Day 2-3

Okay, so our hotel did something to their computer that no longer enable Javascrpit so I am now typing this from an internet cafe, which is why I didn't update yesterday. I'm still alive!

Everything is very overwhelming here... I've seen so many famous people and things in the past few days... Where to begin...

Oh, first, Hannah says to tell her mother hello! :-)

Full English breakfasts are my favorite thing... Ever. I love them! Plus all the tea I drink in the morning. :-) It's lovely!

Yesterday we began at the Tate Britain where I saw lots of famous paintings by Pre-Raphaelite artists. It was very impressive! I love the picture of Ophelia and the Lady of Shallot! My FAVORITE picture was that of the poet Chatterton... Look it up. (By Wallis.) Very much Edward Cullen... :-)

By the time we got done with Tate it was lunch, so I grabbed something cheap at Subway and hung out in Trafalgar's Square for a bit... There was a Hindi concert of something going on, so that was interesting. Dr. Scholtz got some free food and I tried that. It was spicy and I didn't like it... He called it a curry puff or something.

Next we went to the Nation Portrait Gallery and that was SO COOL! I saw all the famous pictures of the Tudor family.... Henry VII and a couple of his wives, a painting of William Shakespeare... Many other famous people.... Charles Dickens. Robert Baden-Powell, Handel, King George III, Edward Elgar, Oscar Wilde, Judy Dench, J.K. Rowling.... And a lot more! You start on the 3rd floor and walk down in a sort of spiral. It took almost 3 hours.

After the Gallery we went back to our hotel and had a quick dinner. We bought some sandwich-makings from Tesco and had a bit of a picnic. After that a couple of us went to Westminster for their evening service. I'd never been to an Anglican service before so that was really interesting. We sat in the part of the church called the Quire. Eddie Izzard was right about English hymn-singing.... No one *really* knows how the words fit with the melody so everyone just mumbles along. :-)

That got done at 7pm GMT and our group split up further. One third went to China Town, the second third went back to the hotel, and I went with Dr. Scholtz, Kirk (who is a friend of Dr. Scholtz... We're having dinner at his house in Edinburgh) Megan and Hannah and we went to Brick Lane, which is the section of London with a majority of Indian/Thai food places. It was quite interesting... We ate at this rather small Indian place... And I don't like spicy food, but I tried some anyway. It was a food adventure... I had the lamb balti. Which ended up being quite spicy. But I tried it and I really can say that I don't like it... By the time we finished it was about 9 pm and the street was teaming with young people. And it was dark, and the street was kind of grubby... There were clubs and outdoor bbq's going on... I don't know... I felt very out of place. There were some shady people standing together in groups.... I felt like I was walking around with a big bulls eye. Definitely not the place for a small-town Iowa girl. But we got out of there with no problem. On the tube home we talked briefly with a man who was visiting London from York who told us that the Rosetta Stone was in Scotland and we told him that he was thinking of the Stone of Scone, and then he asked what the Rosetta Stone was... Haha, it was interesting.

Then my room stayed up until... Oh, 2 am, journaling and trying to digest all the stuff we had seen.

TODAY, we started off by touring Westminster Abbey.... Which was SO COOL! Karen was our tour guide again and she was fabulous! The cloister of Westminster was DEFIANTLY used in the Harry Potter movies. Mary-Kate and I were kind of geeking out. :-) I saw the graves of Charles Dickens, Handel, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Mary (Bloody Mary), Queen Elizabeth, King Edward the Confessor, King Edward I (Longshanks... Think Braveheart.) Ralph Van Williams, T. S. Elliot, and there were memorials to Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Benjamin Britten, Christopher Marlowe, among others. It was so amazing and breathtaking! It's a gorgeous church. It was full of other tourists but still... I wish I had more time to peruse the Abbey with less people there.

After the Abbey we had lunch at the Methodist Memorial... Which was cheap and pretty good. I had this pasta stuff which was like macaroni and cheese with vegetables, baked like a casserole. I had a lemon Fanta! YAY! I've missed European Fanta.

Then we met in Trafalgar's Square again. We climbed on the Lions and took pictures. It was really high and I was kind of scared to jump down. We make lots of Narnia references.

Our group broke up to get to the next thing and my group stopped at King's Cross and visited Platform 9 3/4. :-) It was fun.... It's changed since I was last there.

Then we went to the British Library and saw their display of old old old books, maps and manuscripts. I saw the earliest copy of Beowulf, original manuscripts by Mozart, Handel, Britten, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven. My feet were hurting a lot. I took some ibuprofen.

Then we went to the British Museum and then History Majors had fun. They stayed longer than anyone else. I saw the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and the Parthenon and lots of Egyptian stuff. Like a mummy.

Then we went back and I soaked my feet and read Midsummer Night's Dream and aced the quiz!

Then for dinner we ate at this pub called Munchies and I had Bangers and Mash. So good!

Now I'm in this internet cafe and closing up this post. I miss everyone a lot!

Tomorrow we are visiting St. Paul's and climbing up the 300+ stairs to the Golden Gallery, Samuel Johnson's house, Cheshire Cheese and Museum of London. There will also be lots of presentations.

No TARDIS yet.... :-) I've been keeping an eye out....

I love it here... :-)


That's all for now!