Kensington Palace and Queen Victoria
Peter Pan
Monday, June 30, 2008
Kensington Gardens
Kensington Gardens is in extremely close walking distance from the London Center. It's basically the neighborhood park, and it's beautiful. Here are just a few pictures:
A Day of Rest (?) And Yet Another Walk Through The City
First, to catch up: Yesterday was Sunday. Our group got split up into 6s (ish) and sent to different wards of the Wandsworth Stake. To get to church, us six girls took a tube to Victoria Station, and after some confusion and a missed train, made it down to the Wandsworth Common train stop, where we walked for a few minutes through a really pretty townish area to get to church. Travel time: about an hour? I don't know, we'll have to see next time if it takes us as long to get there.
Church itself was a neat experience. Most of the wards in the stake are actually made up of those with Caribbean-African descent, and around 80-90% of the members are converts. Pretty different than home. An adorable 11-year-old Black boy with a British accent named Lawrence sat by me during Sacrament Meeting. We got callings: I am the Relief Society Pianist. I'll update more on the ward as I get to know it better each week.
So the whole ordeal ended up taking quite a bit of time and energy, so we didn't do much else yesterday.
Today: Second day of class. And I'm still pretty excited about class, even though it is kind of painful to do homework when you could be exploring London instead. I have class from 9-11:40, and then it's free time until 4:45. Me, Lizzy, and Steve set out to do another walk (but first stopping for lunch to get Falafels at a little restaurant near us called "Kebabs-Falafels" or something along those lines. Haha. We decided on the "Walking Through The City" walk. Here are some things we saw:
•We got off the Tube and started walking on Cheapside (which I swear I recognized from Dickens' novels or something
•The Mansion House (this awesome old building from the 1750s where the Lord Mayor of the city used to live. We stopped in to see if they had tours (closed 'til September) and they had some of the highest security I think I've ever seen here so far)
•The Financial District (this is the Royal Exchange)
•I can't remember what this building was, but it was in the area of the Financial District. Look closely at what is topping the building
•a bunch of cool buildings with really neat modern architecture that I didn't manage to take pictures of, like Lloyds and Minster Court
•The Church of St. Michael Cornhill (Mendelssohn's practice organ is in it. The Church was built in 1040 but then was rebuilt by Christopher Wren (who seemingly built everything in London) after the Great Fire
I just love the history of everything here. Ancient, old, and modern are all combined into this bustling, incredible city. You could spend hours and hours in every little piece of the city, and the city is huge!
(PS- I'm trying to be better about taking pictures... sometimes when I'm walking around I kind of hate to because I like just looking around everywhere, trying to process everything that I'm seeing)
Being here is exhausting, but definitely the coolest thing that I've ever done. I'm so glad I have as much time here as I do, even though I know it's going to fly by.
Church itself was a neat experience. Most of the wards in the stake are actually made up of those with Caribbean-African descent, and around 80-90% of the members are converts. Pretty different than home. An adorable 11-year-old Black boy with a British accent named Lawrence sat by me during Sacrament Meeting. We got callings: I am the Relief Society Pianist. I'll update more on the ward as I get to know it better each week.
So the whole ordeal ended up taking quite a bit of time and energy, so we didn't do much else yesterday.
Today: Second day of class. And I'm still pretty excited about class, even though it is kind of painful to do homework when you could be exploring London instead. I have class from 9-11:40, and then it's free time until 4:45. Me, Lizzy, and Steve set out to do another walk (but first stopping for lunch to get Falafels at a little restaurant near us called "Kebabs-Falafels" or something along those lines. Haha. We decided on the "Walking Through The City" walk. Here are some things we saw:
•We got off the Tube and started walking on Cheapside (which I swear I recognized from Dickens' novels or something
•The Mansion House (this awesome old building from the 1750s where the Lord Mayor of the city used to live. We stopped in to see if they had tours (closed 'til September) and they had some of the highest security I think I've ever seen here so far)
•The Financial District (this is the Royal Exchange)
•I can't remember what this building was, but it was in the area of the Financial District. Look closely at what is topping the building
•a bunch of cool buildings with really neat modern architecture that I didn't manage to take pictures of, like Lloyds and Minster Court
•The Church of St. Michael Cornhill (Mendelssohn's practice organ is in it. The Church was built in 1040 but then was rebuilt by Christopher Wren (who seemingly built everything in London) after the Great Fire
I just love the history of everything here. Ancient, old, and modern are all combined into this bustling, incredible city. You could spend hours and hours in every little piece of the city, and the city is huge!
(PS- I'm trying to be better about taking pictures... sometimes when I'm walking around I kind of hate to because I like just looking around everywhere, trying to process everything that I'm seeing)
Being here is exhausting, but definitely the coolest thing that I've ever done. I'm so glad I have as much time here as I do, even though I know it's going to fly by.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Touristing and Mozart
Saturday was the first day of class. We won’t usually have class on Saturdays, but this has been kind of a crazy week. I’m taking Shakespeare and a Victorian Literature class called, “The Woman Question”, about the place of women during that time. It’s actually pretty interesting. Anyway, I’m such a nerd and I totally am excited for my classes (except for the homework part). We have one classroom in the place that we’re staying in, so we just have to go down the stairs to get to class.
We finished the Theatre Walk that we had started the day before, and saw cool places like Leicester (pronounced “Lester”) Square (some of the spelling/pronunciations are so weird here) where you can buy half-price theatre tickets on the day of the show, Trafalgar Square,
Piccadilly Circus, which is kind of London’s version of Time Square, London’s Chinatown, and so much that I could keep going on forever. And even if this is lame, we all took a quick stop at McDonalds to see how their McFlurry's measured up (kinda melty).
We ate dinner at "Kahns", an Indian Restaurant that is just down the street from us. And I discovered that I love Indian Food.
Last night we went to a concert of Mozart’s Requiem at an old church called St. Martin’s-in-the-Field.
It was incredible. The acoustics were so so amazing, and the orchestra/choir was good, and it was all just such a neat experience even though we paid for the cheap balcony tickets and couldn’t see a thing. I love Mozart. And I’m so glad that I re-watched Amadeus with Dad just before coming here because it just made it even that more powerful to me.
We finished the Theatre Walk that we had started the day before, and saw cool places like Leicester (pronounced “Lester”) Square (some of the spelling/pronunciations are so weird here) where you can buy half-price theatre tickets on the day of the show, Trafalgar Square,
Piccadilly Circus, which is kind of London’s version of Time Square, London’s Chinatown, and so much that I could keep going on forever. And even if this is lame, we all took a quick stop at McDonalds to see how their McFlurry's measured up (kinda melty).
We ate dinner at "Kahns", an Indian Restaurant that is just down the street from us. And I discovered that I love Indian Food.
Last night we went to a concert of Mozart’s Requiem at an old church called St. Martin’s-in-the-Field.
It was incredible. The acoustics were so so amazing, and the orchestra/choir was good, and it was all just such a neat experience even though we paid for the cheap balcony tickets and couldn’t see a thing. I love Mozart. And I’m so glad that I re-watched Amadeus with Dad just before coming here because it just made it even that more powerful to me.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
London Walks
While I'm here I'm taking 3 classes, one of which is a 1 credit class entitled, "London Walks". The textbook is basically a travel guide of walking tours. Today some of us attempted the "Westward from the City: Theatre Walk". We spent all afternoon doing it and only made it halfway through! Some highlights: walking along the Thames, seeing Big Ben and the London Eye for the first time (though at a distance), taking touristy-but-much-needed pictures in a Phone Booth...
...and even just walking through the city (or a small portion of it) was so cool. We saw the Somerset House (an old basically palace built in the late 1700s that royalty liked to use). I don't know if you can see because it's not that great of a picture, but there are fountains in the back that they turn into a skating rink in the Winter...
Me and Lizzy
Fitting as many of us as possible
...and we also saw the famous "Drury Lane" (which it turns out was a pretty scandalous place for awhile)...
.... we also got stuck in some of the hardest rain I've ever been in. We ran to the tube and by the time we got out at the next stop, it was completely cleared up. And then tonight we went to a play called "The Woman in Black". Uh.. it was okay I guess but I would definitely never recommend it.
Today was fantastic. I still can't really believe that I'm here!
Updates to follow. FIrst day of class is tomorrow so I'm thinkin it's time for bed.
Updates to follow. FIrst day of class is tomorrow so I'm thinkin it's time for bed.
specifically for Stephanie Marie Olds
Sorry that most of you won't think this is funny (unless you are Stephanie, Tara, or Amelia).
Jet-Lag and Lack of Sleep
I am SO lame. I have been here for almost 24 hours and I have still not taken a single picture. It probably would have been pretty funny to see all of us yesterday. We all were walking around zombie-like, trying to meet everyone, unpack, walk around the neighborhood, while we all wished we could be sleeping instead. I took the tube for the first time with some friends over to The National Gallery near Trafalgar Square, but we were only there for a few minutes because we had a meeting... so we'll be back another time. And then we walked around Kensington Garden. And it was all a haze.
I got a good night's sleep, so today should be much better. And now I'm extremely excited to be here!
(Outside of Kensington Palace in Kensington Gardens)
Thursday, June 26, 2008
I'm here!
So, I made it! I'm actually here, here in London, in my new home for the next almost-two months: 27 Palace Court. Nothing too eventful on the trip over here. I had a Philly Cheese Steak in Philly (layover), tried to sleep on the plane, made it through an extremely long customs line, found the train to Victoria Station and even made an Italian friend on the ride, and took a taxi the rest of the way. Now it's 1 pm here and I would really enjoy a nap. But instead, I'm off to get my Tube pass.
PS- On the train ride to Victoria Station, I tried my best while balancing myself and my suitcase (there wasn't room to sit down) to look out the window. It's gorgeous, and I'm so excited to see more!
Friday, June 20, 2008
five more days...
Okay. I know I haven't even left yet, so it's a little ridiculous that I'm already writing on here, but seriously I just can't wait anymore. It's so crazy to me that I'm leaving in FIVE days to spend TWO MONTHS in LONDON!! Who does that?! (Actually, I know a lot of people that have, but that's beside the point).
My room is a disaster. I keep halfway packing my suitcase because it's stressing me out, but at the same time, I still need half of the stuff I've been packing. Gah!!! Wish me luck!
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