The day was absolutely delightful! First, I walked out the front door (see picture above...I promised I would do it) After I stepped outside, I completed two walks (so, two times completed...) with several other girls in the group. The first walk we did was the Kensington Gardens and Palace walk. We are so lucky to live so close to Kensington Palace and Gardens! Really, we are literally a ten minute walk to the palace! To get there, our walk book took us down a street that is only embassies. Russian, Indian, French, Romanian Embassies, and more! We weren't allowed to take pics of the street, but it was beautiful with the green trees and the astouding, elegant buildings. We made it to Kensington Gardens; pretty sure that my backyard will look like that when I grow up. :)
At Kensington Palace, we ate lunch at the Orangery. It was so fun and so elegant. I ate a "fruit scone with cotted cream and strawberry jam" and "fresh-pressed apple juice." I felt so English, eating a very English little lunch. It too was delightful.
We finished up our walk through Kensington Gardens and then made our way to St. Paul's cathedral. This time our goal was to go up to the Whispering Gallery, and we succeeded. First, I took my sweet time walking down the nave of the cathedral with my neck craned up and my eyes popping out of my head because of the sheer magnitude of it all. The floors and walks are white marble and the walls are carved so beautifully. The dome (as I previously mentioned on Sunday) is breathtaking. We walked around to the very front of the cathedral, just in awe. Then, to the Whispering Gallery. 200ish spiral steps to the Gallery that surrounds the circumference of the dome. From there you look down on the middle of the cathedral and that, too, is amazing. To think that it was built without cranes and modern building technology just blows my mind! The Whispering Gallery is really fun because you can stand at an opposite side of the Gallery as your friend and whisper to the wall and the sound will bounce to your friend. I didn't get to take any pictures inside the cathedral, because photography was strictly forbidden. So, you should probably google it when you're done here: "st. paul's cathedral, london". google images. do it.
From the Gallery, we climbed another 150ish steps to the "Stone", or the outside of one of the towers. We got a bird's eye view of London that was absolutely stunning! Seriously, I had a goofy grin plastered on my face the whole time because I was having the best time up there!
After climbing down the stairs (whew!) and exploring the museumcryptcafe (i want to go back and eat in the crypt cafe...how often does that opportunity present itself?!) we decided to do another walk.
This one took us straight down the Financial District of London. We walked along Cheapside and past the building that looks like a pickle, passing lots and lots of British men in British suits. Elegant. 
Hey Dad - thank you so much for taking me to Washington D.C. and New York and teaching me how the subway/metro work. Riding the Tube is a breeze, because you taught me how to do it, so thanks!
After dinner, a friend and I went to Soho area because there are several bookstores. We had to buy several books for our Brit Mysteries class, so we ran those errands and came back to the Centre.
How to survive a cold shower: ride the Tube in a busy time of day so that you feel really gross and grimy and hot and sweaty. Walk fast (to work up a sweat) back to location of cold shower and hop right in because if you wait, you will cool down and scream too much in the cold shower.
It feels good to be clean, though. :)
Had another waffle tonight. Yum, yum, yum. And now I'm going to try and do some reading for class before I get ready for bed.
I LOVE LONDON!
(i almost feel like opening the front door of the flat and shouting "goodnight, neverland!!")
p.s. check out the pics i loaded from yesterday. i will upload the rest of today's pics tomorrow. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment