This past week has been busy with our work wrapping up and our final journalism project hanging over our heads taunting us due on Monday. Last day of work is Thursday. On Wednesday for our final weekly BLC field trip we went to the Tower of London--finally! Everyone's been telling me to go there and I had to wait until the last week to go. It was pretty cool. I feel a little jipped because our group was too early for the actual tour, so we just wandered on our own, which was fine, but I was disappointed to miss the tour.
Afterwards, my friends Linda, Lauren and I finally made the pilgrimage to Kew Gardens, which is outside the parameters of our Tube passes--so on the edge of the city. It is the Royal Botanical Gardens and also has Kew Palace inside the Gardens. Beforehand, we stopped at this cute little shop for some delicious fish and chips (I'm going to miss those so much) and then made our way into the gardens. Getting in was pretty expensive (11 pounds, 15 dollars!) so we spent the whole afternoon there. It is huge. We wandered around the various gardens, saw the palace, went in a million greenhouses to see plants. It was a very varied place--some woodsy areas, many manicured gardens, greenhouses, etc. Lots of parks and gardens are like that in Europe, very unlike the US. It was a good day. We even stopped afterwards for a quick afternoon tea, which for me did not include tea but hot chocolate and scones (I'm going to miss those too, scones don't taste the same in America).
Thursday was another normal day at work, but I was especially excited because I bought tickets forever ago to see Calendar Girls in the evening. Calendar Girls, yes the one from the movie, is a brand new play that just started in London a few weeks ago. I love seeing new performances, and I have to say that this did not let me down. I grabbed a quick dinner in Leicester Square where it was nice enough to eat outside and felt very posh going to the theatre alone on a weeknight. The play was wonderful. It's one of those that makes you laugh and cry. I was one of the younger ones in the crowd, but I enjoyed it so much. Everyone should go see it once it hits the States. It's very empowering.
Friday was a busy day at work, but I like being busy so I didn't mind. Trying to get all the last clips in possible. Faced with a free evening, my friend Linda and I went to a movie. As I have explained in blog posts earlier, movies are much different in the UK than they are in the States. Assigned seats, too many commercials and not enough previews. It's all so weird, to me at least. We went in Leicester Square, which is always a fun place to be at night. We saw Young Victoria, which is a biopic/romantic movie about the early years of Queen Victoria's reign. I've come to know a lot about the Victorian era through class and this movie, and I have to say that I'm a fan. The Victorian era turned England around a lot and was very pivotal. Anyway...the movie was fantastic, and according to IMDb is not coming to the States, possibly ever, so I was very happy to see it when I had the chance. You should all Netflix it when it does come out of DVD. It was a great film.
Today was a day for getting all my final places crossed off my list before next week where I will go back to all the places I love and say goodbye. In the morning, I went with Linda to Borough Market, which is near the River. It's entirely food and was incredibly overwhelming, but amazing! There were free samples everywhere and we not only feasted on those, but got lunch and tonight's dinner as well. There was so much food! It was great. One thing I am not going to be happy getting used to when I'm back in the States is readjusting to my peanut allergy. Europe uses peanuts and nut products so much less than the US that I have stopped asking about oil used and nuts in things. I could never sample much of the food I sampled at Borough if I were in the States. That's why I've never been to the Taste of Chicago even though I live there. Anyway, that is a luxury in London that I've gotten extremely used to.
Borough was a lot of fun. I dined on traditional German bratwurse for lunch and picked up a huge brownie for dessert. I split of a load of English bread for dinner with Linda and had some meat to go with it. We went all the way back home to drop off our purchases before doing more.
I headed to Somerset House, which is a huge art museum nearly on the River. I'm surprised I hadn't been there or heard of it earlier. It was so huge and in a beautiful building with a huge courtyard area with little fountains that dozens of kids were taking advantage of running through considering the nice weather. I got to see all the impressionist works, which is what the art I like the most. I even saw this one Monet that we have a print of in my house in Deerfield, so that was fun to see, and very unexpected.
The evening was low key. I went to a pub with Linda for a pint (another thing I'm going to miss in the States) and spend the evening blogging and hanging out before what is probably going to be a long day tomorrow--day trip to the Cotswolds and cramming to get our journalism presentation done, which is to be presented Monday evening, and I am not looking forward to it.
Anyway, will blog about the Cotswolds and the last of my journey in London. It's been a great semester. I'm sad to see the days quickly dwindle away.
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