Playing Catch Up

Whew so a lot has happened since I last posted and I meant to do this sooner but I woke up an hour early by accident (rare I know...) so I have all this free time and I thought I'd fill you all in!
Round 2 of Visitors:
So two Mondays ago my roommate Nina, my friend Vanessa and their friend Karissa (who also goes to Muhlenberg) arrived from Italy to visit for a few days. It was really nice to see all of them and catch up, it was kind of weird because I definitely didn't realize how much I've missed seeing them every day. I don't really think I'm the type of person who is consciously aware of missing people until I have a reminder like that, which may or may not be a good thing... not really sure. That Tuesday I took them around London for a little and Vanessa's friend from high school who is also in London came and also showed the around. We went to St. Paul's (I have now been there twice this trip... three times in my life and I don't think it will ever get old) which was really fun. Then we went to Trafalgar square and walked from there towards Parliament and Westminster Abbey. We did a little look at Parliament and Big Ben which are two pretty incredible buildings and then crossed the street to go to Westminster Abbey.
Before we got there though, we crossed to Parliament Square where there is this older man who has been living in a tent since the start of the Iraq war in protest. He lives directly across from the gates to get into Parliament and claims he wont leave until the war ends. There are a few people who have joined him and live in neighboring tents, but I thought he was pretty cool.
I absolutely LOVED Westminster Abbey, I wish I had spent more time there because there is so much there and so much to see that it just becomes so overwhelming. It's such a bizarre building in so many ways, its just a huge graveyard built on top of itself and each of the little shrines and chapels are really different and beautiful. The ceiling in the main chapel was absolutely incredible. They had a mirror in the middle of the room so you could look at the reflection of the ceiling in it without having to strain your neck and I think I could have easily spent the entire time just looking at that ceiling and been perfectly happy. Poet's corner was another really cool place, it was interesting to see who was buried there and who was memorialized because it ran the gamut from Jane Austen to Noel Coward (they included the Actors in with the writers. Convenient, eh?) I wish we had gone out to the gardens but it was pretty cold and we were all pretty tired by that point, so we went back.
Wednesday I had class but I went to meet them at Buckingham Palace, so we looked at that and then walked to the Wellington Arch on the way to Hyde Park and Harrods. We went to Harrods to look at things (I recently found out they have a pet shop...so I may have to make another trip there to visit puppies) and I got probably the best cupcake of my life, the cake part was mint chocolate with butter cream icing... so good. Afterwards we walked back to Hyde Park and then went through to Kensington Park and headed back home.

Thursday was pretty much the first day I had had entirely to myself for a long time...and I don't really remember it so I probably slept through a lot of it.
On Friday Justin came to visit! We kind of got off to a rough start, for a combination of reasons. His train got in at 5 and I had booked us tickets to go on the London Eye (the huge ferris wheel) at 6:30...not enough time to start. But then we went to get McDonald's because they don't have that at St. Andrews and he had been craving it and then the tube was REALLY delayed so we finally ended up making it there by 7, at which point I was flipping out that they wouldn't take our tickets. This was one of the major things I wanted to do in London... and I didn't really want to pay for it twice because I was stupid and didn't leave enough time! But the guys were really nice and just let us through. It was a pretty cool experience, I wish I had been able to take pictures but the glass/plastic created a huge glare. The view was absolutely incredible, though. You can really see all of London, and it was after dark so the entire city was lit up so it was really beautiful. Afterwards we went to the north of London and had tapas for dinner and then went to this really cool Indie Club that has bands play every Friday and Saturday night. Saturday Justin and I attempted to get our travel plans together for the next trip (which starts today!) and got half of it done but the ticket office for international trains was randomly closed that day for "updates" so we were a little frustrated. But afterwards we went to the British Museum. I had a better reaction to it the second time I went, I was more resigned to the fact that what I was seeing was not supposed to be there, but I kind of got over it. Whereas, Justin had the same reaction I did...through the whole museum. We pretty much went through the whole thing, but I still feel like I need to go back to actually appreciate it because it's just so huge and you get so tired out by it. I love museums but there's always that point where you want to keep going but your attention has totally wandered far, far away from anything you're looking at. So we went through, pretty much the whole thing or at least 2/3 and then went back and made macaroni and cheese.
Sunday I had wanted to go to Speakers Corner, this place in Hyde Park where people have been gathering since the Commonwealth to kind of rant their idea's at people. But when we got off the tube it was raining. We still went.. but it was kind of soggy and I was kind of bummed because Hyde Park is so pretty, and even though it was still really pretty in the rain it would have been nice if it was sunny for the last day. Even still we stuck around and listened to this guy yell about "Global Citizenship" for about 20 minutes and then walked through Hyde Park for a little. He also wanted to see Buckingham Palace, so we walked over to that before hopping on the tube and coming back.
This week was pretty much spent in recovery from last week and doing work for two weeks from now so I can enjoy this next week that's coming up...if that made any sense. The one kind of cool thing I did do was a semi-guided walk for one of my classes. I'm taking a course called "Representing London: 18th Century Literature" which is really much more of a history class than an English class, but as it took me on a great walk yesterday I'm not going to complain to much about it right now. But it took me through all different parts of the city and to see things that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
We started at Holborn Station and went to Lincoln's Inn Fields which was a fashionable address and there were executions in the park they surround... a bit of a disconnect, I know. Then we headed past St. Georges at Bloomsbury, the church the rich requested be built so they wouldn't have to go through the Seven Dials area to get to church. Afterwards we headed to the Seven Dials, by way of Monmouth Street which used to be be incredibly poor and sell second hand clothes. Today it is pretty hip and sells vintage clothes... so I guess not much of a stretch. The Seven Dials themselves were pretty cool though. The Seven Dials are a seven faced sundial on top of a pillar at a point where seven roads used to meet at a roundabout. Now there are only 5 roads, but the effect is still the same. Fairly confusing and chaotic, but it was a pretty cool thing to see. From there we walked to Covent Garden Opera house and the Bow Street Magistrates. Next to Covent Garden and St. Pauls, which was really fun for me because all I was thinking about in this general area was My Fair Lady. After that our walk took us to St. Martins-in-the-fields church next to Trafalgar square, through St. James, by Parliament and into St. James Park. At that point I opted to stop and go back to do research (we had to write a walking journal on it, which I finished last night, which included additional research), but there were two more legs including Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus... so essentially we covered a HUGE amount of land in a very short time. But our walking hand out provided us with all kinds of historical background so it was really cool to see what these places once were and what they've transformed into.
This next trip I've been alluding to should be pretty fun as well. The first half Julie, Hanna and I are heading to Rome to meet up with Nina, Vanessa (her boyfriend Jessie), Natalie, Liza and Amber. We're staying until Sunday and then Julie, Hanna, Amber and I are taking a train to Paris and staying in Paris until Wednesday. Justin will get into London around the same time I get back from Paris on Wednesday so we're hanging out for the night and then flying to Venice the next morning, spending Friday and Saturday there and then taking the train to Munich, spending Sunday there and then taking a train to Copenhagen and spending Monday and Tuesday there. So its two pretty big trips, but I'm really excited! I'll try to be better about updates, especially with this next big thing!