Travel weekend 1: London

Colin the Caterpillar

Since I posted last, not much has been going on at the manor. We started classes and the events have slowed down a little. We did have a trivia house competition in the Bistro on Tuesday and that was a lot of fun. Especially since my house won! On Wednesday we took a local culture trip after class to a cute little town called Stamford. There were lots of shops to visit and we even bought a chocolate cake that looks like a caterpillar. Around 6:30 pm on Thursday, we loaded up the buses and headed out to London for the weekend for our first weekend trip. It took about two and a half hours to get there, so we didn't arrive until around 9:00 which didn't give us time to do much that night. However, on Friday we got up bright and early and went to experience the very mediocre, but free hotel breakfast before we headed off to the Tower of London for a few hours. After leaving the hotel, we walked in a big group to the tube station, making it even more obvious to the people of London that we were definitely tourists. The Tube ended up being not all that hard to navigate, and it was a lot like the MetroLink in St. Louis except bigger and underground. Surprisingly, my friends and I were able to navigate it correctly all weekend. The Tower of London was a really cool historical landmark. It was an old castle that now has displays of the armor and weaponry that the knights and kings may have used during this period. My favorite

Tower of London

part of the Tower was seeing the Crown Jewels. They were absolutely gorgeous and so intricate. I have never seen so much gold and so many diamonds in one place! It was magnificent. I wasn't able to get a picture because they didn't allow any photography of the jewels for security reasons. After the Tower of London, my friends and I separated from the group and went on a tour with another group to the Houses of Parliament. In Britain, they have the House of Commons and the House of Lords and we were able to take a tour of both. We were able to learn a lot of the history of Britain, and we learned that the Queen cannot go past the House of Lords whenever she visits parliament because of a century old feud between the house of commons and the monarchs. Both houses are extremely intricate and beautiful on the inside but again, we were not allowed to take pictures. On Saturday morning we got up and stopped for coffee at a nearby cafe before heading to Piccadilly Circus. Piccadilly Circus is not actually a circus, but instead it is similar to Times Square in New York. While in Piccadilly we bought tickets to see Kinky Boots at the Adelphi Theatre and then went to LegoLand, M&M's World, China Town, and a few tourist shops while we waited for the show to start. LegoLand in London is definitely not as big as the one in Chi-town, but they built Big Ben, Shakespeare, the

Piccadilly Circus

Loch Ness Monster, the Tube and a red Telephone booth out of Legos. If you've never been to LegoLand, it's awesome. Even better is M&M's World which is 4 stories of M&M's, and M&M's memorabilia. You can even see what color or flavor of M&M you are. I got white which apparently means I was having a moment of clarity. It was in fact clear to me that I wanted some M&M's so

maybe that's what they meant. In China Town we got bubble tea and saw all the chinese restaurants and marketplaces. They also had some good street performers. After China Town it was time to head to the show! I had never seen or really even heard about Kinky Boots before we went, but it was a FANTASTIC show about transgender individuals, and treating everyone with respect. It was funny, energetic, and interesting enough to keep me glued. Definitely worth seeing, and seeing it in London made it that much better. After we left the show and finally got dinner we headed to a "Jack the Ripper" tour on the East side of London where we walked around and saw all the places that his

Hampton Court Gardens

victims bodies were found and the gruesome details about their deaths. In all honesty, that was one of my favorite things that we did on this trip. It was creepy, but also absolutely fascinating. After all the events on Saturday, it was time to pack up our bags on Sunday and leave the hotel. After leaving the hotel, we went to Hampton Court Palace which is where Henry VIII and his many wives and later heirs lived. The gardens at the Palace were gorgeous and we got to see Henry VIII's apartment and his kitchens! We learned a lot about the life of Henry VIII and his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. It was quite a busy weekend, but I loved seeing everything in London and I hope to go back when they are done working on Big Ben and the London Eye so I am able to see those too.

Sorry for such a long post, Cheers!