Sunday in the Park

I can't believe that yesterday brought the end of our last weekend in London! The time has flown by! We decided to treat ourselves to a sunday in the park. A Man for All Seasons and a delightful re-telling of Henry's misadventures with his many wives was the topic of our readings this weekend. So we sat ourselves down in Hyde Park and went to it!

The Serpintine

After a brief rest, we decided to treat ourselves to something a little less peaceful, and off we went to an official Jack the Ripper tour! We got to learn all about the mayhem and murders, and got to visit all of the sites where the murders took place.

The Tower of London and our tour guide, Richard, outside of the Roman Wall.

The walk was great, and it was nice to get out to see a different part of London. I came home to write a truly riveting paper on Bath, and ended the day. Our real tour of the Tower of London is later today and I can't wait to see it again!

Putting On My Top Hat

Portobello Road was our stop for yesterday! We ended up starting off smack in the middle of the food section, so we went to town from there!

The Houcks buying some pastries! 3 for £2.70!

I managed to get my hands on some paella! Delicious!

Virgin piña colada's for the Houcks!

After we had stuffed ourselves full of street food, we wandered off to the antiques area, gearing up to finish our time at the market. But all of a sudden, we heard, "Olivia!" in the crowd, and turned around to see the entire Hahn family on their way in the opposite direction! We were all so excited for the brief reunion! The Hahns had gone to Portobello Road under mum's instruction are were loving it! They had a day left in London before they were to head off to Paris the next day. We let them know a little bit about our trip before we parted ways. We couldn't get over having run into them for the rest of the day.

We concluded our trip to Portobello Road with a couple more photo-ops. Apparently, this is where Notting Hill was filmed, and a lot of ladies were taking pictures of the area as well, so we weren't too in the way!

Some shops

The colored houses!

Me at the Road!

We decided to end our day with something a little different. We hadn't taken in a show yet on our own, which was something I definitely wanted to squeeze in. So we headed out, and I got to see the wonderful new Irving Berlin show in the West End, Top Hat!

The marquee! Cute theatre.

The seats! Student living at its finest.

Me with the leads! I got them to sign my program. This picture is horrible and I was terribly awkward because they made me nervous! And he kissed me on both cheeks afterwards. You can see why I was flustered!

The show was fantastic! I have never seen anything with so much glitz and glamour! It was truly like an old-time West End/Broadway production. Tap numbers, lavish dance numbers, the costuming, the set, the jokes, the songs, everything! I absolutely loved it. Not to mention, being a student meant prime middle seats in the stalls for about £30! 

Overall, everyone had a wonderful day, and I am dreading the readings and papers that today brings... We'll find a way to jazz it up, though!

This Is Not Real Life: Harrods and the Tate Modern

Yesterday was our day off after our long day of statue hunting the day before. So we decided to have a nice, calming day at the world's biggest and best department store, Harrods!

Harrods! He's taking me there.

We wandered the floors for quite a bit, looking for all of the things that we cannot ever afford. But we were really just biding our time until the inevitable...

Ice Cream Parlour!

Yes, we had found our way to the Ice Cream Parlour that I had discovered on my previous venture here and decided to forgo a healthy lunch in favor of something a little more monstrously delicious...

Before... and After!

The girls with their monster sundaes!

As we were eating, we had another little surprise in store. It was hard enough to believe that we were eating decadent desserts in Harrods on a Friday afternoon. But at the Pizzeria across the way, Harrods managed to amp up their level of class even more. I am talking, of course, about the Italian pizza chef who would occasionally burst into some true Italian opera whilst tossing his pizza dough in the air!

Singing "That's Amore"

After our ice cream interlude, and deciding that we will never need to eat ice cream again, we headed up to the toy kingdom to indulge the little kid in us!

Bobby Bear! Yours for only £1,900

Kate and William, looking kind of possessed...

Massive dollhouse

Shakesbeare theatre!

We looked around Harrods a little more, saw the Egyptian Stairs, an opera singer, the pet store, and all of the crowns out front, and then headed out to a different location entirely. We decided that the next destination would be the Tate Modern, so we could indulge ourselves in some weird, weird stuff.

On the way, we met this guy

On the Millennium Bridge!

So we arrived, and we got in line to see the Tate's current pride and joy: the Damien Hirst exhibit. Damien Hirst is one of the most expensive living artists in the world, mostly due to a piece that we got a chance to see.

For the Love of God is a skull that Hirst bedazzled with hundreds of real diamonds. His goal was to make it kind of like a religious relic, with symbolism dwelling on today's consumerism..

I don't know if I buy that. I learned that this is his most expensive piece, but only because it was bought for over $1 million by a "private buyer." A lot of people in the art world believe that Hirst bought it himself to make it look like it sold for a lot of money!

So after our "experience" with Damien Hirst, we roamed the rest of the museum, taking in some surrealism and cubism along the way. I was disappointed I couldn't see the rest of the Hirst exhibit, which was not free, but I'm sure I wasn't missing too much there.

Weird.

I did like this, though. It was a huge timeline of all of the artistic periods considered "modern" spanning the third floor

Having had our fill of bizarre (apparently, I missed out on some pretty strange stuff in some other galleries the girls went to) we decided to head out. Still kind of drained from the day before, we called an early night in preparation for the next day... Portobello Road!

It. Is. Hot.

Today was the hottest day I feel that I have ever experienced. I know at 80º the London summer can't even touch the 120º of Arizona, but still. It was hot. The mad dash to class this morning was miserable, and the lack of indoor air conditioning nearly killed us all (I got to sit by the window because I came later to class. Suckers!)

After class, we decided to approach our group project for Dr. Facinelli's class. As our final project, we have to go to specifically vague places in each of the three countries and take pictures with our whole group in them. Then we have to summarize them and write about the significance of each place, etc. Basically, Facinelli has sent us on a wild scavenger hunt throughout the UK and Ireland!

At the churchyard at St. Bartholomew's

William Wallace commemorative plaque

At St. Bartholomew's, we took a bit of a side trip to see St. Paul's cathedral! The cathedral is more ornate and grand than I imagined, and the Baroque details were stunning!

St. Paul's! And Queen Anne, ever vigil.

We ran around for a while, but surrendered to the summer heat and had to depart. We could think of no better place to head than McDonalds for some Cadbury McFlurries! But not just any McDonalds. No, we went to a very specific McDonalds...

Attend the tale...

The McDonalds on Fleet Street! It is said (by Liz) that this McDonalds was constructed on the very spot of the famous Sweeney Todd incident! I don't know if I believe that, but the McFlurries were tasty!

I'm allergic to pies anyway

From there we made our second stop to Boudicca's statue, which was located next to Parliament (where we went yesterday). We had some interesting encounters with some of the characters that apparently frequent that bridge...

So that guy there... Not part of a statue

Our final stop for our picture tour was located in Chelsea, at Thomas Moore's statue. However, Chelsea is in a bit of a wild and crazy state at the moment. I'm talking, of course, about the Chelsea Flower Show! Thousands of people were flocking to Chelsea from all corners of London to attend the Flower Show, which is apparently a hot event (tickets were up to £300 last week, so I heard!) Humanity, it seems, really enjoys flowers. And it really enjoys viewing flowers en masse. After asking a confused bobby for directions and fighting the endless stream of people, coaches, and cycle rickshaws, we made our way to the Chelsea Embankment, where we were instructed to go to find the statue. However, the statue was nowhere to be seen. With nothing but some questionable wi-fi to guide our way, we trekked for almost an hour in the heat, trying to find this <insert swear word here> statue! Essentially, we all wanted to die. And we may as well have, it was so hot and humid. However, after what seemed like an eternity, we found it!

We all look pretty good for what we had just gone through

After a brief repose, we decided to soldier on. Because there is no point in going to Chelsea if not to revel in its victory! Chelsea Football 2012!

The Official Chelsea Team Store!

Eventually, we all made it back safe and sound. And then we all passed out. The end.