The past week has been awesome and kind of touristy.
Wednesday was the first day without any meetings or anything so Stephen, Bari, and I too the national rail into central London. We met someone else from Goldsmiths on the platform and she showed us an easier way to get to the Westminster area rather than walk there. It only took like 10 minutes to get in which was exciting and it was really easy. We got off at Waterloo and immediately got a view of the London Eye (the giant ferris wheel that gives a birds eye view of London from the top). We followed the signs that pointed towards Westminster Bridge and finally turned a corner and were given the perfect view of Parliament and Big Ben on the other side of the Thames. It was seriously picture perfect. We crossed the bridge and then walked right past Big Ben (which I decided is basically the equivalent of walking right past the Empire State in NY except it's behind a fence). Westminster Abbey is right behind Parliament so we were able to get there no problem. We took the audio tour which took us all around the major tombs and chapels. The amount of history in one place is mind boggling. The highlights for me included the RAF chapel which was where Oliver Cromwell used to be for 2 years after his death before they dug him up hung him and cut off his head (just for posterity), Poets Corner which has so many major authors it's crazy, Britains Oldest Door (wasn't on our tour but was something we passed on the way), and a room that has it's history written on the windows (can't think of its name right now.) After wards we went to get fish and chips by the station and headed back. It was so strange to think that we went in for a couple of hours and came back, but the fact is it's right there! I can do that!
Thursday I went in with my flatmate Alex and her friend Debbie to go to the British Museum which we describe as the place that has everything that they stole from everywhere else. It was pretty cool though, the main things we wanted to see were the mummies and there were plenty of them- some being kind of gruesome. I went down to the other Egypt exhibit downstairs which included the Rosetta stone which was really exciting. I was able to wander and browse most of the museum before we met up after an hour or so. There was a chair from Mozambique taht was made of guns from the Mozambique Civil War which was pretty cool. Afterwards we got coffee and walked along New Oxford Street which has a lot of shopping. We went to Top Shop which had sooo much nice stuff it took us forever to look through things and try things on. There was a bag that I considered buying but I may go back and get a wallet. I did splurge and buy a top that had a Roy Lichtenstein type picture on it but it's something totally different and I really liked it so I'm okay with that.
We made our way back and just hung out for the rest of the night because the next day (Friday) Alex and I were going with our other flat mates (Brittany, Bari, and Jack(/Ashley) to the Globe to see A Midsummer Nights Dream (yea I know be jealous). It was amazing. There wasn't much of a set really but the costumes were soooo cool. The faeries mostly had these funky raggedy dress type things, otherwise the major characters were in Shakespearian garb. To change the scenes the faeries did it set to music with a lot of dancing and jumping setting up flowers and pulling down dark blue curtains.
So that's pretty much been my week so far. Today there's a music/art festival thing that I might go to with Stephen and his room mates. Thats about all.
