Believe it or not it has been a little over a month since I arrived in Europe, yet this blog doesn't seem to show all of the amazing things I've been doing since my arrival. So in the spirit of anniversaries here is what happened in my first week in Europe.
On the morning of February 27, 2010 I arrived in London on my flight from L.A. After checking into my hotel my friend and roommate Sara Sloyer and I took off with our friend Kacy Lebby to explore London. We went to Trafalgar Square and spent the afternoon at the National Gallery. This museum was amazing and houses a fantastic body of work. It was one of the places in Europe I had always wanted to go.
That evening we had a welcome meeting at our hotel where we were able to meet the people on our program. I was extremely surprised to see how many people there were on our program! The hotel dining area where we were meeting was completely packed! That evening we took the "Tube" into the city center and went to a pub called O'Neil's. The pub was packed with local Brits watching the Manchester United vs Manchester City football (soccer) game. This was such a cool experience as we got to meet many locals and be a part of the intense local football culture! This was obviously a huge rivalry!The next day in London we woke up early for a bus tour provided by our program. Our tour guide was a Scot named Simon who I thought was quite funny but was a little too much to handle that early in the morning. Our jet-lagged crew questioned if he was still drunk from the night before. We first went to Buckingham Palace where as we arrived the royal carriage drivers were taking the horses for a spin.
Next we went to see Westminster Abby, Big Ben and Parliament. Sara and I being political geeks enjoyed going to see parliament. I have always wanted to attend a session of parliament, watching those old men yell at each other is a much more 1) aggressive (read affective) and 2) entertaining political system than the one we have in the U.S. 
We also got excited to take a picture in front of Parliament to send back home to the Politics & Government Department at Puget Sound (here's a little shout out to them! As I am now featured on their blog! No pressure right...) Needless to say seeing the Parliament building was a highlight of my London trip, the architecture and the history of the building only added to the experience.
Next, we drove through the ritzy neighborhood of Westminster and admired the incredible cars out the window of our bus and learned where to get a 350 pound haircut (roughly $600). We saw the U.S. Embassy with and adjacent square with statues of a few presidents including Eisenhower and Roosevelt. The square was also home to the British Memorial to the 9/11 attacks and includes the names of the British victims who died in the tours. We got a peak at St. Paul's Cathedral (we didn't want to pay the admission fee so we just glanced in.)
We got to see the real London Bridge as well as the actual Tower Bridge which many people mistakenly believe to be the London Bridge. Our tour ended at the famed Covent Garden where we grabbed lunch.
After lunch a few girls, including myself, wanted to go to the Tate Modern museum to see some of the famous modern art housed there. We got a bit lost on our way there but finally found the building with he direction from a few British men at the tube stop. The museum was very interesting. As is par for the course with Sarah and modern art I didn't understand a large majority of the pieces. One in particular was a mattress hanging from the ceiling with a long florescent light stuck through the middle with a chair sitting next to it. Not sure what that's all about. After we had walked through the majority of the galleries we stopped to look at the map to find out where the Piacaso's were. Unable to find it on the map we asked a security guard who seemed entertain to tell us that we were at the Tate British Museum rather than the Tate Modern which was a 35 min ferry ride up the river from where we were! Exasperated and tired we decided we didn't have it in us to trek to the Tate Modern and called it a day. We headed back to the hotel for a nap.
Next, we drove through the ritzy neighborhood of Westminster and admired the incredible cars out the window of our bus and learned where to get a 350 pound haircut (roughly $600). We saw the U.S. Embassy with and adjacent square with statues of a few presidents including Eisenhower and Roosevelt. The square was also home to the British Memorial to the 9/11 attacks and includes the names of the British victims who died in the tours. We got a peak at St. Paul's Cathedral (we didn't want to pay the admission fee so we just glanced in.)
We got to see the real London Bridge as well as the actual Tower Bridge which many people mistakenly believe to be the London Bridge. Our tour ended at the famed Covent Garden where we grabbed lunch.After lunch a few girls, including myself, wanted to go to the Tate Modern museum to see some of the famous modern art housed there. We got a bit lost on our way there but finally found the building with he direction from a few British men at the tube stop. The museum was very interesting. As is par for the course with Sarah and modern art I didn't understand a large majority of the pieces. One in particular was a mattress hanging from the ceiling with a long florescent light stuck through the middle with a chair sitting next to it. Not sure what that's all about. After we had walked through the majority of the galleries we stopped to look at the map to find out where the Piacaso's were. Unable to find it on the map we asked a security guard who seemed entertain to tell us that we were at the Tate British Museum rather than the Tate Modern which was a 35 min ferry ride up the river from where we were! Exasperated and tired we decided we didn't have it in us to trek to the Tate Modern and called it a day. We headed back to the hotel for a nap.
That evening we had the great experience of getting 25 Pound tickets to the production of Wicked! This was one of my favorite show I saw in New York and was excited to be able to see the British Production! The show did not disappoint, it is an amazing musical and the actors had wonderful voices and put on a beautiful show. (Plus one of my favorite songs in the show was remade on GLEE, so obviously I wanted to hear that again!)
We ended the evening by heading back to our hotel as we had a bright and early wake up call for Munich in the morning... 4:00am... not my time of day, to say the least!
Until Munich!
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