and his wife live in Kensington Palace, but you can view the inside of part of the palace (which we didn’t go into). Part of the Palace rooms other royal relatives in the “apartments” of the palace. Diana lived there for a short time while she and Charles were split.

Kensington Palace – the statue you can see is of William III. He looks like Captain Hook to me

The view of the "apartments" on the side of the palace

Also, there is a Peter Pan statue in Kensington Park, which we haven't made it to yet, hopefully soon! There is a Peter Pan festival every year in the park where people dress up as characters from the movie

Next, we walked along Kensington Park and by Hyde Park headed towards Buckingham Palace. On our way we saw the Wellington Arch pictured below, which commemorated the Napoleon Wars.

Then came Buckingham Palace! It’s so pretty. We may or may not come back for the changing of the guards. We’ll see if we have time and energy.

In front of Buckingham Palace is the Queen Victoria Monument

This is of guards marching outside of Prince Charles home, which is right down the road from Buckingham Palace

They are such pretty sites. We saw even more that first day, I just don't want to bore you with too long of a London post. Oh.. not possible you say? I agree! So stay tuned.

Loving London

Now, the first little story I have may not be the most interesting because the setting is the airport, but it has definitely been the most intimidating part of my trip so far.

I got to Heathrow Airport in London on Monday the 10th. My fellow London pre-sessioners and I didn't communicate a whole lot before leaving the states so we didn’t have the best plan to meet each other in the airport. I got to baggage claim (our meeting place) at about 11:30 and waited around for an hour, knowing they were flying in later. A policeman asked if I was doing alright because people usually didn't wait in baggage claim. I explained that this was our meeting place so that we could find each other more easily. He pointed out that they may have flown into a different terminal in the airport. :0 I couldn't believe we just assumed we'd be at the same baggage claim. I took a stab at which airline they were on, trying to remember from our few emails and I figured out which terminal they would have come in on (they were probably already through immigration by now). I hurried there so they didn't miss me and leave thinking I had already left, still not sure if this was even their terminal. After waiting there for a while and not knowing if I should just leave or not, I stumbled upon them on the other side of a pole I was standing by for the past 10 minutes. So.. we took off on the tube to South Kensington.

The first full day we had in London, included a walking tour of our area. We covered a lot of ground and saw a lot of things, many of which we will be going back to, to see more of. Therefore, I’ll save some of that for later when we go inside some of the places. Also, since it was a tour we were kind of time crunched to see all of the places so few of our pictures from the first day have us in it.

First we walked toward Exhibition Road, which houses many museums. The road got its name because from the Great Exhibition, which was started by Prince Albert to show many manufactured products from around the world. The profits from the exhibition were used to fund museums for sciences and the arts. They were built along that road to commemorate the Great Exhibition.

This is the Museum of Natural History in London. I think it's a really pretty Building.

We obviously saw loads more the first day, but I'll post again soon with that because I need to get ready to go see a “show” called 39 Steps. I hear it’s funny!