Buckingham Palace, where my friend the Queen hangs out.Well, the past four days have been so long that I've been too tired at night to blog all about it, so I'll give you a nice summary here.
Saturday: FIE Sightseeing bus tour and walking tour.
FIE paid for us (with our tuition, haha) to go on a coach bus tour of the city to sort of orient us with where the major sights were.
We drove all around London, saw the Tower Bridge (which most people think is London Bridge... it's not. London Bridge is way less exciting.) Saw the outside of Buckingham Palace, got out of the bus for the changing of the guard (which I have on video and will post to YouTube when my Internet starts working better.)
Got a nice view of the houses of Parliament and Big Ben (which we're going on a field trip to in a couple weeks), as well as a TON of other stuff around the city. I have a lot of places I need to go back to and visit.
When the coach dropped us off we took a break for lunch, then met back at Metrogate (the dorm) for a walking tour of South Kensington, the neighborhood we live in. Found some great little side streets, plus this tiny bakery between two rows of houses that I might have possibly imagined, but the things in its window look SO delicious. I'm definitely going back there.
At the end of the walking tour we stopped at High Street Kensington, one of the best shopping streets in the city. My tour group was all girls so we were pretty enthusiastic about this. We checked out Marks & Spencer and H&M, the latter of which, if you don't know, is a budget-fashion Mecca. I bought a dress there for £20. Since there are so many stores in London, and I DO love to shop for clothes (second only to shopping for FOOD) I made myself a rule that I'll only buy stuff once in a while, and only things that I really, really love. I'm also trying to limit myself to one purchase (if any) in a store. And I'd like to find more skirts/dresses because those are things I have trouble finding in the states. But yeah, it was my first real personal purchase.
Once I got home I just studied for a bit, watched a couple lectures, and went to bed. Every day here is so packed full of stuff that I just get kinda exhausted.
Sunday: Train trip to Windsor Castle
Question: Why is this the best picture ever? A) The guard; B) My face; C) My awesome new dress.Answer: D) It is written.
Since we didn't have anything officially planned for Sunday, my roommates, plus one more girl, and I took the National Rail train (yes, a REAL TRAIN) to Windsor, which is a cute little town around Windsor Castle.
Windsor Castle was AMAZING. Seriously. And the best part is that the Queen still LIVES there. Like, it's her HOUSE. That's just too cool.
I got a ton of pictures of the outsides of the castle, but no pictures were allowed inside so you're just going to have to imagine it for yourself. There was also a special exhibit, Queen Mary's Dollhouse, which was built in the early 1900s and is this absolutely massive dollhouse with miniature everything, including electric lights, running water, working cars, even a working vacuum cleaner. It's a doll palace, actually. They built it as a gift to Mary (princess at the time, and collector of miniatures), but it wasn't intended to be played with--it was more a tribute to "the finery of Britain." Still, pretty cool. I wanted to get a photo of it for my Grandpa Larry, who used to build dollhouses and built me a pretty cool big farmhouse one when I was a little girl, but alas, no photos allowed.
There was another gallery with some Leonardo DaVinci sketches displayed; THAT was unreal. I couldn't believe I was looking at something DaVinci actually drew. Apparently, at Windsor there are over 600 of his sketches. Bill Gates just bought 16 of the sketches for $32 million... wowzzz.
But, yeah we did the audio tour through the castle and it was amazing. The rooms were all so beautiful, and I've seen some of them on TV before, including this one which is on TV a lot.
After the tour (a LOT of walking, as usual) we found a Greek restaurant and I had vegetarian mousaka and it was delicious. I know it just looks like reddish-brown nonsense with cheese on top, but it was chock full of veggie goodness. I love trying new foods.
Took the train back, more studying, then sleep. Seems to be the pattern.
Monday: Stonehenge, Bath, and the City of Bath
Gator Girls take on Stonehenge. Sadly, no aliens in sight.FIE organized another coach trip for us, this time to Stonehenge (about an hour and a half away) and the city of Bath (an hour from Stonehenge).
Stonehenge was cool! Hearing all the different theories as to what it is was neat. Plus, the rocks are so heavy (some as much as 25 tons!) that it was incredibly impressive how it was built. The prevailing theory is that the ground it's built on was considered a sacred spot by those people, and they spent years and years and years building Stonehenge as a temple to worship in. Although, some people think it's an alien mothership. Make of that what you will.
The drive took use through the English countryside... as a Florida girl, I've never seen lush, green rolling hills like the ones in England, covered in little yellow flowers... beautiful!
The city of Bath was beautiful in itself and the architecture was stunning. All the buildings are built from a stone naturally occurring in the area (known as "Bath stone," haha) so they're all an almost identical color. It's a really cool effect to see from the hillside.
We had some time to explore, so some kids from the trip (myself included) found a little fair in a park (which was run by mostly French people...) and had some lunch. I brought mine with me, so instead I bought some Baklava and two pieces of fudge: mint macaroon and Cointreau truffle. I've been eating them bit by bit every day. It is taking a lot of restraint.
Anyway, we also explored and saw the outside of Bath Abbey and the oldest house in Bath. And we saw where Jane Austen lived! The city was built as an epicenter of society and leisure for the wealthy; they'd go to the baths and show off their daughters during the summer, hoping for an engagement announcement by the end of the season. It started out very tiny around the hot springs, but as it grew in fashionability, it also grew in size.
Of course, the Romans had set up shop many, many centuries before all this. And after some archaeological excavation historians found the original Roman baths. We got to do a tour of this (which was awesome) and at the end taste some of the bath water (which was gross. But I did feel healed! Or, whatever.)
The ride home was long, and most people fell asleep, but we got back to the dorm at around 6 p.m. I ate a bit, then finished watching my lectures, so I was all caught up! What a good student I am...
Today (Tuesday): Natural History Museum
Museum of my dree-ums. (Get it? Dreams.)Now, THIS was something I was really excited about because it was on my list of must-sees in London. Our dorm is only about two blocks from the Natural History Museum, plus the entrance is FREE. So this morning about six of us ladiez walked over to the museum.
It. Was. HUGE. And one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. And HUGE. And FULL of animals and plants and gemstones and nonsense to look at. Two of the girls I was with lasted about an hour there; the other three, about two and a half hours. Me? SIX HOURS.
But I went through every exhibit (even Dinosaurs) and took tons of pictures and had myself a jolly good time.
There aren't many exciting details to share about this, because I was mainly walking around, looking, asking strangers to take a picture of me in front of a statue, etc. But fun fun fun nonetheless.
Then, once I got home, I went to the grocery store, where a 40-something-year-old British man holding a motorcycle helmet said to me, "Mind if I ask you a bit of a cheeky questions? I was wondering if I might get your telephone number." To which I said I didn't have a local number and them spent the next half hour in fear that someone would try to stalk me/rob me/murder me once I left the store. This was partly because he looked like the villain from an action movie, and partly because I am not used to anyone trying to get mah digitz.
But anyway, this time I was smart and brought a strong reusable shopping bag to haul my groceries in, so the walk home wasn't as gruesome.
Trying to buy groceries in London is an adventure in itself. Hardly anything looks familiar, and things that do (like fruit) is packaged in such a weird way that it's difficult to find anyway. Plus, everything is measured in kilograms, and nutrional info is in kilojoules and kilocalories so I have no idea what I'm putting into my body. (Yes I do... cheeeese. And loads of bread.)
When I returned home everyone was planning trips to Ireland and Amsterdam and Paris and whatnot, but I was a bit stressed out because I'd like to go to Dublin and Paris but my class schedule (for the first half of the summer) is different from their schedules in that I have classes Friday and Monday mornings and can't spend a four-day-weekend somewhere like most people can. So that caused me a bit of sadness since I'd like to travel and experience these things, but I guess I have to just create my own planes that sort-of coincide with their plans.
Took a jaunt to the Internerd café, where I was finally able to call my parents through my online phone. Also, spoke to JPG, mah boyfriennn. It was really nice to hear all of their voices. I'm having fun here, but I'm also kind of overwhelmed and miss home, people from home, etc. It probably wouldn't be so bad if I had more time/ability to speak with these people, but my phone situation is annoying/inconvenient, and I basically have to pay two pounds every time I want an hour of Internet-call time. So talking on the Internet phone will only happen once in a while.
Since I was all caught up with my schoolwork I spent tonight hanging out with a few kids I've never really talked to, playing cards. They were all really nice and we had a lot of fun.
Now I'm going to sleep; don't know exactly what I'll do tomorrow, but it may involve Mexican food(...?).
Love,
AMY
P.S. I've put up ALLLLL my lovely pictures on Picasa (since it's much easier to share with family than Facebook, and the albums are easier to manage). CHECK THEM OUT!
P.P.S.
Admit it: you knew this was coming.
Yes. I knew that was coming.
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