Best Walking Tour Ever - Experience only hindered a bit by jet lag

Wow! What a whirlwind the past two days have been. With all I have seen so far, it feels like I've been here at least a week! Please pay no attention to spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, jet lag is very real, and I definitely have it. Here are two things I have done since arriving (and I'm blaming them all on the jetlag.)

1.) Got up at 2:30 in the morning thinking it was 8:30am because I hadn't set my phone to London time, and took a shower/started getting ready until one of my roommates informed me of my mistake.
2.) Melted my straightener even though I had a converter for it. The room in turn smelled like burnt rubber for the rest of the day. Fabulous. 

Hopefully the list will not continue to grow.

Other than that, things are going quite fabulously! As I wrote that, I thought it in a British accent. After only being here for just about three days, I feel like I already could completely switch over to to talking in a British accent. As I listen to the accents here, I really have noticed how loud Americans are! I'm sure there are loud British people, but overall it seems like they are much more reserved. I am completely in love with the accents though.

Exciting news, I found out at my orientation that we only have class Monday-Wednesdays. Excellent!

Now, on to the fun parts! :) Yesterday we did a walking tour around our neighborhood (The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to be specific). I was very lucky and managed to be in the group with the awesome tour guide named Britt, who knew all there is to know about the area. She showed us several famous houses, which you can find in my Facebook album, but we were also shown Virgina Woolf's childhood home, which I did not manage to get a picture of. I thought that it was pretty awesome, because she grew up literally around the corner from our flat. But that's what I have learned about London so far, there is history pretty much everywhere you walk. Everything has a back story, and I absolutely love it.

My roommates and I! Please don't mind my appearance... Jet lag sucks.

Today was spent doing a major walking tour of the city. We went to Buckingham Palace, although the queen wasn't home. She was spending a weekend in Windsor, I'm guessing with Charles and Camilla as well because they weren't home either. We went to their place as well, just a little (haha) mansion down the road. Our guide (Britt, the one from yesterday) informed us of a way to check where the royal family will be doing public appearances. Apparently the "Queen's Diary" is up on the royal monarchy website, listing all public appearances. I'm going to check it out ASAP.

 This was at Prince Charles and Camilla's mansion. They have their own soldiers as well. We learned today that those hats are made of real bear skin! Right when we got there, they did their exercises. They are allowed to move every fifteen minutes. The soldier I took a picture of looked very proud as he was walking back and forth, and he looked like he couldn't have been more than twenty.

For lunch we went to Covent Garden Market which was once an open vegetable market and now is converted into little shops and restaurant.  My roommate and I went into this fun little shop that kind of reminded me of Pop Deluxe in Madison, except with more clothes. I almost bought a dress, but resisted. I will have much more time to shop!

Other things we saw today included: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Tower of London, The Tower Bridge, The London Eye, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's Cathedral (where Charles and Princess Diana got married), and many more things that since we're all so connected on the social networking websites, you can find pictures of these different things on Facebook.

But I do have to include this: 

 

I'm pretty sure this is a hair salon for redheads only. I'm home.

I'm thinking maybe touring Westminster Abbey since tomorrow is a free day, although I'm not sure if it's open on Sundays. Maybe a shopping trip is in order? We'll see what else I can find to do. I'm sure there will be something! But for now, cheers!