Out and About in London

So I decided that a blog would be much easier to update everyone than to keep sending emails to different people.

I have been in London for about 10 days and I have finally seen every major icon in the city. My friend Steve McLean and I took one of those stupid tourist buses around the city on Friday afternoon just to see everything and get a good idea of the lay out of the city, and it actually really helped. Regents College is actually in a perfect central location. Nothing is more than a 20-30 minute walk away (or a couple tube stops) which is awesome.

Saturday was a great day. A group of us woke up to see the changing of the guards ceremony at Buckingham Palace. We got there at 11 for the 11:30 ceremony and it was just still so ridiculously packed. I got some pictures, but if you want any kind of good view, you have to get there crazy early. Oh well. From there, we walked to Parliament (Big Ben), Westminster Abbey and the London Eye area. Big Ben was just unbelievable, no picture will ever do it justice. There was a huge line to get into Westminster Abbey, so we just decided to wait for a weekday sometime to go to mass there. St. Margaret's, which is right next to Westminster Abbey, was beautiful too. We walked around for probably a good 8 hours that day. That area is just so cool, which street performers along the river and just everyone out walking around. We saw someone propose to this girl on what they call the Wobbley Bridge, which is over the Thames River overlooking Big Ben, the London Eye and the surrounding area. Smooth move by that guy.
















We found this little wine bar called Gordon's. They have decently cheap wine there and it's the oldest wine bar in London. You go in and immediately climb down the stairs into the bar. The seating is actually in the old wine cellar, it's such a cool environment. I'm going to bring anyone that comes to visit for sure. Here's a picture of the seating area.


Today, we went to the Camden Market, an open air market on the weekends. It is so cool. It's like a way better Chinatown. They set up this big market of vendors and you just walk around bargaining with people. They have clothes, shoes, scarves, purses... pretty much anything you could need/want, and everything looked like it was pretty good quality for the money you were paying. In other words, it's the only cheap clothes you are gonna find. But of course, the minute we get there it starts pouring rain so we didn't stay long because none of us brought umbrellas.

Tomorrow starts another week of classes. This Saturday we have a trip to Bath which should be pretty cool. Other than that, school is easy so far and I'm loving London more than I ever imagined I would.

And in closing, here is the view from the Wobbly Bridge that the couple got engaged on: