Day TWO: London

Our day started with a continental breakfast with some traditional and non-traditional foods, including the staples and baked beans, porridge, and, of course, tea. We boarded the coach and took a ride through London to pick up our tour guide, Lottie. She gave us more background on the city of London and showed us some famous landmarks such as Parliament Square, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and lots of Harry Potter shooting locations. 




Church bells rang all morning for Easter, and we spent some time hanging out around St. Paul’s cathedral. While we couldn’t go in, the exterior was beautiful and the surrounding area was great as well. 









As we crossed the Thames, we could see ancient architecture on one side of the bridge and modern on the other. Super cool! We broke for lunch at a food market near a festival hall, and there were lots of delicious food options from many countries. Jess and Molly recommend the rice bowls. We then broke horror movie rule #1 and broke into two groups, one taking a Shakespeare walking tour with Lottie and one visiting the Tate modern art museum. Most museums in London are free, including this one. The pieces ranged from minimalistic to strange to deeply meaningful, and we had fun looking for the strangest piece. The Shakespeare Tour was interesting because we got to see a lot of places where Shakespeare drew his inspiration for many of the plays. There was also a statue of him where he was doing the “paint me like one of your French girls” pose. We also got to see the globe theatre, and while it was under reconstruction, it was cool to see in real life. According to Lottie, Shakespeare writes plays that people can relate to such as sibling rivalry in Twelfth Night and one-sided love like in Hamlet. 


Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Lottie and our next destination was Oxford Circus. We spent some time getting lost in Soho and looking for stores that stayed open on Easter (which was a tad bit difficult). We met for dinner and had Pad Thai, which got mixed reactions. Jess and Molly liked it, but Molly still thinks peanuts and noodles is an odd texture combo. We got one last look at London with some time in Piccadilly Circus, where hordes of people had come out for the night. We saw lots of heavy eyebrows, fake tans, and neon clothes. We also met a nice female welfare enforcer before heading back to the hotel and setting our 5:30 alarms. Yay. See y’all in Paris!

- Emma, Molly, Jessica, Abbie












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