This weekend was awesome! I had so much fun...I seem to always enjoy what we are doing no matter what it is and can make myself interested in pretty much anything, but this weekend was great! Saturday was probably my favorite day so far (besides the day we saw Wicked). We went to St. Paul's Cathedral in the morning. It was beautiful and so peaceful inside. We climbed hundreds and HUNDREDS of steps to get to the top of the building and see the view from outside. It's a good thing that I've been going to the gym because otherwise I don't think I would have been able to make it to the top. There were THAT many stairs. The view from the top after our 30 minute stair hike was inspiring, and I was thrilled to see London from new heights.
After St Paul's we had a break before our next activity, so I followed a pigeon around for a while and took pictures wherever it led me. But in that time the weather turned rainy-very rainy. I think this made the day even more fun...it just felt authentically London...even though I learned from our tour guide that it is a common misconception that it always rains in London. (I find that hard to believe because we have had our fair share of wet weather here).
But anyway...we went to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. I had so much fun there. I'm not sure why. But it was fun to listen to all of the history that went along with the buildings. After the tower, we watched the Tower Bridge open up for a large ship to pass through. Then it was time to climb more stairs up to the top of the bridge. Afterwards Hope, Louisa, Alex, Amy, and I walked along the river and had dinner at a little pub we found. Actually, I'm making that sound too easy. By accident we wound up in the City, the business section of London, because we remembered a pub that we had seen there on one of our tours. As we were walking through the city, we noticed that nothing- absolutely NOTHING- was open. It was a Saturday night at 7pm..how could nothing be open? When we finally made it to our pub, they told us that they were closing and that the city shuts down because its only businesses and nobody lives there, so there is no reason for anything to be open. So we found another pub instead. It was quite an adventure.
On Sunday we went to Hampton Court Palace. It was a beautiful day- probably somewhere around 50 degrees and it was sunny! The palace had a beautiful garden that I spent most of my time in. It was great to finally see the sun and be out in decent weather for a change!
I can't believe this is our last weekend here. I'm looking forward to a busy last week full of agency visits.
