What a Day

Today was a fantastic day overall. We woke up this morning at 9…that came way too early even though we went to bed before midnight last night. I just did not sleep well which is probably why I was pretty tired when I woke up. We got all ready and ate breakfast and then Jeana, Dalton and I headed to meet Denise and her family for a trip to the market. They met up with us at one of the tube stations which had cute mini pictures of Sherlock Holmes all over (see facebook pictures). We had fun taking pictures there later while pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. But we headed to the market and on the way found another market so we walked through that one for a bit. When exploring London you always end up finding something particularly interesting that you didn’t expect to find. We found this cute little sitting area where the trees were shaped in a circle (again see facebook pictures as this is quite hard to describe with words). Basically the trees were all lined up in a circle and the leaves grew around a wire which made them form a circle (imagine the circle as if you were looking at it from the top). It was pretty neat and will easily be explained if you see the picture! But it’s fun to see things like that!

We went to Spitalfields Market which we at first thought was going to be a food market but ended up being more of a high end market with clothing, pictures, jewelry, etc. It was a pretty big market and we had a good time looking around. There were some neat food vendors there so we all ended up grabbing lunch. I had mushroom ravioli and it was quite delicious. After we had finished lunch we had had enough time exploring the market and decided to head home. On the way to the market we had passed a church and Matt wanted to stop in and look at it so Jeana and I went with him to check it out. It was a pretty church but we weren’t blown away by it. It was an older church but a lot of restoration had been done to it and they just had regular chairs inside which gave it a more modern feel as opposed to an old antique looking church. It was still pretty to see though.

We finally headed home and once we got back we just rested for a little bit before getting ready to head to the Thames festival. We walked around the festival for hours. It was really neat but it was extremely crowded. It was a beautiful day out today but it quickly got cold as the sun went down since we were next to the river. We had planned to stay until the fireworks were over but everyone was ready to head back around 6:30. Jeana and I decided to stick around for the carnival because we didn’t want to miss the carnival and the fireworks and we are extremely glad we stayed. The carnival (which was actually a parade) was AWESOME! (I’ll again have pictures up on facebook later). But it was the neatest parade I have ever seen. All of the performers were dressed up in INCREDIBLE costumes and the music was FANTASTIC. We were completely exhausted by the time we left the festival but it was well worth it. I’m a little disappointed we didn’t end up staying to see the fireworks but I know with the day ahead tomorrow it was the best idea. You can only do so much in one day after all. Days here seems to fly by. I think I’ve mentioned this before but it’s true. The days are here and gone before you even know it. I guess it just goes to show that time flies when you’re having fun.

Today was just the beginning of one busy week. On the agenda tomorrow:

8:30 - Four mile river walk on the Thames (we have to leave at 7:00 am in order to make it to the bridge on time as we are meeting in the middle of Tower Bridge, which means we will be waking up quite early tomorrow)

12:00 – End of tour. Time to eat lunch and relax before the afternoon.

1:30 - Hour and a half tour of the National Gallery

5:45 - Leave to go to the Globe to see “Mary Wives of Windsor” where we will actually be standing the whole time right in front of the stage (it’s supposed to be the neatest experience and I’m looking forwards to it!)

Then it’s back to the flats to hopefully blog and then crash! Should be an outstanding day and I’m looking forward to it! Off to bed to be all ready for the start of classes!