Day 7

Thursday was a loooong day, which is why I didn’t write my blog last night. First my History of London class went to St. Paul’s cathedral. On the way there, though, there were some really stupid people in my class that hadn’t gotten their tickets for the tube yet. How rude can you be? I mean seriously, they knew we were going out and they didn’t get their tickets before class. Rude, rude, rude. So we got to the cathedral around 10:30 am instead of 10, and started the tour a bit after that. We went on the super tour so we got to see a lot of cool parts of the cathedral, including the dean’s personal staircase (a very cool spiral staircase canti-levered up a huge circular room), the Wellington cathedral (that’s probably not what it’s actually called) that has memorials to many families who were influential to the church, the choir’s area, the American memorial (that our tour guide on the first Saturday told us all about), and the crypts downstairs (including Christopher Wren, the designer of St. Paul’s, the Old Royal Naval College, and 80 more churches throughout London, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Viscount Nelson). Then we climbed up all the steps to the inner dome to see the cathedral from a great view up above, and then even farther up to the outside dome where we had a great view of London. The golden gallery, which is the very highest dome of St. Paul’s is closed until June, or else I would’ve gone up there too. Unfortunately we didn’t have very much time to spend at St. Paul’s because two other girls and I had to make it to Greenwich by 2. We took the tube and transferred onto the DLR, which is the Dockland Light Railway, and took it all the way to Cutty Sark. We got there in plenty of time and I’m ashamed to say I had to get some McDonald’s. I’ve been craving it for a while now and it was sooooo worth it! We met our professor by the river and sat on the grass while she lectured us for an hour and half on the architecture of the area and the Tudor palace that used to be in existence. Three girls got there about an hour and a half late which is why we had to stay in one place that whole time. It was ridiculous. By the time we actually got to the Queen’s house it was 4 o’clock, and class is over at 4:30. So we talked about the architecture of the Queen’s house itself and never actually made it inside. It closed at 4:30. She did say though that the architecture mattered the most for this site because the inside of the house is just a gallery, it’s not decorated in its original style anymore. Still though, I was a little disappointed that we didn’t go inside. I’ll have to go back another time because it’s free.

From there we headed home and it took literally a whole hour to get back. Plus we were traveling during rush hour when everyone was getting off work so there was nowhere to sit down. Let me tell you, the tube smells GROSS during rush hour. It’s a combination of tons of BO and rubbish, it’s completely disgusting. But, thankfully we made it home before dinner was over so I got to eat a weird bratwurst-like hamburger again. The dining center is kind of weird here. One night there’ll be a lot of good choices and some really yummy food, and then the next it’ll be all weird food and none of it is terribly great.

At 8 we went out to the Union again because Jamie and Rachel really wanted to, and I didn’t want to be a stick-in-the-mud that stays home, so I went along. We had a really good time and met a lot more British people, even a few Russians. We got home around midnight. Somehow I managed to get a really good night of sleep last night, or maybe the jet lag is just finally gone, because I haven’t been tired all morning like I usually am.

Love you guys!

Jaime