London Day 2

As Courtney and I sit in the living room watching The Voice UK and eating, I figured I would continue posting about my travels since I have nothing better to do. Today Courtney and I took the bus into Oxford, which is only about 15 minutes away, and saw Titanic! And walked around Oxford a little bit. We don't know where the famousy, tourist buildings are so we are going to go back again sometime after a little bit of research and go find those places. But for now I will continue where I left off in London...

On our second day in London we decided to go on the London Eye, which is basically a ferris wheel. There are giant enclosed compartments that about 20 people can fit in and you can look out at the city in all directions. It was neat being able to see the city from above, but I probably wouldn't do it again. It was a bit pricey and it took a long time to get around, about half an hour. It was cool to do at least once while I was there though.

Westminster Abbey from the London Eye.

While on the London Eye. And the gross Thames water.

What the compartments looked like.

Buckingham Palace from up above. I think the "changing of the guard" is happening as well.

The girls and I on the London Eye.

Once we got off the London Eye we decided to explore the city again because we had all day to do so and, duh! that's why we were there! We made our way to Westminster Abbey and were thinking about going inside but there was a pretty long line and we had just spent money on the London Eye so we passed. We are going to be back in London before coming home in June with another friend so we thought if we really want to go, we can wait till then and go.

 We took the Underground A LOT to get everywhere. It just made getting around so much easier.

 We found Harrods which is pretty much like the New York City Macy's. It was so fancy and had a ton of floors. We look at the chocolate and that was pretty much it (but we didn't buy any=a little pricey).

This guy cost 2,000 pounds!

 We then made our way to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Shakespeare was one thing I actually enjoyed reading during English class in high school, even if I couldn't always comprehend what was happening in his plays. We took a tour of the place and learned some interesting stuff. For those that don't know, this is not the original Globe Theatre that Shakespeare worked with. The original burned down, which was when Shakespeare stopped working there. Another theatre was built, but was later torn down by some religious people that didn't like the theatre (they wouldn't even allow theatres in the city limits-back then this would've been outside the city and there was a gate to get back into the city that would lock after a certain time, crazy). In the 90's or 80's (I can't remember and I'm thinking the 90's), this theatre was recreated using the same materials and everything that are believed to have been used in the originals. I stands about 200 feet or yards (again I can't remember) from where the original one had stood. They couldn't put it at the same spot because there is now a building there.

This is the ceiling of the stage. They had to perform the plays during the day because the gates to the city closed around dusk ( I actually just spelled that ducks first, I don't know what my fingers were thinking!) or so so everything was included on the stage: night/day, good/evil. Angels and such would come down from the ceiling while bad things would come from a trap door on the floor of the stage.

 This is part of the seating. Only a few boxes were painted like this. This is where the wealthy people would sit. They weren't very good seats to actually see the stage and the plays, but this way the poorer people would see the rich and know who they were. Basically a way for them to brag and show off their money.

 We walked around some more, went into a free art museum and wound up at the Tower of London Bridge. It was pretty. I've seen pictures/postcards of it lit up at night and it looks so neat. Maybe when I go back to London in June or some weekend while I'm teaching I can go see it at night, we'll see.

 Courtney has American Express and they have this concierge sort of thing where she can call and tell them where she is and they'll find somewhere to eat, so we did that this night. We ate at this restaurant in Picadilly which is kind of like a mini-Times Square. It seemed like a hole-in-the-wall place because we couldn't find it at first. Our seats were in a cave part of the restaurant and we were pretty secluded from the rest of the place, we felt very special. We had some good food and good wine. It was nice to sit and relax and enjoy a good meal after a day on our feet.

After eating we wandered around a bit more and found an M&M world! We had to go in! It was basically like the M&M world in NYC, but everything was Londony! They also had some NYC stuff, which I thought was kinda weird, whatever. And I don't know if anyone remembers Crispy M&M's, but I loved those things when they were around in America when I was younger. THEY SELL THEM IN THE UK! I'm going to have to buy myself a large back before returning home. I had a tiny pack in Ireland but it was not enough. And now that I am thinking about them I am beginning to crave them. Oops.

Since I couldn't get my picture with a real guard...

That concluded our trip to London. The next day we had a flight to Cork, Ireland. I'll write about that eventually.

Also, today is April 21 which means I come home in exactly 2 months! I can't believe I've been here for 3 weeks already. When we were traveling, we had so much to do in certain places and time went by so quickly. But when we were talking about it and looking back, it seemed like time was going so slow. It's only been 3 weeks, which doesn't seem long at all, but it seems like ages since I was last at home. 

It is also weird that I graduate in 2 weeks. There are a lot of collegiate "lasts" happening now and within the next few weeks that are a little sad to miss. The student teachers had their last day in the classroom yesterday and many are at Penn State enjoying 2 weeks of free time with their friends before graduating. Today was the Blue & White game and it actually seemed like a pretty nice day (compared to last year when it poured!). It's just weird not being there for all of it, especially when some of my "lasts" happened when I was only a junior. Sometimes I get a little sad about it but then I remember that I'm in Europe and this is a once in a lifetime experience. I'll be able to go to more Blue & White games as an alumni, I'll still get to graduate in August, even if it isn't with my teacher friends, but I may never make my way back to Europe again, and I probably won't ever be "living" here again. Instead of reminiscing about how I did absolutely nothing during my final weeks in college (except going out to the bars), I'll be able to look back my experiences here. When I think about what I'd rather be doing, I much rather be here doing things that a lot of people never get to do. Even though I'm going to come home with absolutely no money, I know I made the right choice coming here and I am going to make the most of it!