Saturday May 12th

View from St. Paul's

After eating dinner last night, at ironically a Tex-Mex restaurant in London, we headed out early once again this morning to take in more of the sights. Once again we were extremely lucky that the sun was finally out and sunglasses were necessary, but it was fairly chilly as we finished breakfast and departed for the Tube. Unfortunately, as it is Saturday, one of our connecting Tube stations was closed. This led to a long wandering around the streets until we finally boarded a double-decker bus en-route to St. Paul’s Cathedral. While my family visited London and St. Paul’s Cathedral when I was younger, I did not remember very much about the magnificent church except for the magnitude of the structure. As we entered the church, I was again reminded of how massive and beautiful the inside of the centuries-old church truly is. After taking an audio tour of the sanctuary and crypt, we ventured up the tiny, circular stairwells to take-in the great views from the balconies. While the tiny stairwells make you question the decision to ascend the stairs, the views are well worth the worries on the way up.

Tower of London

After touring St. Paul’s, we took a short bus ride to the Tower of London. Again remembering my previous trip to London, the Tower sticks out as one of my lasting memories of the trip and I was excited to see it again. Our teachers allowed our group to go on our own and check out whichever parts of the fortress interested us, and I proceeded to check out the Crown Jewels, ancient firearms, as well as previous torture mechanisms devised by the British. I followed the tour by meeting up with a few fellow students and ordered a pizza and Heineken for lunch for a mere 6 pounds, a good deal if I must say so myself.

Pushing on, after the Tower of London we ended our tours for the day by visiting the Imperial War Museum. Visiting this museum full of artifacts ranging from World War I to the current fight in Afghanistan reminded me of previous museum trips with my grandfather and Dad, two huge history buffs who would have greatly enjoyed seeing all the tanks, planes, and exhibits. Most moving was a great exhibit on the Holocaust, providing a clear timeline of the horrific events that took place.

Tonight we are going as a group to eat dinner and seeing a play of The King’s Speech. I have yet to see the movie version, but have heard many good things so I am excited about going to the play this evening. Tomorrow we will be taking a bus to Stonehenge and a few others sites. While the trip has been a whirlwind, it has been incredible seeing all these great places and I look forward to seeing even more as the trip progresses.