Last Full Day in London

August 6, 2007

London, England

Last day in London. I am not ready to go. This morning I met Julia and Alex at nine to go take a tour of the Parliament Building—which was spectacular. We got our tickets without a problem, and were on our way just fifteen minutes after arriving to the Parliament site. We had a great tour guide, and it was so neat to find out the inner workings of the British government. This was a great tour that I would also recommend to anyone going to London (I should make a list of the musts and must-nots and give it to anyone I know going to London). The tour lasted seventy-five minutes and we seemed to get to see pretty much everything important in the Parliament building, and we got all of our questions answered. The tour ended in the old Parliament Chapel, building the 11^th century, and the only part of the original Parliament building that survived the fire that destroyed the rest of it in 1836 (which also surprisingly survived the blitz bombings of WWII. There was also an exhibition on slavery in Great Britain at the end of the tour, but we had to get going so I only got the chance to glance at it.

We ran straight from Parliament to the London Eye afterwards, where we had to wait in line for only fifteen minutes before taking our half hour loop around the world’s biggest Ferris Wheel. I was glad to do it once, but I would not say it is a must do (there are other great views of the city from St. Paul’s, Westminster Cathedral, and probably other tall buildings). It was fun nonetheless, and afterwards the three of us went to good old Mickey D’s to enjoy the tasty and the food that is much healthier than that that is baked in gallons of grease under the golden arches that line the streets of the States. I tried a Rolo milkshake, and it was grand.

After eating, we went back to the dorm to say our goodbyes to Allie and Freya, which was definitely pretty sad. I am so glad we met them and got to hang out with them as much as we did. After hugging Freya and Allie goodbye, we went to St. James Park to take some pictures in our favorite London place. We walked through the park, and on toward Trafalgar Square where Julia really wanted to take pictures with the giant lions that guard Horatio Nelson’s giant statue. Climbing up on top of those statues was a serious scare.

The weather today was not as sunny as the past few were, but it was certainly just as warm, if not warmer. After taking these pictures, I sought refuge in the air conditioned National Gallery, which was quite a treat. I saw so many paintings I had studied by artists such as Canaletto, Gauguin, Matisse, Gainsborough, Seurat, Turner, Vermeer, and more. I went through as many rooms as I could in the time I had there, and was fortunate enough to stumble upon Joseph Wright of Derby’s An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, one of my favorites, which was for some reason not even advertised as one of the Gallery’s highlight paintings (which should tell you just how good the collection there is). I am so glad I made it to the National Gallery, and would honestly put it in the same caliber of art collections as the Louvre.

I left the Gallery to go to Marble Arch and do some last minute London shopping (it is amazing how little I bought in the way of keepsakes, yet how full my bags were for the way back). After Marble Arch, I made a stop at Starbucks to grab what I thought would be one last Mango Passion Fruit Frappucino, since they are not available in the States. It was delicious. Then I went back to the dorm to say goodbye to Julia and Alex, who were heading off to Russia just a few minutes after I left them.

I then went back to St. James Park, where I planned on running after visiting with Lindsay, Rebecca, Leah, and Mia (a girl Leah met who had just arrived in London from a summer in Russia), but we ended up having a full scale picnic, with Pimm’s, wine, and all, so there was no way I was going to run after that. Once it started to cool down, we headed back to the Wigwam House (as we so affectionately call our dorm, Wigram House) to spend the rest of the evening in the 3^rd floor kitchen, which seemed to be our hangout of choice when we weren’t all in my room. We talked for a long time, and I brought all the rest of my crackers and chocolate into the kitchen in hopes that the others would gobble it up for me. After a few hours, the security guard came up to tell us that there were noise complaints (we were being loud and laughing a lot). We obviously did not want to piss anybody off, so we broke up the party and I went into Leah’s room where Mia showed me pictures from her study abroad experiences last fall and this summer. Since the moment she got here, she has been trying to convince me to study for a semester in Copenhagen, and her pictures made it pretty tempting. She also showed us pictures from some place in Italy (cannot remember the name for the life of me) and then some from Pompeii as well. I would like to go to both places.

I had a lot of fun looking at the pictures, but before I knew it the time was already 2 AM. Lindsay and I had agreed to go running at 7 AM, and I still needed to shower and wanted to start packing. I said goodnight to Leah and Mia and went to go shower. I grabbed some clothes and souvenir bags and started spreading them around the room, but did not physically put anything into my suitcases. After showering I went almost immediately to bed, and I fell asleep just about as soon as my head hit my pillow.