My First Few Days in London

Part 2 of my Great Britain saga! So here is starting from the beginning of my two week adventure in Great Britain. I arrived in London Tuesday May 8th, 2012. After a 10 hour flight from Houston on which I got maybe 2 to 3 hours of sleep, as I walked through the Heathrow airport in London I was in a daze. I met up with the rest of the group and from the airport we took a 15 minute train ride, then a ten minute cab ride where we ended up at Regent's College in Regent's Park in the city of Westminster, which is part of London. After checking in and going on a tour of the campus we then went to Baker Street Station where we bought our Oyster cards, which are the passes for the Tube. Then we went and got some mobile go phones, found the post office, and a grocery store. Then finally after eating dinner we walked through Regent's park up Primrose Hill where we saw the beautiful London skyline.

Regent's College. It was so pretty all covered in Ivy.

Beautiful, green Regent's Park

A cab we saw on the way through Regent's Park.

The top of Primrose Hill.

The top of Primrose Hill. Don't mind my hair, it'd been like that for probably almost 48 hours.

 

A video of the London skyline at the top of Primrose Hill.

Some of our group being silly. We were all exhausted because they hadn't let us sleep at all!

Amber, Jessica, and me (I went by Jessie on this trip because there were 3 Jessicas) The three of us stuck together throughout most of the trip.

The next day we went and acted like tourists by seeing all of the sites around London. We were lucky enough to discover that it was the opening of Parliament and the Queen was going to be heading to Parliament. Yes, my first day actually in London I saw the Queen of England!!!

Me and Big Ben. Interesting tidbit: The clock isn't called Big Ben, Big Ben is actually the name of the bell.

Westminster Abbey

Sorry, I saw this and thought it was hilarious, so I thought I would share :-D

A video of the Guards getting ready for the Queen.

The Queen's Guard

I had to get a Chacos picture.

This was a majority of our group. This was actually my Shakespeare class. From left to right: Me, Professor Harris, Morgan, Crissy, Professor Jess Tvordi, Ben, James, Jessica, Karen, and Bryant.

The Queen of England

Trafalgar Square

Me and that's the National Gallery behind me.

This was in the Tube. Instead of saying "Watch your Step" they say "Mind the Gap" they also say "mind your head," "mind the step," and so on.

This is the Millennium walking bridge. For you Harry Potter fans you'll notice that this is the bridge that gets torn up by the death eaters in the sixth movie.

The Shakespeare Globe Theater.

We saw three Shakespeare plays at the Globe Theater. They're doing this Globe to Globe thing right now where they do all 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 different languages. The first play we saw was The Two Gentlemen of Verona in Shona, which is an African language. It was performed by two men that did all of the different parts. This was probably my favorite play that we saw at the Globe theater. I'll get to the other plays later on.

Inside the Shakespeare Globe.

Inside the Shakespeare Globe.

This is Sherlock Holmes House.

Me in the Sherlock Holmes cap.

Me and Jessica at the entrance of the Sherlock Holmes museum.

Me, Jessica, and the inspector.

Me, Jessica, and the inspector.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum and Gift Shop.

They have these all over London, this was the only one that I saw that I actually knew who it was. They have these blue dots on buildings where famous people lived or stayed, and the dates when they were there.

Parliament.

Parliament.

Jessica and I went and saw Wicked, just the two of us. This was our first time venturing on our own and it was super easy!

Wicked!!!

My first time trying Fish n Chips. They were so delicious!!!

The second Shakespeare play we saw at the Globe Theater was Macbeth in Polish. This was definitely my least favorite play. They took a lot of liberties with this play, for instance, Lady Macbeth was pregnant at one point, and there was a rape scene right on stage. Plus the witches were cross dressing men. Definitely not my favorite adaption.

Can you see one of the witches. It's the guy with a white poofy wig and the yellow feather boa.

Sitting outside the Tate Britain.

The Tate Britain. It's an art gallery. We also went to the Tate Modern, the art was too modern for me there.

St. Paul's Cathedral.

A statue in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Abbey Road. This is the road the Beatles walked on for one of their album covers. I didn't even try walking on it, there were tons of people walking across it, plus there were so many cars that you could tell was annoyed with all the tourists.

Abbey Road.

A few of us went into the Mosque. The girls had to cover their heads with scarves or hoods. Everyone was super nice.

London Central Mosque.

We went to Harrods. For those who haven't heard of Harrods, it is a super expensive department store. My friend Jessica bought some Chanel perfume for about $80. I bought one piece of chocolate for over a pound.

Harrod's

Me and Jessica trying on tunics in the Victoria and Albert museum.

I look nice, right?

Very masculine, I sure hope they were pants under these or we'd all get an eye full.

Here ends Part 2 of my saga. Check back soon for part 3.