Week Three



Stonehenge



Roman Baths

Roman Baths

Bath Abbey

Bath

Bath

My own little adorable tea pot at lunch

Rugby match at Bath

Bath

Bath Abbey

St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral

View from the top of St. Paul's, Nido my housing in the distance!

The golden pineapples on top of St. Paul's

View of the London Eye from the top of St. Paul's

More golden pineapples

This week was semi eventful.  Thursday I went to St. Paul's for my Art and Society class, which was interesting.  Cameras were not allowed inside so I had to slyly snap some quick photos with my phone, but it was gorgeous on the inside. The ceiling was decorated in different scenes from Genesis in mosaics and gold leaf.  We climbed to the top of St. Paul's, which was pretty easy, until the downward spiral.  Going down was never ending, we just kept turning left and left and left.  Once at the bottom I felt like I had been playing dizzy bat for the past hour, but the view from the top was fully worth it.  At one of the stopping points going up, the area around the inside dome, the walls are known as the whisper walls.  Apparently if you whisper something against the wall on one side, a person on the complete opposite side can hear you, so these little kids tried whispering Lady Gaga's Bad Romance against the wall and low and behold, it worked! 

Then on Saturday we took a bus to Stonehenge and Bath.  Traveling to Stonehenge took about an hour and a half, although I am pretty sure it was suppose to take about two and a half.  Our bus driver drove about 90 mph along the winding bumpy roads which needless to say, went poorly for quite a few after the previous night at the pubs.  But Stonehenge was interesting, a slight let down to be quite honest.  It was fascinating seeing how large the stones were, how heavy they must be and thinking about the fact that they were brought from over 150 miles away over 5000 years ago and trying to imagine how they were transported that far that long ago.  Yet after about a max of five minutes of standing in the freezing cold, this fascination wore off.  There are many different theories, the most interesting of them is that aliens created it.  The town around Stonehenge has the most reported sightings of UFOs and have various reportings of crop circles every year, so this theory is quite popular among the people who live there. 

Next came Bath which was wonderful! The cutest little town I have ever seen.  Every building is made of the same stone, Bath stone.  Which you might think would get boring/ repetitive, but was actually very beautiful.  The town is full of little streets with little boutiques, restaurants, bake shops, the best cookie place I have ever been to (although not as good as Bake Shop cookies), and of course the Roman Baths.  The Baths were really cool to see, I did not know the whole story behind them before I went and it is actually a very fascinating story.  They warn you multiple times to not touch the water before you get down to the actual Baths since it is the same water from way back when.  They were describing how disgusting and foul the water is, how smelly and discolored it is.  I was expecting some clumpy, mucky, absolutely horrid water, but when I finally saw it, the water just looked a little over chlorinated, it had nothing on Lake Springfield.  But Bath is definitely another must see for those who have not been. 

The only other note worthy event I have done this week is go to Brick Lane, twice this week actually.  This is a stretch of Indian restaurants, about 5 or 6 blocks long I believe.  Every building on this street is an Indian restaurant, all supposedly delicious.  So the competition to get customers is quite intense.  The restaurants send out employees to recruit people to come eat at their restaurant.  I went with three other people and we were finally convinced by a restaurant with the offer of two free bottles of wine, pretty good wine at that, and thirty percent off our meal with a free appetizer.  And the food is delicious.  So this block will be frequented a considerable amount during my stay in London I would have to say.  One other interesting thing to do when in London is to ask british people to do an American accent.  This will never get old, it normally ends up either with them just talking absurdly loudly in their british accents or them saying ridiculous phrases including words like rad, yo dude, awesome, psyche, right on, and so on, words I generally do not hear any Americans say. It is always good for a laugh though.
For all of those Royal family fans, still no sightings of the royals, nor Ron Weasley.

Two Weeks Into London

My first experience with fish and chips, looks disgusting but tastes delightful

London Marathon Store! Some day...

The Tate Modern

St. Paul's Cathedral and the Harry Potter bridge from the 6th movie

Millions of hand painted porcelain sunflower seeds

Sunflower seeds once again

Harry Potter/ Death Eater bridge

Cute little shopping street near school

Little vespa benches in the Camden Market

I have been in London for a tad over two weeks.  And am still absolutely loving it!  My internship has been wonderful.  I love the people, they could not be any nicer nor any funnier.  I still cannot get enough of their accents.  I can already tell I will have issues when I go back to the US and hear that dreadful Chicago accent in place of the beautiful british accent.  They have made me feel right at home immediately.  The office is in Covent Garden, which is adorable, tons of cute shops, little pubs and restaurants.  I am actually doing real work at the internship, not just refilling everyone's coffee or tea, which is nice. 
I have not done anymore touristy things unfortunately, but I am going with some friends to see Buckingham Palace sometime this week.  I got to go to the Tate Modern Museum for my Art and Society class.  It was interesting, but not really my cup of tea, not the biggest fan of modern art.  But we got to cross the bridge in Harry Potter that the Death Eaters tore apart in the sixth movie so that was pretty exciting.  I also went to Camden which is a sight to see.  I cannot even explain it, it is a long street turned into a market that then has little side streets everywhere taking you even farther into the market.  It was really fun and had delicious food stands with basically any kind of ethnic food imaginable.  This Saturday I am going to Stonehenge and Bath which is very exciting! I will be glad to venture a little farther out of London finally!

Boat Cruise Hop On/ Hop Off Bus Tour



Big Ben and the London Eye



The Palace of Westminster and the London Eye

The girls outside of the Tower of London

Molly and I with a peasant inside the Tower of London

The girls outside the Tower Bridge

The chapel inside the Tower of London

The place where Anne Boleyn was beheaded

The Tower Bridge

The girls waiting for the boat cruise/ dance party down the Thames River

The Tower of London

Under the Tower Bridge

The girls on the boat cruise

The past couple of days have been absolutely amazing! London is wonderful! The boat cruise down the Thames River was so fun! What could be better than a boat with a bar and a dance floor with gorgeous views!  Unfortunately with everyone dancing the windows fogged up so the great views did not last very long.  Earlier that day I went to the Tower of London with some girls, which was really interesting.  Apparently if the ravens leave the Tower of London, the walls of London will fall, so four mammoth ravens are kept in a cage with their wings clipped.  I saw the crown jewels which are unbelievable.  They must be fake, there is no way there are diamonds and gems that large in existence.  I cannot even imagine how heavy those crowns are nor how much they must be worth. 
On Friday night I went to a bar near Picadilly Circus (british version of Times Square) called Waxy O'Connors, probably the coolest bar I have ever yet to see.  It was never ending, just kept going farther and farther down and also had trees in the middle throughout the bar.  Saturday was the original London bus tour.  This was really interesting, I saw all of the main London attractions.  However, the winter may not be the best time to ride an uncovered double decker bus, quite chilly.  Saturday night some of us went to the American sports bar again to watch the Steelers game.  We met some interesting London hockey players, none of whom were british. 
And then Sunday I went to the Spitalfield's market, which is absolutely amazing! It has tons of great stuff, I bought a picture on this cool wax paper, not sure how it was done, to jazz up my insane asylum-esque bright white walls.  Oh and the food here is still exceeding my expectations.  And still waiting to hear someone say "cheerio." I am pretty sure they only say cheers anymore.

Pictures From Wandering

Trafalgar Square with Big Ben in the background

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

The Tube

Liverpool Tube Station

Helpful little reminders

Downtown London, near campus

Oxford Street, similar to an older version of Michigan Ave

First Couple Days In London

So this is my third full day in London and I do absolutely love this city!  It is very similar to Chicago or New York, but much older looking, so in my opinion, a little more interesting to look at.  The study abroad program has kept us pretty busy with walking tours, which have been nice.  It is hard to remember I am in London when walking around at times, it just seems like some city in the US, until someone around me speaks or I come upon a crosswalk and need to look to the opposite direction than I am used to.  Which is actually a lot more difficult than one would think. 

Everyone here has been super friendly and their accents are completely adorable! I do not think they will ever get old.  And to those of you who said the food sucks, I beg to differ.  The food has been absolutely delicious.  And although everything has been going well, still no sightings of Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley for those non- Harry Potter lovers) nor the Royal family.  But tomorrow some of the study abroad people are doing touristy things so hopefully a sighting of Buckingham Palace!  Oh and for those of you who would like to keep up with London fashion, grab yourself a fur coat, tights, and some motorcycle boots.  Not necessarily together.