Day 17

Tuesday, May 29 -

Today was the longest day of my life. It started off on the Tube at 7 in the morning, where some lady fainted. The people standing around her helped her to the ground, and then once the Tube stopped at the next station they yelled out to the driver. Everyone was very calm about it. The British seem to lack urgency in emergency situations.

Despite all that, I still made it to work on time! And I actually got to work on the website today. The web guy ran through how to post stories and everything, and it's pretty much identical to what I do at KOMU. I posted a story about another earthquake that hit Italy right after it came through the wire. It got developed much, much more throughout the day, so the first story isn't really there anymore. That's all I got to do, though, because I was 'cherry picked' on to another assignment. It's Jubilee-craziness week, so I had to help put together a little (and by little I mean it ended up around 80 pages) book about Jubilee events and basics on the royal family. It was all useful to me, too, because my royal family knowledge is pretty limited.

After work I had to get all the way to the other side of the city for a class field study. In college it's no longer a field trip. Anyway, it took an entire hour and a half to get there, but I'm proud of myself for not getting lost. We had a tour of Greenwich and learned about its history.

The Cutty Sark! It had just caught on fire a few years ago and it was just reopened about a month ago.

Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Apparently a lot of movies are filmed here.

A street in Greenwich decked out for the Jubilee.

We also went into the National Maritime Museum. It was pretty cool, but it was closing right as we got there so there wasn't much time to look around.

 Nelson Horatio's jacket, with the bullet hole in it (excuse the flash, it was dark in there).

We hiked up a super steep hill to get the most amazing view of the city. It was seriously at least a 70 degree angle.

On the way up there were some hippies blowing giant bubbles!

The view from the top of the hill! That stadium in the middle of it is where the Olympic equestrian events will take place.

On the way back down, we crossed the PRIME MERIDIAN! I'm in two hemispheres at once!

Then I went on a Beatles walking tour! First stop was obviously Abbey Road. Everyone had to break off into groups of four and cross the road. There was a lot of traffic so we were continuously holding it all up. One of the cars even honked at us. Non-tourists were crossing the road and kept walking in front of our pictures, so we spent a large chuck of time there.

Abbey Road! I must have taken this picture at the one moment when the street was actually empty.

Abbey House plus the Queen

Abbey Road recording studio

The wall outside the studio that I signed

The tour actually wasn't over after this. We went to other places that were in Beatles movies, where they met people and did other cool things.

This is where Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman in 1969.

The Beatles had their last concert on the roof of this building, which was shut down by the police down the street.

By the time this tour was over it was past 9 o'clock and I was exhausted and starving. I had McDonald's for dinner and besides the fact that they managed to burn the bun, it tasted just like it does back home!

Day 16

Monday, May 28 -

I headed off to Kensington Palace today! Unfortunately there were no signs of royalty in the premises. The Palace was slightly disappointing because it didn't really look much like a palace. Also, you had to pay to go all the way inside and see the rooms and stuff, and I didn't want to pay so I only saw the front rooms.

On the way there, right inside of the Tube station, was a Ben's Cookies! It's apparently the famous cookie place in London, so I got a double chocolate chip cookie and it was delicious.

After the short palace visit it was class time all evening. We had a guest speaker, a business journalist and Mizzou grad, and he was super interesting. He explained the whole eurozone/Greece debt crisis to us and now it all makes sense (kind of) to me. He also said if Greece leaves the eurozone, the value of the dollar will go up and we will all become much richer here for the reminder of the summer. Greece elections are June 17 so I know who I'm rooting for!

Once that was over it was almost sunset so my friends and I decided to go hop on the London Eye! A lot of people had said the Eye wasn't really worth the money, but it definitely was. The view was amazing.

The sun setting over this building that's next to the Houses of Parliament

The sun setting over London as seen from the London Eye

Looking down the Thames from the London Eye

Westminster Palace and the rest of London

The London Eye

Day 15

Sunday, May 27 -

Today was a great day because I bought my first article of clothing in London (shoes don't count) and saw a dog.

We had school-led walking tour of Primrose Hill and Camden market. We walked to Primrose Hill though a neighborhood that had actual houses. They were gorgeous, but large houses in the middle of the city, so they were several million pounds.

Then we hiked up the hill and the view was amazing.

After that we hiked over to Camden Market. There were tons and tons of shops squeezed in one area. You could probably go back every day and never see the same stuff. There was tons of food from all different countries, clothes, shoes, jewelry, art, souvenirs and furniture. Several shops had super cute dresses, and they weren't that expensive, so I ended up buying one!

We left the market and walked up the Camden canal. I think I got kind of a tan!

We ended up walking for a long time, so it took awhile to find a tube station to get back home. The tube ride took awhile, too, but someone brought their dog on! Every time the train would make a noise the dog would start looking around curiously. It was adorable!

Day 14

Saturday, May 26 -

We took a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath!

Stonehenge was cool for about 5 minutes. The rocks are huge and some of the theories about their function are hilarious, but you can really only look at them for so long. Plus it was super crowded.

After that we went to Bath, and it was amazing! The city was beautiful and I wish we would have had more time to wander around an explore. We had a mini tour to the inside of the city where the Roman Baths are and then had a few minutes to eat lunch and explore.

Bath Abbey

The Roman Baths were amazing, too. The spring is, of course, the original spring, but there were also still remains of the original building that the Romans built 2000 years ago.

The Romans thought the water was magical and had healing powers.

A model of what the town looked like back in the 4th century.

Pieces of the original building

Some of the actual ruins from 2000 years ago

More ruins of the structure the Romans built

The spring

Pillars that held up the floor of the bath room

After the tour of the bath we got to drink the water. It was super gross tasting and warm and it smelled like rotten eggs. Also, I don't think it has any magical powers because I don't feel any different.

Day 13

Friday, May 25 -

Today was my day off (as is every Friday) and I slept in and spent the day at the Museum of Natural History. It was so cool and I learned so much!

I started off in the dinosaur exhibit. There were tons of different skeletons and fossils.

Huge arms that were bigger than me.

Stegosaurus!

They had all this hype for the T-Rex exhibit, and then it was just a robot. It was pretty terrifying, though. Apparently, if T-Rex tripped, the force of the fall would be enough to kill it.

Tail of a dinosaur. The club at the end was bigger than my head.

The skull of my favorite dinosaur, parasaurolophus! 

After the dinosaurs I moved on to the mammals. Most of the displays showed the evolutionary past of the animals, and some even had models of what the ancestors looked like.

HUGE whale. It took up the whole entire room.

Inside of a dog!

After that I moved into the Darwin Centre, where actual scientists work and do research. They had tons of different animals on display in cases of formaldehyde. It was pretty gross but also super interesting to look at.

An octopus

Some kind of fish skeleton.

A snake

Next we went into the human biology exhibit. There were really cool displays on human development and how the brain works and all that stuff. It brought back memories of AP biology!

Apparently, that is how much blood is in your body. 

There was still the whole other side of the museum to explore, but they were closing as I was halfway through the human biology exhibit. It was supposed to be a late night, which is where the museum stays open a few extra hours, but apparently what they do is close almost all the exhibits so theres only a few places you can go. It looked like they were serving dinner and drinks and it looked like fun, so I'll have to go to one sometime!