(before the changing of the guard)
(changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace)
(Sorry in advance for all the typos that are probably present and the poorly written posts...I'm always exhausted when I write these!)
Today has been a fun, full day. I got up at 6 am to get ready for the day. Breakfast started at 7 am and my group had to give our presentation over London at 7:45, so we ate quickly and lined out the last details of our project. The presentation went fine, but I’m really glad it’s over so I can just concentrate on writing my paper and seeing the sights for the rest of the trip. After several group presentations, we had an in-depth orientation meeting where we went over the course syllabus and requirements.
After our meeting, half of our group took the Tube to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards. It was much more crowded around the palace than I imagined so we couldn’t see very well, but it was still fun to see an iconic part of British culture. Buckingham Palace is also the place where Prince William and Kate had their first kiss after their wedding just a few weeks ago! I loved seeing it in person after just having seen it on TV.
From Buckingham Palace, I went with a group of girls to shop at Harrods, a huge seven floor luxury department store. We have a company visit there on Tuesday, so we were supposed to go in and “shop” there before then. We didn’t actually do any shopping since I didn’t see a single thing in the whole store that was under 500 pounds…that’s about 750 U.S. dollars. Needless to say, my group and I just wandered around, rode up and down the Egyptian themed escalators, listened to the live in-store opera singer, looked at the memorial to Princess Dianna and her boyfriend Dodi (his father is a former owner of Harrods and built a shrine to the couple inside), saw the engagement ring that Dodi had bought for Dianna the night before they died, and marveled at the huge collections of ridiculously expensive designer clothes.
Then we headed back to our hotel and grabbed lunch along the way. At the hotel, we met up with the group and took the Tube to the place where our bike tour was meeting up. The bike tour company we used was actually started by an Aggie, so it was fun to be a part of something he had created. We split off into a group of about 15 girls and our guide led us on a three hour tour to see some of the most famous places in London, like Westminster Abbey (where Will and Kate go married!), several of the palaces of the royal family, and several beautiful parks. It was kind of scary at times because we were cycling through some super busy tourist areas and even streets, but I am happy to report that although I haven’t been on a bike in over a year, I, and all the other girls, made it through the tour alive and well!
After our bike tour, I went with Jessica and two other girls to find a place to eat near our hotel. We ended up eating at a café that served French food. It tasted ok, but I am starting to miss American food already!
Then we began our quest to find an internet connection. Apparently, this hotel in London is the only place we stay during the trip where wifi is not available through the service we all purchased before leaving for Europe. We tried a café that we heard had a connection, but couldn’t get it to work, so we headed to a small restaurant in the Tube station closest to our hotel. That worked great, except that we thought it stayed open until 11 pm- we didn’t realized until we were asked to leave that it actually closed at 9 pm on Saturday nights. Then we went to a nearby McDonalds and stayed there until our computer batteries died. I finally managed to post my journal from the first two days to my blog and upload all the pictures I’ve taken so far.
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