"How all were very busy" - Prince Caspian

I've decided to make my titles be chapters from books I've read, so I found this chapter from Prince Caspian to be extremely appropriate.

This weekend we took an APU/GMU field trip to foggy London town as an educational, yet fun, requirement. :)

Friday morning we left around 10:30 and took the train to Paddington station. All morning after, I was craving marmalade, even though I'm pretty sure I do not actually like the stuff. :) After that, we took the subway to Kings Cross Station (yes, like Harry Potter! Holla!), waited in an epically long line for the bathroom (this seemed to happen a lot this weekend- there's too many people in London that have to go when I do, I feel like). After we had all come back together, we made the 10 minute walk to our hostel on Kings Cross road. Then we went on an epic Lamkin-style walking tour, passing such quintessential sites as Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Parliament, Westminster Abby, St. James Park (favorite!), the London Eye, the River Thames, and eventually ended up at the Shakespeare Globe (reconstruction) theater for a dramatic reproduction of the Merry Wives of Windsor. As tired as I was, and as un-interested in literature as I can be, I was having a bit of trouble getting into the moment. Before long though, I was really enjoying myself. This may sound stupid, but I understand why Shakespeare's plays are meant to be seen as PLAYS- they are much easier to understand when you can see what's going on. :)

The next day, Jenae and I made a game plan and set out to see the rest of London. We made an early morning start and meandered (yes, I'm learning British English, so now I meander everywhere) over to the British Library to see the Treasures Collection. It was AWESOME! We saw Anglo-Saxon psaltries, the Magna Carta, original notes from the Beatles, a whole series on Alice in Wonderland (including one with a high level of Guinness product-placement: "Off with it's head!" cried the Queen. "No!" cried Alice, "Guinness never loses its head." Oy vey!), the Gutenberg Bible, really old maps, really old book covers, Jane Austen's writing desk, a copy of Jane Eyre in original hand writing. It was awesome. After that, we once again meandered our way over to Sainsbury's to grab some food for lunch and then ate at the South African vegetation exhibit at the British Museum. Apart from being hassled by a bee for possession of my sandwich, this was quite enjoyable. Then, we began to walk towards Tower Hill where the Tower of London and Tower Bridge are. Eventually we found it- wasn't quite sure what the tower of London was until we saw the sign (just thought it was an awesome castle- haha), but it was pretty neat. We didn't go inside; instead we spent a long time looking at Tower Bridge. I think it was one of my favorite things.We even got to see it go up! The sky was beautiful! I felt like Jesus was smiling down on me. After a long trek across tower bridge (awesome!) we went to the Tate Modern to see some works of Picasso they have. Jenae really enjoyed it; I think Picasso was a disturbed individual after the stuff I saw... yuck. But it was cool enough. Then we went across another bridge to St. Paul's cathedral.

We were trying to get there in time for the nightly evensong service (which, rumor had it you could get in free too; rumor success!), but we got there very early. After sitting outside of what we later found out wasn't even the main entrance (could have fooled me!), we made it inside for the service. We ended up being able to sit right up front in the wooden benches designed for very large choirs. I was literally 5 feet away from the priest. It was very overwhelming, but still neat to see all the ways people have tried to depict Christianity and to realize how many other believers have worshiped there. After that, we had dinner at Ye Olde London Pub and had the best meal ever! Chicken, chips (fries), and peas. I'm meant to be British. Also, there bathroom was hidden by a secret paneled wall of books; how cool is that!? Afterwards, Jenae and I went to Harrods (made it inside for one minute before we had to leave cause they were closing), McDonalds, and back to the hostel.

All in all, it was a great weekend! But I did learn one thing very important. I'm already starting to feel at home in Oxford. Maybe its because we had 16 girls in one hostel room, maybe it was all the new, but I definitely missed being around my flatmates and having a calm house. 16 girls = TOO MANY! I'm very thankful I have the flatmates I do. Now, I'm going to wait for my laundry to finish and rest up before the next week of crazy awesomness continues!