Bittersweet Farewells

{First night in London}

Today was my last day in London and I am extremely sad about it. Watching my flatmates pack and slowly remove things from our rooms was breaking my heart.  I have been extremely fortunate to have lived in South Kensington these past three months in a house with twelve lovely girls and a British RLS who's been more than helpful.  I have really enjoyed my time here and getting to know the city, it has been so fun running around exploring and being able to so easily go to other countries in between.  I will definitely miss the accessibility and diversity that Europe offers.  Although I am super sad to be leaving, I am excited to go home and enjoy some of the comforts that come with it.  I will be running into my friends' arms when I see them.  Before I leave though I am taking the Eurostar tomorrow with a friend to Paris.  I'll be staying for a week and will be shown the city by my two best friends who are studying there.  I will return to London for a little bit on the 28th as I am flying out of the city; I'm just glad that I'll get to see London one last time before I leave.  

{Running around those first days was the most fun}

{Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace}

{Buckingham Palace}

{Stonehenge with everyone}

{Love these girls}

{Fountain of Four Rives in Rome}

{Overlooking this magnificent city at St. Paul's}

London, I will miss you and I will be back someday soon.

Tourist Thursdays

{Westminster Abbey}

As we have limited time left in the brilliant city of London, we have been trying to do the last minute things and take full advantage of our days. Today my friend Katie and I were complete tourists and went to Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Both were absolutely gorgeous. Westminster Abbey had a lot of chapels inside the church and tombs of past Kings, Queens, and influential people.  The audio guide was excellent and we got to see Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin’s tombs there.  The ceiling had these beautiful arches and it was magnificent.  

{Cloister in Westminster Abbey}

{Westminster Abbey}

However, we went to St. Paul's Cathedral afterwards and I personally liked it better.  The audio guide was an iPod so that was cool, except all the excerpts were too long and made me not want to listen to them.  Regardless the cathedral is classy and elegant adorned with beautiful chandeliers and magnificent mosaic ceiling pieces.  Also, in case you don’t know, the church is known for it’s central dome. Christopher Wren designed the church and it’s a dome and above that in a cone structure, another dome is formed.  The inside of the dome is painted in different shades of one color giving it the appearance of sculptures. 

{St. Paul's Cathedral}

 You can walk up to the dome, so Katie and I decided that we would absolutely do that, especially since we heard the view is amazing.  We climbed up about 200 spiraling never-ending stone steps to the Whispering Gallery, which gets its name from the fact that if two people are standing on opposite sides and whisper they can hear across the dome. After that we walked up about 100 more spiraling steps to the stone gallery, which leads outside. And let me just tell you I forgot how terrified I was of heights until I was at the top of this dome. When I got to the Whispering Gallery I was like alright, this is high but there’s a high railing so it’s okay.

{View from Stone Gallery}

But when we got up to the Stone Gallery I realized I might be peeing my pants if I went any higher, especially with Katie how might be more scared of heights. 

{Me on the Golden Gallery}

So we continued, and the steps turned into a tiny metal spiral ladder in a barren cone of a structure that lead to the Golden Gallery. That staircase I was not okay with. And then it turns into a tiny little passageway that no fat or tall person is fitting through, and then you get outside to the top.  In total we climbed 528 spiraling steps up to a terrifyingly high dome with a magnificent view.

{Views from the Golden Gallery}

  We were literally holding on to each other and the railing. When the wind picked up, it was not fun, but I am so happy we did it especially towards the end of the trip because we could pick out all of the building and stadiums. 

After our fun filled tourist afternoon climbing over 1000 steps we ventured downstairs to the crypt and then figured we earned our lunch so we came back and stuffed our faces.

That evening we proceeded to the Tower of London (I went there previously with Ali) for the Ceremony of the Keys.  Tickets are free but you need to write in for them 2-3 months in advance because it’s so popular. It takes place a little before 22:00 and it’s a tradition that has been performed every night for over 700 years to lock the gates of the tower.  The Royal Regiment and a few of the beefeaters at the tower were in the ceremony.  It lasted close to ten minutes but was very cool and slightly eerie since it was so late at night.  It was cool to be involved in a ceremony that has been going on for so long.  That’s one thing that Europe has over America, a long history and cool tradtitions that have stemmed from it. 

Another BIRTHDAY!

{Me, Jacob, Eliza, andd the BIRTHDAY BOY Daniel!}

Toady is yet another birthday, but this time it is my little brother’s birthday and he’s seventeen (which makes me feel so incredibly old). My little brother is one of my absolute favorite people in this world, even though he’s going to make fun of me for this. He is also one of the most hysterical and smartest people I know and I can’t wait to see where this world takes him. So Happy 17^th Birthday Daniel, I love you and can’t wait to see you so soon!!

Royal Ballet

{Royal Opera House}

One thing that I have really come to love about London and Britain in general is the royal culture they have here.  Although I’m totally for a democratic republic over a monarchy, the fact they have a queen and a royal family is just so cool. Perhaps it’s because I love traditions, formalities and history that I like it so much.  Whatever it is, in Britain things can be given a royal charter and more after be called royal, which is the case for the Royal Ballet. I had the pleasure of seeing the ballet perform The Sleeping Beauty at the Royal Opera House last Friday night.

So here’s a little run down of how things went: I was extremely excited to go because I love the ballet (and I can’t wait to take classes when I get).  Most of the girls in my house were in Italy this weekend, so there was five people in my house and no one to get ready with and that’s never fun. So I was disgruntled by that already and then we were running late to the ballet and I will have it known that is as not my fault, but my friend’s who had to submit a blog. I’m going to blame that on the teacher though, because honestly who makes a deadline for college kids at 11pm on a Friday?  Not a smart teacher, that’s who. Anywho, I was barely involved in the ticket buying process which is very unlike me and I kind of regret now because we got there to find out that half our tickets were in the last row of the left amphitheater and the others were standing. STANDING. Why would anyone want to by standing tickets to a three-hour ballet I ask you.  I actually had a seat and I would not have been happy had it been the other way around. Still, I wasn’t happy because the seats were atrocious and I would have totally paid a little more for semi-decent seats. Alas, what can you do?  We could still see the whole stage and the opera house is beyond beautiful, decked out in regal red and gold.  The dancers were beautiful and I loved the music.  I hadn’t heard an orchestra in a while so that was nice.  I wasn’t as entranced with the show as when I saw the Nutcracker but I think that’s just because I know that show so well.  Still, it was beautiful and made for a wonderful evening out.

Last But Not Least

{Quintessential London Picture}

It’s official; it’s my last week in London. It makes me super sad, but I’m getting excited to go home.  I love packing and get really anxious about it; I usually start like two weeks in advance.  So I keep thinking about packing and then stop myself because I just don’t want to face the facts that I have to leave. But luckily, I don’t go home for two weeks, after this week I’m going to spend two glorious weeks in Paris with a few friends of mine and I’m super excited about it! Before I soak up the romantic Parisian life that awaits me I have to go out with a bang this last week in London.  Tomorrow my last paper is due and my last final is in the morning.  After that there’s a few touristy things I need to hit, a few last minute presents to get and just doing the things I love most about London. 

Some London things I need to check of my list and I fully intend on doing:

1. Tour Westminster Abbey (I know, I can’t believe I haven’t done it yet either)
2. Tour St. Paul’s Cathedral and climb to the top (ditto)
3. Walk through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens
4. Drink lots of tea (I may or may not have just made some ridiculous tea purchases)
5. Go to the theatre (My class is seeing Juno and the Paycock)
6. Drink cider at a pub (I will miss cider so much)
7. See the Christmas lights on Oxford Street
8. See the Degas exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts
9. Go to Brick Lane
10. Borough Market (My absolute favorite cheese that you can buy there can be shipped to the US, so if anyone wants to get my a Christmas present I would totally accept a wheel of cheese ;)
11. See Abbey Road (ditto to number one)
12. Watch Marry Poppins somehow (Fun fact: It's my favorite movie)

I’m sure there are other things that aren’t coming to my mind that I will have to do. I can’t believe I’m leaving so soon, it absolutely flew by! I’m excited to go home, but I’m so sad that I won’t be able to come back to London whenever I want, it really has become one of my favorite cities.  

{St. Paul's Cathedral}

{Tower Bridge}

The Cinema

{Photo from IMDB}

I went to the British cinema for the first time last night to see The Help.  I read the book this summer and absolutely loved it; I highly recommend it.  I missed the movie when it came out in the states this past August so I was super excited to be able to see it here.  The movie was very good, Emma stone was great and I thought they had adapted it extremely well.  However the whole cinema experience was very different than going to the movies in the states.  First off the movie time was at 20:30, so I wanted to get there 15 minutes early naturally.  I always worry about getting good seats especially since it just came out, and I don’t like to miss the previews.  We bought our tickets and then proceeded to the concessions. Europe doesn’t put butter on their popcorn; you can either get it sweet or salty.  I prefer butter so I skipped the popcorn, but they had crispy M&M’s! They don’t sell them in the states anymore so I had to get them.  Then we went to sit down and there were probably about six people in the theatre and nothing playing on the screen.  At 20:30 the pre-previews started and lots of people came in.  After those previews, the real previews started.  Throughout all this people were coming in and constantly talking, I was so concerned they wouldn’t shut up for the movie.  After an hour half or so of previews the movie finally started around 21:00.  Perhaps it doesn’t sound that different, but it definitely felt extremely different than movies in the states.  

Showing off London

{Tower of London}

It’s been a long week, and I feel like I’ve done nothing.  I have just about no obligations right now and I feel like I haven’t really taken advantage of having so much free time.  Also, I’m having a really difficult time figuring out some travel plans, which is adding unneeded stress to my life.  However, I had an extremely fun weekend with my best friend Ali who came to visit me! This was her first time in London and I showed her some of the stuff I like.  We went to the Tower of London, which is huge, beautiful, and very interesting.  The crown jewels are there and they are unbelievable in person.  We went through the Borough Market, went out and meet some British university students. We also went to Camden Town, which reminds me slightly of South Street in Philadelphia, except British and full of markets.  All in all it was a nice weekend, I’m really glad we got to meet up in London.

{Tower of London}

{Camden Town}

{Tea at Yumchaa with Ali in Camden}

{Camden market}

{Ali and I like to cook}

{Telephone booth picture was much needed}