Oh London!

Hello friends!
Sorry I have not updated this in awhile, I was in London all last week. I will attempt to give you a summary of the last week but I am sure it will be horribly inaccurate and I might keep using the same adjectives (i.e. cool, wonderful, and awesome) over and over again. Truly though it was a great experience, I will give you the highlights. I am exhausted after all that crazy sight-seeing though and I am glad to be in High Leigh just relaxing (well relaxing and doing homework) It is a much needed break though, away from the bustling energy of the city.
now to those highlights....

First night there we saw Les Miserables. Incredible performance. I hope to go see some more shows (maybe wicked...) when we go back to london another time. It was a great way to start out the trip.

Thursday I went and toured buckingham palace. Got to see all the beauitful and ornate state rooms. Lavishly decorated of course. They also had the Queens wedding dress and jewelery on display. After the tour we walked around down by parliament and westminster abbey and saw big ben.

Thursday night was our first Globe play-Love's Labours Lost. It was fun to see it done in traditional shakespearan dress on the stage it would have been first performed on (well a copy of that). We also saw Merchant of Venice there on saturday.

Friday I went to the National Art Gallery and saw some great paintings-they also had a photo mosaic displayed out in tralfalgar sqaure so that was sweet. We grabbed lunch at the local grocery store (tessco) and ate at the foot of the huge monument to lord nelson (defeated napoleon in the battle of trafalgar--wow that british history for dummies does come in handy!)

Afterwards we ventured out to find abbey road. After asking some locals we finally ended up at the sacred crosswalk where they took that famous picture. We attempted to emulate it but alas we don't have the ability to stop traffic as those boys did...but our attempts still turned out pretty cool. We wandered around and then ended up at westminster abbey for the evensong. I was really tired so I must admit I wasn't too "moved" by the service...it more moved me to sleep. but it is still a really beautiful church and I might go back to see all the famous people buried there.

We went out and got some chinese afterwards in china town and then ate magnum bars in picadilly circus ( a mini times sqaure) and watched the bright flashy advertisements.

Saturday we went to Notting Hill and met up with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts...just kidding..but we did shop around in notting hill's famous portobello market (now more famous because of the movie) they had a lot of antiques (aunt linda, i spotted some antique spoons...i might just have to go back and get you one--:) ) and jewlery and whole fruit and veggie market. we didn't even make it halfway, it was a long street. but we saw a lot of it and got some croissants and apples for lunch. yum:)

After the play on saturday we went and rode on the London Eye (the large ferris wheel) you go inside these large capsules that are clear so you can see out over all of london, the ride takes a half an hour. It was beautiful, we got up there right at sunset just to watch the orange sun descend behind the purple clouds...ahh it was amazing.

hmmm...that sums up the highlights. i am sure i have left out a ton. the city is really not that hard to navigate. we rode the underground (subway) and the double deckers. which was a lot of fun. I can't wait to go back and do more later this month and then again in december we will be there at the very end. I can't believe a month has come and gone. We are here at High Leigh until friday and then we move on to cambridge for a short while before flying off to ireland!! can't wait for that:)

Well I miss you all very much. I am going to try to get some more pictures up here this week. maybe tomorrow--i'll take a study break:)

love you lots. until next time.

cheers!