Lots to update on, as I've recently visited quite a few places. A little while ago, my friend Kate and I visited Portobello Road and Markets, which was a lot of fun. The market had a lot of antiques that were beautiful.
We also went to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens the other day, which was really nice. It's amazing that there is so much open land within the city.
On Friday, my friend Emily from Conn came to visit (she is currently studying in Florence) and we walked around a bit and had dinner. Friday night, Johnny visited from Cambridge. We went to a nearby pub with Kate called "The Court", but quickly abandoned it to go to the UCL Union Bar for cheaper drinks! We met up with some of my other friends there, too, and it was a lot of fun.
On Saturday, Johnny and I went to the National Portrait Gallery. They have a fairly large Tudor gallery, so I was very excited--it houses a bunch of the original Tudor portraits. From there, we journeyed to the Tower of London, which I have already seen but Johnny wanted to see it. Unfortunately, both the Circle and District lines were closed for the weekend. These are major lines in central London, so it was really inconvenient for everyone. Instead, Johnny and I walked along the Thames to the Tower. It was a very long walk--probably around an hour or more--but totally worth it because we got to see a lot of London in the process. The Tower was fun, aside from the fact that I got fish and chips and a bird flew into my container and grabbed a bit of food for itself. Subsequently, I now have a fear/hate of birds.
The Tower Hill station was completely closed, so we had to take the bus to a different tube stop, and of course the bus was completely packed since there were no tube services. I was also angry that I had to pay twice using my oyster card, whereas using the tube I would have only had to pay once.
Later that night we went to the UCL Union again to watch the big rugby game, England v. France. It was hard to follow everything, but fun to see all the English students get so into it. England won, by the way.
Today, Johnny and I went to go see Westminster Abbey. It's an amazing place, and much more interesting than I thought it would be. I didn't get to go inside, because of Sunday services, but it's 7 quid to get inside anyway--and that's with a student discount. We also witnessed a very interested event--we were standing behind the abbey, and a bunch of fancy cars were arriving, and men dressed in red robes and wearing fancy jewel things around their necks came out. It looked like really important people, and we later learned that it was probably the lord mayors of London. They all had sceptors and everything!
This upcoming week is going to be really tough, as I have two big coursework papers due on Thursday for my econ classes. They don't count toward my grade (as my grade is 100% examination), but they allow me to sit the exam.
I uploaded close to 100 pictures on my photo site: http://www.picturetrail.com/justinekelly
Keep in mind that you'll need to click on each thumbnail to see the full size picture--for some reason, the photo site lets me rotate pictures but it won't let me rotate the thumbnail, so to see the image correctly you'll need to click on the thumbnail!
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