First of all, the second we made our way from Heathrow airport, I knew I had made the right decision to come to London. I couldn't contain my excitement as we drove farther into the city, passing buildings for BMW and Mercedes with multiple floors of window displays in view from the road. Almost every car I see here is an Audi, BMW or Mercedes (even the trucks). Even on the way to Stonehenge and Bath, our favorite tour guide, Eric, pointed out a Ferrari that was one of only 250 made. No big deal.
Our flat is in Marylebone, which is very central. It's near Hyde park and Oxford Street, a very busy shopping area. It's been pretty exciting getting to know the area and there are three pubs within a seconds walking distance. Our favorite so far holds a quiz bowl every Thursday night. The flats themselves are a good example of British plumbing, however. One of our toilets doesn't really like to work and the other occasionally gives us a hard time. We are also lucky enough to have a somewhat rotten egg smell come around every once and a while for no apparent reason. It's just great. We have a lot of Febreeze and try to cover it up with apple spice, but it usually just ends up smelling like apple spice and rotten eggs, an even better aroma.
Kelly, Ali, Kristina and I on the tube on our first night out to Zoo Bar.
Other than that, things couldn't be better. The city is everything I hoped it would be and more.
Our tour guide, Eric, showed took us on a coach tour of London. We went everywhere, and saw so many beautiful things. We saw busy areas with old buildings that had pieces blown out of them from bombs in WWII.
We also recently went to Stonehenge and Bath, two very amazing places to go.
Me in front of Stonehenge. They won't allow people to touch the structure anymore because too many people were vandalizing the rocks as well as chipping pieces off for souvenirs.
It is so crazy because I have learned so much about Stonehenge in all of my history classes at Mizzou and never thought that I would see it with my very own eyes one day. One of my history teachers my freshman year talked about how some say Stonehenge was used for religious purposes, while others think that it was used as a sun clock to mark the seasons. Our tour guide, Eric, also said people think aliens could have been involved. There are also theories that they pulled the rocks on logs all the way to that site. It is just amazing to see how it was all put together and how a group was able to pull that off. It was definitely a neat experience.
From left to right: Nick, Michelle, Nick, Chelsey, Lauren, me and Kristin at Bath.
Bath is somewhere I definitely want to visit again before I leave. The buildings are unreal. Especially the Royal Crescent, which was constructed by John Wood the Younger around 1774. Today, they are used as apartments and office buildings. In front of the building is a trench hill known as a "ha-ha," and, according to Eric, got its name from when people would trip and fall after walking on the trench and their friends would point and laugh at them. The Royal Crescent has been used in films including The Duchess (2008), which I want to watch again just because I want to see the part that is filmed there. We also visited Bath Abbey, which was built because of a dream King HenryVII's secretary, Oliver King, who was also Bishop of Bath and Wales. He had a dream that angels were climbing up and down ladders and telling him to restore the church. The Norman Abbey church was taken down and in 1499 the Bath Abbey was constructed. If you look at the Abbey, you can see the angels on both sides climbing up and down ladders just like in the Bishop's dream.
The angels climbing up and down ladders on Bath Abbey were included from a dream that the Bishop of Bath and Wales, Oliver King, that inspired him to construct this church.
For lunch, a couple of us had pasties, which is basically a meat-filled pastry. I had a chicken-vegtable one that was to die for. We ate them in a square near the Abbey while people surrounded a musician that played for the public. Afterword four of us went to the oldest house in Bath for cream tea.
Sally Lunn's restaurant is the oldest house in Bath. Her recipe book was found in a hidden compartment and now the restuarant uses her recipes to make delicious buns with jelly and cream.
It was amazing and I was definitely full from all the bread we ate that day. We then went to tour the Baths that the Romans used for public bathing. The water itself was bubbling, which is from the hot temperatures in the earth's crust. The museum that connects throughout the baths demonstrates the lifestyle of Romans at the time the baths were used as well as many artifacts found from their era. There were even displayed old folded up papers with curses on them that people threw to the gods to curse those who had wronged them. The water was green in color and "is a bathroom to many of the ducks and pigeons," as we were warned by a museum worker. However, for 50 pence I was able to drink bath water!
Nick and I drinking water from bath.
The hot "spa water" has 43 minerals in it and basically tasted like heated up water. The trip to bath and stonehenge was so incredible and I can't believe that I have actually been both places!
Recently, my flat has also checkedo out the V&A museum as well as the Natural History museum. My favorite from V&A was definitely looking at the fashion wing, where we saw one of the latest peices that Alexander McQueen created before his death this past February.
The Natural History Museum was also great because we saw the dinosaurs, which is always exciting, as well as an exhibition called The Deep. The Deep gave a look inside to what lives in the farthest depths of the ocean. There were many dead specimens that were really creepy. They also had models of certain animals, like a king crab that would probably come up above my knees! It was ridiculous. As of now, the farthest that any man-made structure has gone in the ocean is around 10,400 meters, with 11,000 meters being the bottom.
Kristina, Lauren, Chelsey and I on our way into the Natural History Museum.
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