Westminster Abbey

England

I slept in today and it was glorious. Then I went to Victoria to window shop and ended up in the dressing rooms… who was I kidding? THEN I paid to tour Westminster Abbey by myself, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had here, I think. Having the freedom to listen to the whole tour, and sitting when I wanted to and looking for as long or as little as I liked and sneaking through the back gardens unnoticed and staying in the nave for like 20 minutes replaying the choir song a billion times (200 on the audio tour keypad! And 2 for the altar commentary by Jeremy Irons and the singing accompaniment).

At the end of Loch Ness

Scotland

I really can’t believe I have internet access right now. The day has been kind of a whirlwind of TRAVEL and STUFF. The two big words in my vocabulary. I took a 12.5 hour bus ride through the night to Edinburgh, where I sprinted to my tour group only to arrive early enough to grab a hot chocolate and spruce up. WHOO. Then I met this girl named Alex and we hung out seeing castles and glens and OH MY GOD. Scotland has the most gorgeous landscape I have ever seen. The Highlands? God yes.

London Day Trip: Dover & Canterbury

England

Today I woke at the ungodly hour of 7:30 (having gotten home at 4 in the morning eek) to make good of my social programme trip to Dover and Canterbury. It poured ALL DAY 😦 And the winds were so bad that they ended up closing Dover Castle (a fortified structure. Doesn’t make sense to me either) so I only got really rainy pictures of the outside. Whatevs. Hopefully they will reimburse us.

Panoramic tour & Tower of London

England

No pictures yet, but I took them! I just have to get Melissa to upload them and hand them over. Today, I took a bus trip on a Panoramic tour of London! We drove all over, which was really nice because I saw places in London that were wonderful and interesting to see but nothing I would go out of my way to walk to.

EDIT: Pictures added!
We stopped by St. Paul’s Cathedral which was overwhelming but magical. The bells were ringing as our tour guide led us to the front. It reminded me of Notre Dame (which, honestly, I have an unbelievable desire to see).
stpauls

So we did that, went to Starbucks (yes, yes, I know, it was cold!), then walked along the Millennium Bridge.
girlsbridge

Post-Starbucks. Very happy.
starbucks

Then we went around to Buckingham Palace where we were able to see the second half of the changing of the guard, and more fuzzy hats.
band

THEN we went to Covent Garden where there is a sweet market that really resembled Faneuil Hall. We saw street performers and cute little cupcake shops.
cupcakes

We ate Paella for lunch. It was DELICIOUS.
paella

After lunch, we took the bus to the real event of the day: The Tower of London.
tower

Officers!
officers

There is a picture of me as a ghost! (Who was actually acting quite silly) But kind of hard to see. Anyways, I walked forever along the tower walls and up and down spiral staircases: clogs were a bad choice. But the ravens were cool.
raven

Alas, too short to be a guard.
tooshort

But then all was well when me and the roommates had a ham tortellini and spinach ravioli dinner together. Tomorrow: art history class and then an actual INSIDE tour of Buckingham Palace. Whoo!