Monday, August 4, 2008

Parliament and a Walk through Chelsea

Friday morning our whole group, professors, families, and all, went to the Parliament building.  The tour was pretty cool, but I feel like I had mostly seen the really neat stuff already when I went with some friends to see the House of Lords a few weeks ago.  To me, it was basically the British version of touring the Capitol in D.C.  One thing that really stuck out to me was how much time was spent on decorating the building: there were these huge huge paintings everywhere, portraits lining walls, and everything was just incredibly ornate.  It was redone during Victoria's reign so I'm thinking (correct me if I'm wrong) that it dates to close to the same time as the Capitol building (mid to later 19th century?).  Except that the hall at the front, Westminster Hall, is super old.  I think the structure is from the 11th century and the roof from the 14th, or something like that.

Waiting for our tour to start.
Katie and Me
None of us really understood that we were getting our picture taken until it was already taken, which left us with a bunch of pretty funny photo ids.
Westminster Hall



After the morning at Parliament, some friends and I decided to get another one of our "walks" done.  It was through the Chelsea neighborhood, which is pretty close to where we live, and it was called "The Superstar Walk".  "Superstar" due to the many houses we passed where famous people used to live: Oscar Wilde, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Margaret Thatcher, John Singer Sargent, and a bunch more but honestly I can't remember.  We also walked by a hospital that used to be used for British Veterans, a Chinese "Physic" Garden, and an old church.  It was a nice day, which made for a nice walk.

This picture is for Uncle Andy, who is obsessed with Ben's Cookies at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake.  My giant chocolate chip cookie was fantastic.
I love some of the signs here!!!
The home of Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray).  This was probably the coolest to me out of the many we saw.

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