Has it really (only) been a week and a half?

Well it has now been a week and four days since I touched down in London. It feels like it has been a week and four days, a month and a minute all at the same time. I've done so much in the short amount of time that I've been here, I hardly can believe I still have another three months to go!

Yetserday I went with a couple other people in my program to a Sung Eucharist (I didn't know what it meant really, but it was just a regular church service) at Westminster Abbey. Words cannot describe how beautiful that church is. We couldn't take any pictures, but thanks to the trusty search engine known as google, I'm sure you could easily find some on your own.

Here is William and Kate's wedding. 

We sat in a row on the left that is just cut out of the picture. 

 

Today we went to The Houses of Parliament - sadly no pictures were allowed anywhere besides the area known as Westminster Hall. This is the oldest part of Parliament, where people used to be charged for all types of different crimes. Our guide today said if you were found guilty in Westminster Hall, you were pretty much screwed. It also was used as a banquet hall, and would get pretty rowdy because they would set up temporary balconies where friends of the Lords would be invited to eat, although usually they wouldn't actually get to eat the food, so people would toss food up to them. Really great friends.

 

 Here I am in the Hall! It was very cold, and is even bigger in person. 

Also look at my fancy badge. Basically, I'm super important.

Well in my week and a half I have played tourist and seen quite a lot, but I also have had a couple of "I'm turning into a Londoner!" moments too. These types of moments are nice, because as fun as it is to be a tourist it is fun to pretend you actually belong too. Or at least I think so. Yesterday I spent my afternoon after the service walking up Charing Cross Road, near Trafalgar's Square. Charing Cross Road is full of bookstores, and I know I will need to go back and spend more time in each of them. (Me and books, cannot get enough!) It was cool because I took the tube there and back by myself, and managed not to get lost. I guess I did have to ask a police officer where Charing Cross Road was after I got there and walked around aimlessly (turns out I was on it... Maybe I should have put two and two together that Charing Cross Station would likely be on Charing Cross Road?) But other than that I was fine. I do think part of it is because of NYC, I have an added two and a half months of city life under my belt, so I am managing much better this time around (like with the tubes, big crowds, dodging pidgeons etc.)

This is a picture I snapped to remember my day. It's just a bargain book bin outside of one of the stores. It's not a very good picture because I didn't want a lot of people to notice the weird girl taking pictures of books all by herself.

The next week will (and already) has been so busy! We are going to The Museum of London on Wednesday, and Oxford on Thursday. Then Friday is a lunch at a place called Maggie Jones (I don't know too much about it, but the food sounds delicious) and a classical music concert that night. I'm also going to get coffee with my Mom's friend from high school that afternoon. Such a rough life I'm leading in London. I know I still have three months of this, but it will be so difficult to come back to the real world come April. I can only imagine how I am going to feel then. Tonight was the walking tour with my theatre professor/class around the Globe Theatre area, which was super interesting. The area is kind of creepy at night, and I can see why it was so slummy during Shakespeare's days.

Travel plans have changed again. Prague is out (traveling in Europe isn't quite as easy as everyone says it is) but I think my roommate Hannah and I are going to try and see some cool stuff around the UK before heading to Interlaken, Switzerland with two other girls from our program. Then we are going straight to Paris, because who couldn't use an extra day there? Oh and next weekend is Edinburgh already! Crazy. I'm excited to see the cafe where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book. which speaking of JK Rowling - I'm 99% sure this couldn't have been her, especially because whenever I see anyone in a big city who looks remotely like a celebrity I always think it's them (Hey! Kanye!). I'm like the boy who cried wolf, except the girl who cried celebrity. But anyway I was running and heading back to the flat and this woman walked up next to me at a crosswalk who looked just like her. And she does live so close to me, so it is entirely plausible. Who knows. I'm going to go with yes. :)