Month 1

This past Wednesday marked one month in London. I can't believe it's been that long already! But at the same time, I feel like I've lived here forever. I feel like I know my area pretty well and I feel really comfortable here. I can already tell I'm going to be so sad to leave...good thing I miss home, that will make it easier.

I forgot to write last weekend about our excursions and such. It was Kelly's birthday so we went out on Friday and ended up chilling at UCL, which was fun but I was so tired that I didn't end up staying very long. But we got her a cake and stuff and celebrated, it was really fun. Then we took a train to Windsor on Saturday and spent the afternoon there. We walked around the town which was adorable and we saw the castle which was breathtaking. It was ENORMOUS and so old and supercool. We went inside as well, walked around the grounds, went into the chapel and the Dollhouse and the State Apartments too. The chapel was really pretty and had tons of people buried inside it...I think we saw one of the Charles [I or II, I forgot which], and I think Henry VIII. Ah I should have written this last week, I can't remember who was buried there! Some Kings though. It was sweet.

The Dollhouse was super awesome. It was really big, and had real gold in it for the plates and such. It also had real lighting and plumbing...who the heck knows why that was necessary, but it was definitely awesome. It was really detailed and basically any little girl's dream to play with.
Oh, we saw an exhibit too about Prince Charles, comemmorating his 60th birthday. It was really cool! There were pictures of him with his mommy the Queen, his pops, and later with his sister Anne when they were both little. He was a totally adorable little boy. There was also his diploma, I think, and an invitation to his mother's coronation. There was a letter he wrote to his grandma when he was like six in cute little kid handwriting which was really cool. It was basically just a timeline of his life, all sorts of pictures of him as he grew up and important documents and things of that nature. Definitely super neato.

After checking out Charles' gallery, we went to the State Apartments. Totally amazing. There were all sorts of rooms, some had armor in them, with all sorts of spoils of war and stuff, this really sweet golden tiger head thing, some Thai crown, big jewels, and other general treasure-y stuff. They had a guard chamber where they had tons of swords and rifles arranged in cool swirly patterns all along the walls, and other weapons to show how powerful they were and how well protected the Royal family was. I thought of Cory the whole time, I with I had been allowed to take pictures in there! We saw some other chambers, meeting rooms, a dining room with a massive table and pretty chairs with pink cushions that I REALLY wanted to sit on, a bedchamber with a massive ornate bed with a HUGE canopy and big bedhangings that went from the ceiling to the floor. I'm telling you, that bed looked so amazing, I would sleep there forever. I think that was the bedroom that they said Napoleon III [I think?] and his wife slept in when they came to visit cause it had their initials carved into the bed.

Then we saw some rooms that are only open for part of the year, because in the summer they are used for when the Queen comes to the castle to ENTERTAIN GUESTS. So, we were in rooms where the Queen chills in the summer...which basically is really cool.
In general the castle was full of really cool, old-fashioned furniture and some awesome artwork. Lots of the ceilings were completely painted with beautiful scenes, Gods, monarchs, stuff like that. The entire thing is just so fancy and it was really unbelievable that we were able to walk through it and see stuff that is usually meant for the Queen and her guests.
After the castle closed, we walked down to Eton College which is where Prince William went when he was 13 or something like that, apparently it's a competitive school. We didn't get to go in or anything, but we saw it and took some pictures which was nice.

We went to this place called Nando's for lunch. It was a neato place, they had lots of chicken dishes, I know you would have liked it dad! Also, when you order, you have to tell them how hot you want it, they have like a hot-o-meter with different levels, and I was wondering if their hottest would have even registered with dad haha. I got this chicken sandwich with a lime-mango sauce on it, and of course chips aka french fries. It was excellent. They also had rum raisin ice cream, which Anna actually got, but I just laughed about for 5 minutes or so [Cory I wish you were there haha].

So Windsor was a really fun trip.

Then on Monday we had a walking tour for my History of London class. It was, of course, pouring rain all day long [awesomeeee] so we walked around with umbrellas as our feet got steadily more and more waterlogged. It was also cold, thank goodness... The walk was still cool, we got to see some churches, like St Paul's Cathedral [which I still have to go venture to the top of] and St Mary-le-Bow, and the church of St Bartholomew the Great, which is one of the oldest churches in London. We also saw some super old remains of a Roman fort and some other cool things. We went into the Guildhall, which is where meetings were and still are held where the important townspeople and mayors and stuff go...it was really cool. We also saw some remains of a Roman gladiator arena that was found some 18 feet below the ground some time ago. Definitely cool. I would like to go back another time when it's not raining though and wander around some more to explore other things.

Then, that night we went to see The Sound of Music. It was of course still downpouring, so we managed to get completely wet before arriving at the theatre. But it only cost 15 pounds, AND got our seats upgraded, I'm assuming because they didn't sell enough since it was a random Monday night. We had excellent seats, we were in the third row of the second level, I can't really imagine a much better seat in the whole theatre [which was, like everything else in London and England in general, really beautiful and elaborate]. The show was really excellent. They had awesome sets, and this really cool hill thing that the cast could walk on, and it could tilt toward the audience and away from the audience so it looked like they were climbing it...I guess it's hard to explain but it was hot. The cast was amazing, they all sang really well [except Captain von Trapp who had a really odd, low, somewhat off-key-sounding voice, oh well..] The kids were so cute and all were really good too. There was a really weird thing that happened at the beginning though. There was a lady directly behind us that was literally singing the entire first song, and it was SO distracting...she was ruining it because when they would pause dramatically in the song, she could come in before the actress did and it was just generally awful. And we were all getting so annoyed and shooting glances at each other like "what the??" So when the song ended, we thought it was going to be fine, but the lady started like echoing the lines that Maria was saying and it was definitely the most distracting thing in the world and I was not about to have it happen for the entire show, I would have lost my mind. So Patricia turned around and asked if she could please be quiet, and the woman sitting next to her said something I couldn't hear, but I think it was along the lines of "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do..." or something like that. So I was just like ahhhhh where can we move, she is ruining the whole show! And then I just was thinking, she's gotta have some sort of mental problem or something if she physically can't stop doing it, but luckily the people she was with must have talked to an usher because they were moved, thank goodness. I felt bad for being mad since I don't think it was the lady's fault, but regardless, it was ruining the show.

I still have more to write about today; we went to Hampton Court Palace and Kew Gardens for one of my classes [and I got to miss work!] but since this is already like 100 pages long I'll update again later this weekend about that. So far so good though!