London: The Sequel

I've got a bit of catching up to do. There are a few noteworthy things that have happened in these past 2 weeks. We took our 2nd British Studies exam. After taking it I felt pretty good about it, even better than the last one, and I got B on the last one, so hopefully Exam 2 will be better. I've been getting A-'s and B+'s on the in-class quizzes, and I got an estimated B/B- on my rough draft for the first paper that's due , so I think I'm doing pretty well overall. I found out about the second thing that I was voted in for other than the Date Auction, called Lord and Lady of the Manor. Basically the best way I can describe it is a "creativity contest". We have a few categories: a make up a song that has to incorporate a certain few words related to out stay here, we have to partake in a group dance, there will be an interview, and we will get judged on wearing formal-wear, I think. Oh, and we have to dress up like a British historical character for the interview, but we don't have to answer as the character. It should be interesting. Last Friday we went to London as a British Studies field trip. In the morning we saw Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. Then In the afternoon we saw St Paul's Cathedral. St Paul's is the biggest Protestant cathedral in the world, built to rival St. Peter's in Rome which was built just a few decades before it (St. Peter's was built a few decades before St. Paul's, not Rome; Rome was built long before either of them, to clear up any confusion). It was pretty amazing to see. There were murals and frescoes decorating all areas of the church. We climbed up to the top of the dome using roughly 78 thousand flights of stairs (maybe a little bit of an exaggeration), and we got an amazing view of the city. After we were done at St. Paul's late in the afternoon we were free to go. Some people went back with the school but my friends and I stayed in London for the night and most of the next day. There were 6 of us, me, Ange, Dani, Brandon, Bethany, and Lisa. Lisa and Ange went to see Mary Poppins at a theater, and the rest of us went around town. We thought about seeing a movie, but prices were very expensive and most of the shows were sold out anyway. So we went back to our hostel and went to bed. Ange and Lisa came back sometime in the night. The next morning we split up. Bethany was just staying with us for the night, and then she went off and did her own thing; Dani went to visit her mom's college roommate who lives in London now; Ange went to see Buckingham palace and then go back to school; Brandon and Lisa went to Westminster and then the Imperial War museum; and last but not least our hero went on a trek by himself. First I went to the Victoria and Albert museum. It was recommended to me by some Londoners whom I met while I was in Salisbury. I didn't really understand the layout, because it was under construction and everything was everywhere, so I didn't stay long, just about 10 minutes. I then went to see Westminster Abbey, though only the outside because you have to pay to see the inside. I also saw Big Ben and Parliament. I then grabbed some lunch and went to see the British Museum for the second time. At the museum I looked at some of the rooms that we hadn't looked at when we were there before. These included rooms about: the Enlightenment in England and it's Classical-era influence, this is where much of the interest in translating Classical works came from; Roman Britain; Central and South American history (Aztecs, Maya, etc.). I also looked around at some of the stuff we had already seen. I found out that downstairs there were rooms dedicated to Greek and Roman inscriptions, which I don't remember for sure but I don't think we saw that the first time. Unfortunately it was closed. I was so heart-broken that I almost cried. Or maybe not. I then met up with Brandon, Dani and Lisa in a comic book store across from the museum that Brandon and I had found on the first trip. We looked around for a bit and then went to the train station. We got back to the manner early in the evening, and I think we watched movies for the rest of the night. It was fun to go back to London, to see new things, but also to revisit former sites of interest (ie. British Museum where I could probably spend the rest of my life and still not study everything as much as I would like). Tomorrow we are going to Prague in the Czech Republic. The first (and only) eastern-European excursion. A full report on that trip later.