We departed from our hotel via tube for the Westminster stop and our Parliament day. I was very excited for this day, especially because the weather was starting out wonderfully for London; sunny, slightly brisk, and NO RAIN! When we got to the Houses of Parliament, we took many group photos because it was such a picturesque area!
Then we headed off for our LONG walking tour of Westminster Abbey and the area surrounding Parliament. We had originally scheduled a tour of Parliament but because of the recent elections in Great Britain, they weren’t allowing tours at the moment. The tour was a great way to see everything, take pictures, and learn a lot about the British style of government, which is very different than the United States. Our guide was very knowledgeable as well. He said he had to take a course to become a certified London tour guide that took over 2 years to complete! He had written exams, papers, and everything! We saw 10 Downing St. where the Prime Minister lives, many important government offices, and buildings of historical significance. So much information has been entering my mind these past few days I wish I could remember it all for this journal, but it would be nearly impossible!
Westminster Abbey was beautiful as well! It’s currently still a working church with services everyday at 5pm and additional services on Sundays. A few of my friends and I considered coming back that evening for the service, however we found we just didn’t have time. The Abbey is also still houses a very elite school for boys, with tuition somewhere around 30,000 pounds a year! The inside of the Abbey houses many graves and memorials for important people in British history such as John Keats, Isaac Newton, and many descendents of royal blood.
By the end of the tour my feet were absolutely killing me, having been walking on them for almost 4 hours. We ended our tour at our meeting with Sir Peter Viggers, a member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons, which is the elected house. He was very interesting to me, and I actually asked a question at the end of his speech! I was very proud of myself, being that I was quite nervous.
Backpack in hand, we rushed to the bathroom after the meeting was over to change into our casual clothes for the day and headed off for the London Eye. I had heard previously that you want to allow plenty of time there because you never know what the lines would be like. Fortunately for us, they were very short when we went. We only had to wait about 10 minutes once we got our ticket to boarding our Eye capsule. The views were awesome! We had seen the Eye and Parliament the night before all lit up, but this view was completely different. We were able to see all of London! I bet the other people in the capsule got tired of the annoying girls from America taking pictures constantly and video recording, haha. It’s ok, I promise we weren’t too obnoxious; it is a big tourist attraction after all.
After we checked doing the London Eye off our to-do list for the day, we headed back to the hotel to drop off our heavy bags, freshen up, and then scurried off to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We didn’t have a ton of time in there because we got there 45 minutes before it was about to close, so we saw as much as we could as quickly as possible. The museum is giant, so I doubt I could’ve spent an entire day in there an seen it all! We were anticipating going to the Grace Kelly exhibit in the museum, however it was sold out for the day.
Once the museum closed, we set off to look at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The inside hours for visitation closed at 4pm, so we just walked around the outside. It was massive! I still think that Westminster Abbey was prettier because I am a fan of the gothic architecture style, but St. Paul’s was pretty nonetheless. From St. Paul’s it was just a short walk to the millennium bridge and across to the other side to see the Globe Theater, a monument dedicated to Shakespeare and his life’s works.
CJ, Kinsey, and I had walked so far for so long that we didn’t even realize that it was almost 8 o’clock, so we headed off to find some place to eat. The Texas Embassy sounded like a good choice. It was a great Texas atmosphere with Texas license plates, country music, tex-mex, margaritas, and Dr. Pepper!! The best part of the restuarant was up the stairs, there was a wall where people from Texas could write in where they were from. We started a whole Texas A&M Marketing Study Abroad 2010 section and so far about 30 of us had eaten at this restaurant! It was a super long day, but so productive.
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