London - Summer 2007

My second Monday morning at work started with me doing actual things. I created an ad for the newspaper and learned how to use HTML. I designed the Web site for Carousel Children's centre, which is a day care centre that 4Children own, the first of nine planned. There was a basic template, but it took forever because HTML is so tedious. It took all afternoon to design about seven pages, but then little things kept popping up and I would go back through and rework the whole page. It doesn't sound like fun, but it was satisfying to have work to show and it required a lot of attention.

That night after our Monday meeting, all of us plus the Dean of some university went to Brick Lane in East London and ate Indian food at Standard Balti House, Bangladeshi Cuisine. I was nervous because it is not a great area, even though there was 23 of us, and I have always heard how spicy Indian food is. But inside the restaurant it was very nice and first they brought out poppadoms, which are round and you break them up like tortilla chips and dip them in different sauces. Our next course was these fried onion balls that normally I would never eat, but they tasted like onion rings and were even better with the sauce. I am finally growing up and trying new food! Then we had Chicken Korma and this lamb dish served over rice with the best bread ever to go with it. None of it was very spicy, but I didn't like the texture of the chicken. However, the lamb was very good and I don't believe I have had it before. We got to the restaurant around 8:30 and didn't leave until about 10 because there were so many of us.

Tuesday at work I finished the Web site, then sorted through Carousel’s policies and procedures in order to write the content for the page. I then uploaded it to the Web site and fixed some more minor problems to other pages and loaded pictures. After work I came home and I am assuming I cooked something, but can’t really remember because I should have kept up with my blog better! But, that Friday we had out internship journals due then Monday morning our personal journal was due, so hopefully I was journaling. Most likely I was reading and making random trips to the grocery store just to walk around and hang out.

Wednesday at work I started another on-going project of sorting through the publications archives. They were horribly unorganised, with stacks and stacks of publications dating back to 1993. I spent a while just devising a system and then waded though boxes that had exploded all around me. That afternoon I also started another week-and-a-half project on the Make Space Youth Review. It is a 100-page document that gives the result of a year-long study of 16,000 British teenagers and their live. Mainly it says that if the government gives them a place to hang out they will not hang out on street corners.

People here depend on the government for everything. I would not expect to have a centre to hang out at home, I would stay at home with my friends and expect to find my own entertainment or have my parents provide it, but here if the government doesn't have an after-school program they freak out. So, the report has all these facts and figures in it that were not sourced properly and so, to me, the whole thing is pretty much plagiarised. My job was to go through the bad job they did in the footnoting and try to make it consistent and correct. The interns that were supposed to be doing it didn't use a consistent style, and where we said a situation needed to be so we aren’t liars, they made up a source.

Over all it ended being a solid week of correcting footnotes, proof-reading and more copyediting. So I went home on Wednesday with a headache from staring at the computer and more chapters to look forward to on Thursday. I also did more laundry in preparation for my weekend in Dublin and packed my backpack full of stuff. Thursday I covered chapters 4-9 and also learned how to lay it out as the graphic designer is going to Spain to run with the bulls for a week. I then took off work about an hour early to make sure I got a chance to change money before we left. Next, a 10-hour train-bus-ferry trip to Dublin, Ireland!

Saturday morning we left Vandon around 9, there were 6 of us, and caught the Oxford Express to Oxford, home of Oxford University, Alice in Wonderland and the great hall in Harry Potter 1 and 2. The ride was about an hour and a half, but it was raining most of the way and I fell asleep. I’m getting pretty good at sleeping in an upright position. It never fails that when I have to be outside somewhere, it is always raining. We made it there about 11 and walked from the bus station to the tourist office to see if we could find a walking tour of the city, but theirs were booked and apparently only one company operates out of Oxford, or they just didn’t want to tell us how to find the competition.

My mistake this trip was not doing enough research about the city before visiting. I knew we had to see Christ Church College and there was a castle there, but that was about it. So we ate lunch in an expensive pub and then continued walking until we saw Christ Church, which is one of the many small colleges that make up Oxford University. It also has a lot of gardens and a Cathedral. Across the street was Alice’s Shop, because Lewis Carroll was a dean, I believe, at Christ Church and Alice was the daughter of someone else who worked there that Carroll used to tell stories of Wonderland too. They had all sorts of memorabilia. Then we sat in the garden for a while until the great hall opened, paid and toured the college.

It is more medieval architecture and I would have learned more if we took a tour, but it was beautiful, from the grounds to the ceilings. We saw the entrance hall were the kids in Harry Potter wait to be sorted and the great hall as well. The great hall is also a tribute to Alice because she and other characters are in the stained glass windows along one side. Also, the fireplace log holders have super long necks like in the book.

After we saw the cathedral, the library and the grounds, we left and walked up the high street with all the shopping. It is just like in America where you see the same chains over and over, but they are different here, with a little market every few feet. While the rain let up while we toured the college, it started again as well made our way to the castle. It ended up costing about £8 to get in, and we passed, so we saw the worst example of medieval sword fighting ever out front and went tourist shopping instead. Then we caught an early bus back and made it back to London around 6:30 where I grocery shopped and we all watched another group British movie.

Sunday morning the same six of us left at 7:45 to catch our 8:30 bus to Stratford-upon-Avon. It was a three-hour ride, again in the rain, but this time I did my homework and knew what we were going to see. Plus I read a book that weekend. When we got off the coach we walked to the tourist centre and looked up walking tour times, 2 p.m. So we walked around trying to find a pub that was open on Sundays before noon. After some failed attempts, we found the best pub ever. It had atmosphere, bad 90’s music and cheap food, two meals for £5. And the steak and ale pie I had, with chips, which is way better than french fries, and peas, was amazing. We sat there a while and soaked up the atmosphere to avoid the rain, then explored an outdoor market. I happened to find our meeting place, which was in the middle of the park, and we explored until the tour met. Along the river we saw more swans than I have ever seen before in my life. And I also found out that the Queen owns all swans in England, so hurting one is a federal offence. There were also the cutest baby swans, just like in the book were they follow the goose, they were walking along in a little line and not afraid of the people at all.

The tour took about two hours and we saw most of the Shakespeare houses, where he was born, where he lived later, where is daughter lived and his grave. I also learned a lot about his family, such as he had three kids, but one died at I believe age 11, one he wrote off because of who she married and whose children all died before age 21 and another daughter who never had any children but two husbands. Her name was Suzanne and she was the oldest, inheriting the house after Shakespeare died.

We started in the park, with a look at the fountain put there to commemorate Stafford-Upon-Avon being 800 years old and established as a market town. It had more swans on it. Then we looked at lampposts, because the town found a way to make other countries and cities in England pay for their lampposts and think it is an honour. The coolest one is from Israel and has characters from A Mid-Summer Night's Dream on it. There is also one donated by this power company in Florida. They are spread out all over town and she kept pointing them out to us as we walked along.

The whole town is like a giant antique, with some buildings dating back to Shakespeare’s time and others only made to look that way. But we saw it all, including where he went to school (which is still a school today) and this garden with statues depicting each of his plays that are being created by an American artist in bronze. He makes one per year, and they were so intricate and detailed they were amazing. Holy Trinity church, where he was buried in 1616, though was my favourite part, with full stain glass windows and a beautiful grave yard filled with old trees and headstones.

Weird fact about ancient burials: They were running out of space in the churchyard, so every so often they would dig everyone up who had been buried, pile them together and burn them. They called it recycling and the only reason Shakespeare and his family’s bodies are still there is because he wrote a curse upon his headstone inside the church, on the steps leading up to the alter:
Good friend for Jesus sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

We also saw the Royal Shakespeare Company and their temporary home until the renovations are finished. At the end of the tour we went in the gift shop of Shakespeare’s birth home, grabbed some sandwiches and went back to catch the bus. It was a long ride back, but Stratford is defiantly at the top of the things I have seen so far.

Monday morning I took my first 50 minute commute by tube then the DLR to my job at Crosshaubor. It was packed, all these people in business suits standing around reading the papers and listening to iPods. Newspapers are not a dying industry here simply because of the Tube. But I made it to work after a nice 10 minute walk past the old docks and got here before eveyone else. They told me to come between 9-9:30 so I went for 9:15, but apparently no one else wakes up on Monday mornings. So I waited and when everyone arrived I was introduced around.

I work in the publications department with three other people, the direcotr, the Web master and the graphic desinger, two of whom are Australian, so another new accent to learn. But the office here is the entire fith floor of the building and it is just sections of desks with papers everywhere. It's good beacuse I sit next to the Marketing and Events department and hear everything they go through without doing all the boring work.

After introductions we had a meeting and they went over the tasks for the week. Mine for Monday: find megaphones for a photo shoot. So, I spent most of the day finding a cheerleading company that would ship a 32' orange megaphone to England by Friday. O, and as a back up plan I made one out of cardboard. (really posterboard, but when they said carboard all I was thinking was it will never bend) Then I created a mini Web site to find the problems with the program and received my first project: Researching themed activites kids can do for the six weeks of their summer. Each week had a theme and each day had about two activities I had to find, describe, and explain, such as games or receipes or songs.

Monday night we had our first weekly meeting with Eric and Emily, the director and assistant director. We talked about the differences, what we observed in the work place and how our first day went. After that I think I organized myself and went to sleep. Boring, yet good after a long weekend.

Tuesday morning I aimed for 9:30 and found a new route by walking from the Tube station and cutting out the DLR. At work I did the first three weeks of summer: My Space, The Beach and The Sea. Finally all that camp stuff came in handy! However, it also reinforced why I am not and will never be an educaion major. It was fun for a day, not forever. That night we watched a British comedy, 'Hot Fuzz' and it was the dumbest, greatest movie making fun of small towns and cops ever. We cracked up all the way through it.

Wednesday I worked on Eco week in my holiday playscheme project, and tpyed a few things and moved boxes of annual reports and publications. Then I left work early at 4:30, came home and put on regular shoes and then left for the Globe Theatre to see Othello.

I ended up going alone because when I ordered the tickets on Monday online, 10 minutes later the show was sold out and the other people going couldn't get tickets. So I got off the tube at Blackfriars, went the wrong direction for about 10 minutes, turned around and walked over the Thames river by the Millenium foot bridge. It was beautiful, with St. Paul's Cathedral behind me, the Tate Modern in front and the Globe to the left. From the bridge I could see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

The Globe itself was a lot smaller than I thought, this seems to be a theme here, but awesome. The sell seven hundred standing room only tickets everynight and any theatre professor will tell you it is the only and authentic way to see a Shakepeare play. The play started at 7:30, and I made sure to be there by 6:50 in order to lean up against the stage. I was in the corner, right next to the corner stairs and kept having to duck as the actors ran in and out so I wouldn't get hit with their swords.

That was the best part of the theatre, being close. They didn't use microphones and kept entering through the crowd and using us a props. when Rodriggio died, I could have reached out and poked him. I also had the perfect view because I could see the whole stage, even around the major pillars. However, the play itself was acted well, but the longest play ever. Everyone dies at the end and the main character spending most of the time repeating the same lie to several different characters. At 9:15 when intermission happend no one knew if it was time to leave. But it was finally over at 11 and the whole cast came out and did a choreographed dance in the end.

Coming home was the weird part. Just being in a city this big by myself, even though people were everywhere and the Tube was rather crowded. Plus, when I get off at my stop there are Policemen with machiene guns on every corner. The major complaint was that my feet hurt after about four hours of standing. But I slept really well.

On Thursday I had a great day. During the commute to work I got a real seat and it was a cooler day with air flow, rare for the underground. It was nice outside as well and when I got to work it was three people's birthdays and someone brought in doughnuts. I finished my playschemes (Lights, camera action and It's a bug's life weeks) and for lunch about 12 of us went to eat at a Spanish Tapas bar that is close by. While the most expensive meal I have eaten so far, it was also the best with calimari and papas fritas and just enough spice. I discovered that the only thing about Spanish I like is being able to read the menu. That afternoon after work I meet another intern in the office and she introduced me to the ASDA here, very exciting, and then I walked up to Vandon right as everyone was leaving for a picnic in the park.

It was one of the guy's birthdays so we picked up pizzas to split for only £1, amazing price, and bottles of wine. Here is is perfectly acceptable to drink in puclic, from the Tube to the street to parks so we went to St. James Park. It was a gorgous night and by the end we had about 8 empy wine bottles and sange happy birthday to Prince William in front of Buckhingham Palace. There is such a great atmosphere in this country!

Friday morning we all wore sun glasses and left early for a river cruise down the Thames to Greenwich. Seeing Big Bend, Parliament, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge are so much better from the water, and you see the city how it is meant to be seen. It was origionally a port town and so eveything was designed around the river to show people coming how impressive the city is and was.

We reached Greenwich and I was surpraised by how quite is was, with cobbled streets and a small town feel even though it is still considered London. We hiked up the hill to the Royal Observatory Greenwich and stood on the Prime Merdian in both hemispheres. The view from the top of the hill is suppoused to be awesome, and it was cool, but because Canary Warf has grown so much you can no longer see all the way into the city. But I could see my office building, and the docks and showed everyone. The meuseum there was also set up very well and I learned all about the contest they held to find a navigation problem and how that lead to the creation of astronomy and using the stars and latitude and longitude. Plus there were a lot of clocks.

After we went to a market, then had luch and took the DLR to Westminster. We had time before our tour of Parliament so I took the people I was with the long way around and discovered a real mall underneath the Tube station on my way home from work. But their stores here are different and they have department stores that sell food everywhere. We killed some more time walking around by the river at Westminster and saw all the living statues again. I don't know how those people just stand there all day and not move or wipe that gold makeup off of their faces. Plus it makes me wonder how on earth they make enough money to live on.

At 2:56 p.m. out tour of Parliament started, and even though the building burned to the ground in the 1860's, when Queen Victoria rebuilt it she rebuilt in the origional style, with every tiny bit of wall space being used. We started in the gallery room and followed the path the Queen takes when she opens a session of parliament evey year into the Portrait Gallery. There were these two huge paintings depicting the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo and in each one the artist had left his mark of a wine glass. It was playing eye spy with a painting at least 10 feet tall and 20 feet wide.

We walked through the House of Lords and the House of Commons, both having distinctive colours, red and green, and tradtions and their origins. This might have been my favorite part of the trip so far becuase it gave a face to so much of history. The guide told us about the dictator King Charles I who felt that divine right meant he shouldn't have to ask Parliment for money and so when 5 MP's (Memebers of Parliament) spoke out in protest with a written attack on his character, he marched into Parliament and demanded they come forward and be arrested. They had been warned and had fled and the leader of Parliament refused to tell the king where they went. This sparked a civil war between the King, with his army backing him, and Parliment. The King was captured and thrown in the Tower of London for three years before being beheaded and Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. But since that time, no monarch has step foot in the House of Commons to show that Parliament has control over it and every year when the Queen enters the House of Lords to start Parliament, her right hand man walks to the House of Commons and knocks three times then gets the door shut in his face to show that the people can refuse the monarchy. (Another wierd fact about Cromwell, when Charles II returned to the throne he dug up Cromwell's body after he had been dead for about 3 years, then hung it, quartered it and drug it through the streets as an example. Gross and we saw where it happened. A lot of these stories have to do with public exceutions)

Other interesting facts about Parliament include the the origins of 'it's in the bag' and that the House of Commons was rebuilt to never hold of the delagates because Winston Churchill thought debating in a smaller room was more fun. Both the sides are also two sword lenghs apart in case someone gets one through the medal decetor and they decide to use it. The place seats about 400, even though there are 600-something delegates. Everything in England seems to be smaller and I thought it would be.

That night I think we watched a movie and I continued my laundry, which I always seem to be doing here. During the week I also finalized my trips to Dublin, Paris and Brighton, complete with sightseeing tours and bus fares. Next, my weekend in Oxford and Stratford, my first Indian food experience and Dublin.

The official start of my summer in London began with unpacking and discovering that air conditioning and fans have never been heard of in the United Kingdom. There is a large window in my room, however only one panel opens, so at times it is quite stuffy. After meeting my roommate and seeing the cubicle of a shower, nine of us set out to explore London by foot. We were gone about three hours and ended up walking to almost London Bridge and back via both sides of the Thames River. I saw Big Ben, Parliament, the Eye (which I decided I might have to pass on due to the height), the Tower of London, many meusumes, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, The National Gallery, and Trafalgar Square. Over all we walked about five miles, had fish and chips, got lost and had a great orientation session to the city.

That night we were fed pizza and then left to recover from jet lag. Since I had already done that, about five of us ventured out to the pub on the corner and had out first English pint, Strongbow, which is a cross between cider and beer and the best thing I have had so far.

Monday morning we had an orientation meeting in Westminster Chapel. London is split up into cities and Vandon House is in the City of Westminster, so most churches in this area are called Westminster something. It lasted until about one and then we went on a guided walking tour of the City of London lead by this guy who turned out to be an actor who was an extra in Love Actually. He was funny and showed us tons of monuments to different people, the Great Fire, the plague and many medieval churches, including many of the 51 that were rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. Afterwards we found the local grocery store and then hit the pub again. But here all pubs close by 11, so it was still an early night.

On Tuesday morning a professor from the University of Oxford came in and spoke to us about British culture and answered such questions as why do English people not talk to each other on the Tube. A policeman also came in and talked to us about security issues and we had a seminar about travelling in the UK and Europe. That afternoon three of us ‘got out and got lost’ in the local neighbourhood as instructed. That night we saw Wicked the Apollo Theatre, a seven-minute walk from Vandon, and it was even better than I remembered! We were seated on the floor, and because we showed up 20 minutes before the performance, got £60 ($120) floor seats for £25 ($50). The lighting was better than the Houston touring company and listening the accents of the characters was great. Boc, the Munchkinlander, was Scottish!

Wednesday morning I meet with the Director of the Central University of Iowa London program, Eric, and we chatted about my career ambitions and my over-involvedness, and my internship. I received a map of the where I was going and who I was meeting Thursday at 11 a.m. After that some of us went to Trafalgar Square and wandered around The National Gallery. It was awe-inspiring. The architecture itself is gorgeous, then add to that paintings from the 1500’s forward all split into separate galleries. I saw a whole exhibit on Rubens and famous paintings such as Monet’s London series and Van Gough’s Sunflowers.

That night we went as a group to Regent Park Outdoor Theatre and saw Shakespeare’s A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream. The set was very minimal, but the actors were great. Of course, this was the only time that is rained since I got to England. But I had an umbrella and discovered that I need to learn umbrella etiquette. We came home on the tube via the Baker Street station and all over the walls there were pictures of Sherlock Holmes. Each tube station has its own atmosphere and all reflect the things to see around there.

Thursday morning I left Vandon at 9:45 and just made it in time for my interview with Hannah at 4Children. I had to take the Tube about 8 stops then walk two blocks to the train station and take the Docklands Light Railroad about three stops and another two blocks to the City Reach building. It took about an hour and I almost had a breakdown when I discovered that the train leaving the last tube station didn't connect me to the right DLR line, but then I found a map and learned I just needed to change stations. This public transportation system is daunting at first! But the area is very nice. It was the docks prior to WWII, but then the Blitz decimated it and for about 30 years it was a ‘wasteland,’ according to Eric. Then the government took it over and now it is the new financial centre, with sky scrapers everywhere because they can’t build them in the city or it would mess up the sky line.

My interview went well though and I will be working as the intern for the Director of Publications for the national charity helping with layout, design, troubleshooting, graphic design and anything else they throw at me, including a little bit of public relations. I start tomorrow morning at 9:30 and am looking forward to learning things that will help with the magazine at school and also give me experience in a real work place in a different county and give me great references.

That afternoon we went on a Scavenger hunt of the city. It started out fun, but by the end it was a four and a half-mile sprint around the city tube stations up and down stairs. I even sprinted up escalators. It was insane and at one point I had an asthma attack, but my group of three made it back by 4:30 with everything on the list including the extra credit: a record. Eric was gaping at us as we ran in, me looking about as red as a tomato but finally worth it because we won, and beat everyone else by a good twenty minutes.

Friday we left 8:30 a.m. from Vandon for Stonehenge and Bath. It was about two hours to Stonehenge and once there it started to rain, but it made for some cool pictures. I took about 100 that day, so you can see the ancient stones from every angle. You can’t come within about 100 feet of them and they were a lot smaller than I expected, but the mystery and craftsmanship that has withstood thousands of years was awesome. After another hour and a half to Bath the rain came down harder and we found lunch at a Cornish pasty shop, fillings wrapped inside of dough. It was my first hot meal in a week and it was wonderful! I tried pork and apples and we ate them under the awning of a store while watching the rain fall. It finally let up and we toured the Roman bath museum. There is a hot spring there that they believed held special healing powers and you can still see the main bath and lots of the foundations and other rooms. We even had a drink of the water. It tasted like hot tap water and was disgusting, but we saw the world’s first version of a Jacuzzi. Then after a three hour bus ride home, on which I slept more than I though I would, I came back to Vandon and did laundry for $4 a load. Crazy!

Saturday morning I woke up and opted out of the Trooping of the Colour due to rain and journaled instead. As part of the program we have to keep a personal reflective journal as well as an internship journal and there are certain assignments we have to do. Then we explored Portobello Road Market, a antique and flea market in Notting Hill, and went on a ghost walk of the City of London with the same actor guy. At the end we tried to find a good pub in Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square, but ended up settling on ice cream sundaes instead.

This morning I went to mass at Westminster Cathedral and it ended up being sung in Latin, complete with a choir of about 20 12-year-old boys. The ceremony was beautiful, but I couldn’t understand a thing that was going on. The church itself was beautiful though, with soaring ceilings and ancient painting and small chapels on all the sides. Afterwards about eight of us went to Camden market. It would have been great it I was a punk, gothic rocker into raves, however since I am not I was scared. But the clothing stalls were neat to look at and I bought these cool panoramic pictures of London 3 for £5 that we saw at Portobello yesterday for 2 for £10, so I got a deal. We came back and I bought postcards, took a nap and caught back up on my journal and now my blog!

I start my internship tomorrow and then on Wednesday am going to Shakespeare’s Globe to see Othello, doing it the authentic way and standing the whole time. Then next Friday we take a boat trip down the Thames to Greenwich and a private tour of Parliament. Saturday about four of us are visiting Oxford and Sunday Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of Shakespeare!

Seven and a half hour plane rides are no fun. From waiting an extra hour to depart from the Houston airport, to being worried I would miss my connecting flight to Manchester at O'Hare in Chicago, planes are just no fun. But I made it all the way to England at 8 a.m. Tuesday, June 4, and was escorted off the plane like an unaccompanied minor straight through customs and baggage claim to Martin, Steph and Evee, who is the cutest baby ever!

Once in England, we drove to Butch and Su's house in Witness, about a half hour, and chatted and ate breakfast. I managed to stay awake for over 24 hours, then crashed. On Wednesday Su took me on a tour of Witness, Hale, this picturesque English village with thatched roofs, and Liverpool. It might be home of the Beatles, but other than that it is not really that pretty, just industrial.

I also had my first experience with the English version of Wal-Mart, ASDA. They own in and it is the same, only more expensive. The 2-to-1 exchange rate is killer as the cheapest thing I have found is about 2 pounds, or $4. Then the 'riffraff' as Su called them came over and I meet great-Aunt Bridget, who left the house to come and meet me which I was told was a big deal, Maureen and her kids Deborah and Allison, and Lorene, her husband Tony and their daughter Helen and her fiancée. They were all very nice and I learned all about the black sheep brother of the family.

Thursday I explored the outdoor shopping in Witness and experienced public transportation for the first time: buses. And also English food. The first night there we walked to the chippery and had fish and chips, then I opted out of steak and kidney pie for pizza. But every morning I had toast and every evening tea and scones.

Friday Steph and Evee came and picked me up and took me to their house and then to the Trafford Center in Manchester, by Old Trafford, which is the Manchester United futbol stadium. This was the coolest mall I have ever seen. It was upscale like the Galleria, but in the food court there were different areas for each country, so China town looked like a Chinese street, and New Orleans, Aztec, Egyptian, and the middle was built just like a cruise ship, complete with pool and life boats.

On Saturday, June 9 Su and I boarded a train to London at 8:30 a.m. and arrived at the Euston station at 11:30. We got a taxi to our hotel, the Thisel Westminster, and checked in. I found out that in order to be a taxi driver here you have to study for two years and take this huge test called the Knowledge. They know their way around the city like the back of their hand and will run people down. We even hit a biker who wouldn't move out of our way.

After discovering that in London air conditioning is non-existent, we walked to Buckingham Palace in time to see the practice of the Trooping of the Color, the official birthday of the Queen, which is June 16. I saw the entire British army household staff from 6 different divisions in full dress uniforms complete with bear skin hats. We then walked to Big Ben and the houses of Parliament and Westminster Abby. We had sandwiches by the Thames river and walked back down Whitehall past Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives, and into the Horse Palaces Guard and saw the changing of the horses and where the official Trooping of the Color will occur. Then a stroll through St. James Park, the Queen’s front garden, and back to the hotel to get ready for the Lion King.

The theatre itself was gorgeous, with doomed decorated ceilings and Victorian architecture. But the music and the costumes were even better! Just the way they make the animals move and the characters British accents! It was great!

On Sunday morning Su dropped me off at Vandon House, my home for the next eight weeks, and I settled in. They use it as a dorm during the year when more people are in the program, but in the summer it is also a hotel. We really are a five minute walk from the Palace in one direction and a seven minute walk to Parliament in the other. In between there is Westminster Chapel, Sutton Ground (a variety of local food stores) and a high end shopping row. Will write more at another time about my first week in London!