London - Day 1

Today was my first full day in London. We had group presentations in the morning (London, Bloomberg Media, Parliament, and Harrods) and then left for our bus tour of London. That was really cool because the tour guide was very informative and told us alot of interesting facts. We saw a piece of the Roman wall still standing from when they founded London, nice places for shopping, Princess Diana's favorite street to shop (Beachen Place), and much much more. We got off the bus and saw the changing of the guards in front of Buckingham Palace. After that, we were allowed to break off of the group so Kristin, Ashley, Callen, Jen, and I decided to go exploring. It took us a while to get used to the streets and the Tube of London so we got lost a couple of times. During our journey we went to Tate Modern, a museum, which was cool but a little to abstract for me. We also went to the replica of Shakespeare's globe, but there was a play going on then so we couldn't go inside. We finally found the Tower of London which was my favorite thing we did today. It is an old castle where a prison was held and also where King Henry VIII beheaded many of his wives (including Anne Boleyn). There was also the jewelry and artifacts of royalty there which was crazy to see in person. The only downfall was that it was raining and most of the stuff was outside. After that we decided to venture out and went to eat at an Indian food place. Apparantly in London Indian food is how Mexican food is here. It's weird though because the workers stand outside and bargain with you about your meal. I got pretty good at it and we got a three course meal, bread, and drinks for 9 pounds. The food was not my favorite, but it definitely was an experience. Alot of things are closed on Sundays so we couldn't do as much as we wanted, but we did after dinner get to go to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. In the gargen there was Kensington Palace where Princess Diana lived. Her memorial was also there and the park was really quaint and just a good place to have a picnic. We ended up getting lost there too, but got to walk through Nottinghill (accidentally) and saw the houses that look like what were in the movie which was pretty sweet. I feel pretty safe in London and it very clean. There are quarks here though like there is not a trash can to be found for like 5 miles (that might be an exaggeration, but for real they are no where to be found), the steps are smaller so I take two at a time, the label restrooms as toilets, and they only use one piece of ice, just to name a few. Well thats all for today and can't wait for what tomorrow brings!