Saturday, January 31, 2015

Eye saw LONDON

Last weekend the American exchange students all went on a trip to London from Friday to Saturday with the British Studies sponsors. On the itinerary we were scheduled to see various things, but I think one of my favorite things was the Churchill War Rooms.

It took a little under two hours to get to London from Canterbury, and when we first got there we had some time before we went to the Churchill War Rooms so Tayler, Jara, and I went on a little walk beforehand.


Yeah, my day did not start out poorly...

The Churchill War Rooms is a museum that shows the underground bunker that Churchill and his staff stayed in while London was being bombed by Germany during WWII. The Churchill War Rooms are preserved and staged in a way that is authentic to how it would have looked during the time it was being used:


Churchill's room:


Instead of going back Saturday afternoon with the group, a few of my friends and I decided to stay another night in London and see some of the things we wanted to see. We grabbed our backpacks off the bus and went straight to...


THE LONDON EYE!

I would highly recommend that anyone going to London take a ride on the London Eye. You will not be disappointed. It required a lot of queuing (how the English say "standing in line"), but it was well worth it. There is a lot I could say about this experience, but I'll let some of my favorite pictures do the talking. 




After we got off the Eye we went to find our hostel, which ended up being on the other side of the city and required a taxi. To get on the other side of the River Thames to get to a taxi, we had to cross Westminster Bridge, which brought out the inner English nerd in me. One of my favorite poems, Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth, is about his experience standing on Westminster Bridge and being overcome with emotion by the simple and quite beauty of London in the morning. I couldn't help but take a moment to stop and try to appreciate what he so greatly appreciated over 200 years ago (although I don't think it looks exactly as it did in 1802). 


The next morning, we got up early and went to the Tower Bridge to see the sunrise. It was only about a 5 minute walk from our hostel and when we got there the drawbridge was up, which was kind of cool.


And this sunrise was probably the highlight of my weekend.


It was very special to find peace in an unfathomably large and busy city. This is why I love to travel.

"Collect moments, not things."



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