Reading Break: London

Now I can move on to my reading break holidays, which could become the largest post ever if I’m not careful, so I’ll try to make it short and include lots of pictures for those of you who get bored of reading.

On Thursday (21st) morning we left for London. We went to the British Parliament buildings (yeah Big Ben!!) and watched both the House of Commons and the House of Lords in progress- which is apparently something very few Britons get to do. We also had lunch with three MPs, which probably isn't a common experience either! I also noticed a police officer standing outside the doors of the building with a huge assault rifle or something (I know nothing of guns) and the viewing gallery in both Houses was separated from the floor below by plexiglass, which surprised me in comparison to the Parliament buildings in Ottawa but honestly, who wants to attack the Canadian parliament?

Beth, Sharon, Big Ben, and I (and Mark in the corner there for some reason). The reason that I look like I'm moving is because I am. A guy asked someone to open the gate for him, and as I was the only one who heard and he was carrying something really heavy, I felt that I should help him out, regardless of the fact that this was our fourth attempt at this particular shot.

Afterwards we went out to explore the city. We checked out Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. Then it was time to check into our hostel. For some reason Tim insisted that we walk there instead of taking the Tube as suggested, and then the street number for the hostel didn't exist, the numbers just skipped past 229. . . I was convinced it was one of those Platform 9 ¾ deals and we just had to run straight at a wall, but it turned out not to be the case and we found the hostel down the block. That night was a much less interesting experience of watching The Homecoming. We had been forewarned that this play was quite sexual, "a pornographic male fantasy" to be exact. In the end it was pretty much the dumbest play ever!

On Friday we visited the Globe, aka the remake of the original Globe theatre in an altogether different location, but it was cool! Then we took off to explore the city again. We went to Tower Bridge, and along the way saw London Bridge which pretty much just looks like a slab of cement lying over the Thames. Funny story though: the New London Bridge (built after the Old Bridge burned down) was bought by an American, who thought he was buying Tower Bridge and then got a big surprise when the bridge was shipped over.

Laura, Ree, and I excited that Tower Bridge is awesome and way better than London Bridge. I look a little stupid, but oh well, we've determined that for the most part Oosterhof's aren't particularly photogenic, among other things. (Some of you know what I'm talking about, right girls?)

We also got go to Evensong at Westminster Abbey, after Laura used her wiles on the security guy, which is where the Queen was married and also had her coronation! We visited Buckingham that night, lying on the steps outside the gate and then walked down the Mall where they have all the Royal Processions.

Buckingham at night. I saw a light on and someone moving around inside. I'm certain it was the Queen. Originally, I though it was Prince Harry, but as we all now know, it couldn't have been him because he was in Afghanistan.

We visited St Paul’s Cathedral to, which is crazy massive, as you can see:

That's Sharon and I hugging a pillar, see how tiny we look! And that was even before we spent an entire week living off of peanut butter sandwiches!

By the end of the night Sharon, Ree, Laura, and I were dying from walking for hours and riding the Tube for hours, and lugging around heavy luggage for not quite hours, so we decided the only thing to do was head for the golden arches, at which sight Laura nearly cried with joy.

Us at McDonalds. That's me in the flowery shirt. Ree's sort of hidden by a stranger. Laura's in pink at the back of the line. I'm not quite sure why we made her go last after her emotional reaction to the very sight of the place because clearly she needed it more than us.

So that was London. Not as many pictures as a promised at the beginning of this post, but I decided I didn't really want a bunch of pictures without people in them because otherwise they're not all that interesting for those of you at home. If you really want to see the million pictures I have of all the buildings and monuments that I saw, you can sign up to see them when I get back.

Anyways, I decided to do my vacation in stages over the next week. The next instalment in the series is Edinburgh. Here’s a sneak peek: