My flatmates and I decided a while back that we needed to take a trip to London before we left Lancaster and after weighing the options we decided on the last week of May: after papers were due, longer days, a possibility of sun and warmth, and before the full masses of tourists arrive. It turned out to be a great decision and we had an awesome time, and we even had some sun!
Day One: Train from Lancaster to London Euston; our first experience with the Tube, wandering about, and a cruise on the Thames.
Day Two: Natural History Museum, British Museum (and the Rosetta Stone, ooh!), Guided Bus Tour
Day Three: Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, The Comedy of Errors at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
It’s actually really neat how we were able to tour the Houses of Parliament: a member of parliament was the guest speaker at Lancaster Loyne’s charter dinner the week before our little trip. In chatting to her, Geraldine Smith, afterwards, she asked if we would like a tour and her awesome assistant set everything up for us. It was really interesting to tour around the interior-it’s such a famous building for its exterior!
Day Four: Tower of London Museum, Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, and coffee in Soho
Day Five: An amble through Trafalgar Square and St. James’ Gardens, the Changing of the Guard, picnic in Hyde Park, farewell to the Tube, Train from London Euston to Lancaster
I have a ton more photos up on my facebook account. You can view them here.
Overall thoughts: I don’t like big cities, but I actually really enjoyed London. I left thinking that it would be great to come back. I didn’t even mind the Underground which is really saying something considering how much I dislike the underground in Paris and Rome.
Seeing a play at the Globe was one of my favorite parts. There was this huge sense of, ‘this is how Shakespeare imagined his plays being performed’. The whole production was very well put together and I laughed the whole way through.
It was a great little break before starting in on my next set of assignments which are well underway at this point! I’m hard at work, but there are some fun things coming up and I’ll keep you posted!
