On Tuesday, my new group of friends and I went to The Tower of London. We had missed our tour the day before because of our course meetings but we got free tickets from API that were good for the week. The Tower was really cool. We did a "guided tour" with a "Beefeater." It was kinda funny because when I asked for a tour guide they didn't know what I was talking about but said they had guided tours. I would have thought they meant the same thing but I guess in England there are not "tour guides." The history of the Towers was really interesting and the Crown Jewels were beautiful! The Beefeater gave us a lot of different information about the towers such as the meaning behind the names of the Towers. I found it really interesting that the Beefeaters and their families still live at The Tower of London. After that we walked across Tower Bridge had an early dinner and then headed back to our dorms for the bar crawl our RA was putting on. It shocked me that in England it is very common for Resident Halls to have bar crawls. When we did one at Plymouth for my Event Marketing class we couldn't even say we were associated with the school. They are so common out here that they have groups that put on the bar crawls for you.
Thursday was a semi relaxing day. We stayed in our part of town during the day but we got a boat cruise down the Thames River sponsored by my University at night. The city was gorgeous from the water. It was a three hour ride and by the end the whole city was lite up. I honestly had never been so happy or seen anything so beautiful but I explained all that in my last post. It was such a mesmerizing night and definitely one of my favorite nights of my trip so far.
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Friday was our "tourist" day. We started out at Kensington Gardens and saw Kensington Palace. We then walked through Hyde Park and made our way to Buckingham Palace. We went up close this time rather than just staying more on the outskirts like we did during our original tour. We walked down to Big Ben and Parliament. We originally had planned on walking through Westminster Abbey but decided we wanted more time to do that and are going to go back on another day. We found a pub on the opposite side of the Thames. I got fish and chips. Not going lie it was the best fish and chips I have had. On the boat cruise a few nights before we had seen flying swings so we decided to head towards the London Eye and see if we could find them. There was a carnival there that had the swings. It is only in London for another week so we were so excited. The swings went up 200 feet in the air!! They were so much fun and all I could think about was how when Jackie and I were little we always had to do the flying swings. The view of the city was beautiful from so high up. We bought our tickets for the London Eye but we wanted to wait for it to get darker. We got drinks and around 7:00 we made our way to the Eye. The views were amazing! It was slightly disappointing because it was raining a little but once we were up there it wasn't bad. Plus it made it seem a little more "London" with the rain. On our way back to the tube we walked over Westminster Bridge. The view was beautiful with the bridge in front of Big Ben. I was excited because I always see pictures like that and had wanted one of my own. I can't wait to go back during the day to get a few more. I definitely was a little camera happy that day but we were being tourists so it was acceptable.
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| Kensington Palace |
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| Buckingham Palace |
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| Parliament |
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| Flying swings! |
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| London Eye |
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| On the London Eye |
On Saturday, API was bringing us to tour the Harry Potter Studio. My inner geek definitely came out when we got there. Being part of the Harry Potter generation, I found the whole thing fascinating. The work that went into making these movies was incredible! The sets and costumes were so cool and knowing that I was on the actual sets where things were filmed not just a replica was awesome. It gave a lot of insight on the ins and outs of film making too, not just the Harry Potter films. It was a pretty great day.
I am getting to know the girls I have become friends with really well. We have spent basically the whole week together and we are all getting a long great. There are four of us from Massachusetts which will be fun because we can see each other once we are home. I am really happy I have found a group of girls out here that I get a long with so well. That was definitely one of my fears of studying abroad alone, not finding friends. But I have and they are great! We already have a trip to Ireland planned for this coming weekend!!
This morning I got up early to tour the Gherkin which is one of the big financial buildings in London but when we got there there was at least a 5 hour wait. We decided it was not worth it and ended up walking through some of the markets around where I live. I finally found my white lace dress! I can't wait to wear it to the theater. The market had some really cool things. I'm excited to go back another time and really look through everything.
It is raining today now though and I am very tired from such a busy week so I will be taking is easy today and staying in. Today is the first really rainy day we have had so I can't complain to much. Classes start this week but I don't actually start till Wednesday. I am actually excited for classes. I think they will be good and hopefully I will learn a lot. Sorry this post is so long. I have had such a busy, amazing week that it was hard for me to post but I didn't want to miss anything. I am sure things will slow down once I start school. I love London and am so excited to see what else the city has to offer me! Until next time.
Cheerio,
Allie
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