Until Next Time, London. Cheers!

                I can’t believe I have less than 24 hours left in London! The past month went by so incredibly fast, but I am so thankful for every moment of it. I’ve made memories here that I will take with me for the rest of my life. Looking back, I actually can’t believe how many incredible things I got to do and see while I was here. I finally saw Stonehenge and was able to visit Canterbury and Bath. I went to the Museum of London, the Natural History Museum, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. I saw Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace, Leeds Castle, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the McDonald’s that Prince Harry used to sneak away to when he was in high school. I watched the sunset over the city from the top of the London Eye and sang Don’t Stop Believing at the top of my lungs in a bar on July 4th. I ate fish and chips and pork pies and Indian food and probably way too many other things, but YOLO (You Only London Once), so I regret nothing. I went to the London Cider Festival, Borough Market, Camden Market and drank wine in the park on a ninety-degree day. I was sitting in a pub called The Crown (how appropriate), while Mumford and Sons played over the radio when they made the announcement that the royal baby had been born. It really doesn’t get more British than that moment. I saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe Theater and laughed so hard I cried. I walked across Abbey Road and signed my name on the wall out front of the studio. I went to the Harry Potter Studios and put my hand over Rupert Grint’s handprint (perfect match by the way), and walked down Diagon Alley! I even like tea now!

                With all of the fun things I did outside of the class itinerary, I almost forget that I am also walking away from this experience having created a documentary film. Before this trip I had never even held a camcorder and now I have learned how to shoot, edit, write, and create a movie. Before this trip I also knew next to nothing about Jack the Ripper, but now I know his story like the back of my hand. It has been an absolutely incredible experience and even though the final hours of editing were some of the most stressful of my life, I have to say that while we were watching our film in class today I felt pretty proud of everything my group had accomplished.

                I am going to miss London, but I am so excited to get on that plane home tomorrow. I can’t wait for a large Dunkin Donuts iced coffee, air conditioning, my own bed, free chips at a Mexican restaurant, and to stop spending my life savings every time I buy something using pounds (seriously this exchange rate it is killing me).  It will be so wonderful to spend an entire month home with family and relax before the fall semester starts. I will never forget the month I spent in London and I really hope I will be able to return someday. Well, I’ll obviously return when I marry Prince Harry so that shouldn’t be an issue. Until next time, London. Cheers!

Open Museum Day

                On Monday morning we went to the Imperial War Museum. The museum had been undergoing renovations when we got here so we didn’t think we would be able to visit it, but luckily it opened back up on the 29^th! Even though several of the exhibits were closed down, I still really enjoyed the museum. The first floor exhibit followed a real British family through World War II and the struggles and challenges they faced, such as sending their youngest son away so he would be safer, and learning to ration food amongst a large family. The museum also has an unbelievable exhibit on the Holocaust which words really can’t describe. It is honestly impossible to walk through the rooms without crying at the site of the horrendous tragedies people were forced to endure, but I highly recommend anyone traveling through London to take the time to go see it.

The Imperial War Museum

                Tuesday was an open museum day so everyone could pick a museum they had wanted to visit and go on their own. Since all museums in London are free we could choose any of them, but I had really wanted to see the National History Museum so that is where I went. Well, apparently everyone else in London had the same idea as me because I stood outside in the pouring rain for an hour and a half (I know I exaggerate a lot, but I swear I’m actually being serious this time), waiting to get in. Once I finally made it through the front doors I was soaking wet and in terrible mood, so I assumed I would hate the museum by default. It was actually quite the opposite. When you first walk through the doors of the museum, there is an escalator that leads you up through an enormous bronze globe to the planetarium. You have to pay in order to go inside so I didn’t get to do that, but just to see the globe lit up at the top of the museum was pretty spectacular.

The Globe that leads to the Planetarium

                The National History Museum is absolutely gigantic so I decided to restrict myself to a few exhibits so that I wouldn’t be there all day. The first room I went into contained a page from the world’s most expensive book, which is John James Audubon’s The Birds of America. There are only 120 complete copies of the book in the entire world. All of the birds on each page are hand-colored and life-sized. Since the book is so large, the museum only displays one page each month. The page on display on Tuesday had a giant green and pink flower on it, and a tiny yellow and blue bird sat on the leaves. Audubon was completely obsessed with birds, to the point that it caused him to lose all of his money and eventually go to jail. Upon release from jail, he finally published his book sometime between 1827 and 1838. The room also contained one of the original copies of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species. If there is one thing I’ve learned while in London, it is that British people love Charles Darwin because I literally see him everywhere I go.

 

This was the page on display

                The other exhibit in the museum that I found the most eye-catching was the massive (and holy cow do I mean massive), piece of the trunk of a sequoia tree nailed to the wall. Apparently, sequoia trees are the largest living things in the entire world, and usually reach 80 meters high and live for 3,000 years. The one hanging on the wall had been 1300 years old when it died, which is pretty young. There is a tree named General Sherman that lives in the Sequoia National Park and it is the world’s largest living thing. General Sherman is bigger than three blue whales combined. I honestly can’t even fathom how gigantic it must actually be, especially since I couldn’t even wrap my head around the size of the tree sitting in front me. I guess I’ll have to add “visit Sequoia National Park” to my list of things to do and see it for myself sometime. 

The trunk of the Sequoia

Victoria & Albert Museum

                After Monday’s visit to the British Museum, I was really hoping that the Victoria and Albert Museum would be much more of a traditional art museum. Thankfully, it was. Surprisingly, the museum had much less to do with Victoria and Albert than I had thought it would. I also assumed the British Museum would be much more about the history of England than anything else, but it was mostly about ancient civilizations so I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised that the V&A museum also didn’t match up with its name. When we arrived at the museum, there was a line about 100 people deep all waiting to get into the David Bowie exhibit. I’m sure that the exhibit is really interesting but unfortunately it would have cost an extra 16 pounds to get in so I decided not to see it. Once we were inside, I could immediately tell that I was going to enjoy this museum visit. The museum was really calming, the lighting was dim, and it seemed much less chaotic than the British Museum.

                My favorite part of the V&A museum was all of the architecture, specifically the Hereford Screen. It was this massive red and gold wall-like structure that was placed on the wall opposite the balcony overlooking the museum’s entrance. The screen was built in England in 1862 for the Hereford Cathedral and is made out of timber, cast iron, wrought iron, burnished brass, and copper. The screen has several columns that help draw the viewer’s eyes upwards towards the statue of Christ in the middle. On each side of Jesus, there are angels playing music and passion flowers, all of which help symbolize the Passion. The Hereford screen took five months to build and is a perfect example of the gothic revival style that became popular at the time. It was installed in the cathedral in 1863.

                Aside from the Hereford Screen, I also really enjoyed the advertising posters from the 1800’s. Since I am a communications major, I have taken a few advertising classes so it was very interesting to see how they marketed household items and food over 100 years ago. There was one poster in particular that was meant to advertise Colman’s spicy mustard and showed a man sitting outside and warming up in front of a campfire. Instead of fire burning the wood, however, the carton of mustard was sitting on top of the wood in its place. Today’s ads are so elaborate, so I enjoyed seeing the simplistic ones that they used to get their messages across instead of the mini-movies we see today.

                After the museum, my group continued to work on our documentary and then some of us went out to dinner that night. One of my best friends from home was visiting because it was her birthday, so instead of eating the instant oatmeal I brought from America for dinner, we actually splurged and bought pizza at Pizza Express. While we were talking at dinner, I realized just how much I’ve learned about London. She asked me where to go and what to see and I felt like I could give her recommendations on just about anything. It’s amazing how much I’ve been able to see here in the past month, and how fast you can learn a city when you are entrenched in it every day. I can’t believe I am only here for five more days!

I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

                Just like most kids my age, I grew up with Harry Potter. The first movie came out when I was nine years old, and I followed Harry, Ron, and Hermione every step of the way ever since. I think I speak for my entire generation when I say that once the eighth movie had finished, I felt like my childhood had finished with it. Last December, I went to Harry Potter World in Universal Studios with my brother and sister and we had the time of our lives. It was so exciting to see all of the props and scenes that we had loved for so long brought to life, even if they were only replicas. When I found out I was going to London, I knew that the Warner Bros Harry Potter studio tour was the number one place I wanted to visit.

                We all bought our tickets the first few days we had arrived in London and I had been counting down the days remaining since. When I woke up yesterday morning, I practically jumped out of bed (which is dangerous given that I’m on the top bunk), because I was so excited the day had finally come. At the beginning of the tour we all sat in a room like a movie theater and watched a short film with Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, and Rupert Grint telling us about what we were going to see in the studio. After the film was over, the screen went up and we were standing out front of the door to Hogwarts. All of us immediately jumped up from our seats and ran through the door into the Great Hall. I was honestly speechless as I walked down the aisle admiring the giant dining room tables and making my way towards Dumbledore and the rest of the staff at the far end of the room. It is so crazy to think that I was standing in the room where they had filmed so many scenes in all eight movies. We continued on the tour and saw the set for Dumbledore and Umbridge’s offices, Hagrid’s house, the Weasley’s house, potions classroom, the Gryffindor common room, and so much more. There were costumes from all of them movies, including Hermione’s beautiful dress that she wore to the Yule Ball and the one outfit that Snape wore for all eight films. All of the props were out on display, including the Tri-Wizard cup, Harry’s Nimbus 3000, Tom Riddle’s diary, and there was even a wall with all of the newspaper clippings that had been shown throughout the films.

 

 

That’s the costume Snape wore for every film! 

The Yule Ball outifts and decorations

Siruis’s costume in the Prisoner of Azkaban

Tom Riddle’s Diary

The Weasley’s House

                We saw the green screens where the cast filmed all of their flying scenes, the head of the basilisk, the chess pieces from The Sorcerer’s Stone (or Philosopher’s Stone as it is known here), and the black and green walls from the Ministry of Magic. Basically, I was able to see everything I had ever wanted to see from every possible movie and it was unbelievable. Half way through the tour, everyone went outside and there was a stand selling butterbeer (which I obviously bought – it was amazing!), and the outdoor sets for Harry’s house on Privet Drive. We all took pictures and then headed to the second half of the tour.

 

Drinking Butterbeer!

The Dursley’s House

                The second half of the tour contains the set for Diagon Alley. I think I actually jumped up and down multiple times when I walked onto the cobblestone streets. It was phenomenal to walk past Olivander’s Wand Shop and Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes just like the entire cast did in all of the movies. The most amazing part of the studio tour, however, was walking into the room that contained the entire model for Hogwarts Castle. I know I’ve talked a lot about castles in these posts and which ones are my favorite, but there is absolutely nothing like Hogwarts Castle, and seeing the model that they used to bring it to life for over ten years. The castle took up the entire room and kept changing colors from blue to pink and yellow. The Harry Potter soundtrack was playing over the speakers and I was in absolute awe the entire time.

 

The real life Diagon Alley!

 

Hogwarts Castle!

                After the castle, we walked into the set of the wand shop and saw over 4,000 wands. Each of them had a member of the cast and crews’ name on the box and we searched to find Daniel, Emma, and Rupert’s. Unfortunately, the wand shop was the last destination on the tour. Even though we had already been there for three hours, I didn’t want it to be over. It is absolutely incredible that J.K. Rowling was able to imagine this story while sitting on a train from Manchester to London, and have it inspire people throughout the world.  I absolutely loved seeing how the movies themselves were made and the costumes, set designs and props that went into creating eight wonderful films. There is only one word that can some up the experience I had on the Harry Potter Studio Tour: magical. 

The British Museum

                On Monday morning we went to the British Museum and I have to be honest, it wasn’t my favorite place. Shocking, I know, considering I’ve said just about everywhere we’ve visited over the past three weeks was the greatest place ever. For me, the museum seemed cluttered and sort of disorganized, almost like they tried to put too many things in some of the rooms. I’m sure it didn’t help that it was pretty packed when we arrived and extremely hot in most of the upstairs rooms, so that probably attributed to why I found the museum underwhelming. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great, but there were still several exhibits that I found quite interesting.

                The first exhibit that caught my eye was the Rosetta Stone (the actual one, not the one Michael Phelps used to learn Chinese before the Olympics). It has been in the British Museum since 1802 and it’s the most visited exhibit that they have. The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian stone that is inscribed with a decree from March 27, 196 BC. It is the only surviving piece of a larger stone slab, which is called a stela.  The top of the stone is written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle part is written in Demotic, and the bottom of the stone is written in Greek. The text on the Rosetta Stone helped scientists to decipher a lot of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic language on other artifacts that have been found over the years. When I looked at the stone I had absolutely no idea how scientists figured out the languages that are written. It seems almost impossible, but I guess that’s why I didn’t major in anything science-related.  

The Rosetta Stone

                The other exhibit that really caught my eye was the Egyptian mummy room. Ever since I first took ancient history in sixth grade, I’ve been fascinated with the way the Egyptians buried their dead. They believed that death was the transition to a new state of being and preserved their bodies in ways that would facilitate the transition. The museum has a grave of a man from about 3400 BC and his body has been preserved because of the natural rapid drying though direct contact with the hot desert sand. Once coffins were introduced and the bodies no longer touched the sand, all that was preserved were the bones of the deceased person. The preserved body is actually quite disgusting. In fact, it looks just like Lord Voldemort does in the Goblet of Fire when Peter Pettigrew dumps his emaciated body into the potion after they get Harry’s blood from him and kill Cedric Digory (apologies to any non-Harry Potter fans reading this that have no idea what I’m talking about). While disgusting, it is still quite amazing that something that old has been preserved all these years.

This is the body, it really looks just like Voldemort!

                After our museum visit we went to the Cheshire Cheese which is one of the oldest pubs in all of London. I had packed a lunch for after the museum so I was a little bummed that I was now going to have pay for one instead, but I am really glad I went. I could tell how old the pub was the moment I walked in and went down the tiny staircase to the basement (If you are over 5’5” you are going to hit your head on the ceiling. There is just no way around it). Since I’ve been here, everyone keeps telling me that I have to try one of the pies so I ordered a chicken and mushroom one and it was absolutely delicious. It was basically chicken and mashed potatoes cooked into a pie crust so you really can’t go wrong with that. Once lunch was over we went back home and I obsessively refreshed The Guardians homepage waiting for an update on the royal baby for the rest of the afternoon. It probably wasn’t my most productive moment, but I’m in London for the birth of the royal baby so I’m going to tell myself it was justifiable.

All You Need Is Love

               

Just taking a stroll across Abbey Road

              I’ve almost been in London for three full weeks now (time flies!), and since I’ve been here I think that I’ve done a decent job of trying to blend in and not look like an American tourist. It’s a lot easier to do that here than it was in Italy, because as long as you aren’t talking people just assume you are from the UK. Well, that all changed today. I became the ultimate American tourist and I regret nothing.  I went to Abbey Road and attempted to reenact the famous Beatles album cover. I knew that there was no way I was leaving London without taking that picture so we got together a group of five people (so four could always be in the picture and one person could keep rotating out and taking the photo), and all headed over to one of the most famous streets in the world.

                Apparently everyone else thought it was the perfect day to go to Abbey Road too because there were about 100 other people standing around when we arrived. I don’t know why it had never occurred to me before that Abbey Road is an actual street, so cars are constantly going up and down it and wailing on their horns at all the tourists trying to run into the middle of the road to take a picture. It was pretty hilarious to see the people in their cars shouting and beeping their horns at everyone.

The crosswalk!

                When the Beatles took the photograph, a police officer held traffic and Iain Macmillan (a friend of John and Yoko), took the picture from a step ladder in the middle of the road. The difference between the Beatles’ photo and everyone else’s is that the four of them actually walked across the street while Macmillan took the pictures. Today at Abbey Road everyone ran into the middle of the street and posed instead. The Beatles chose to walk because they wanted the album cover to symbolize them finally walking out of the studio where they had spent seven years recording. There were a total of six pictures taken and Paul chose the fifth one since they were all walking in unison.

                Before running into the street to take the picture we decided which Beatle each of us was going to be. Unless there is snow on the ground, I always walk around barefoot so I really wanted to be Paul. I thought about actually taking my shoes off but I was a little worried that if I left them on the sidewalk someone would walk away with them and I’d be stuck in London with no shoes so I kept them on instead. Our first attempt was pretty awful and the picture didn’t look right at all. It’s amazing that the Beatles looked so cool in the photo and everyone else just looks ridiculous trying to recreate it. I guess that’s why they are the Beatles and we aren’t. Luckily we were able to go about three more times and we finally got a shot that looked good!

                After taking the photo, we went to the wall out front of Abbey Road studios and took turns signing our names. I chose to sign mine right above where someone had written “All you need is love,” and then we took a group picture out front of the studio. I think we were all relieved to be able to stand and smile for a picture instead of running into oncoming traffic multiple times. Even though it is just a crosswalk in the middle of a busy street, I feel so fortunate to have seen Abbey Road today. After all, I came to London to learn about British culture, and who is more of a cultural icon than the Beatles?

My Actual Favorite Castle (…for now)

                Ok, I lied when I said Hampton Court Palace was my favorite place. In my defense, it was my favorite place at the time of the blog, but now that I’ve seen Windsor Castle I’ve changed my mind (I’m a girl, we do that a lot). I know that I have absolutely zero chance of ever living in one of the castles we’ve visited, but I’m just going on the record here saying that if I could pick one to spend the rest of my life in, it would absolutely be Windsor.

                Windsor castle was built over 900 years ago by William the First when the Normans invaded England. Since the people of England severely outnumbered the Normans, King William built several castles to act as fortresses around the country, and Windsor Castle is one of the original nine. The castle itself is divided into three wards: the upper ward, the middle ward, and the lower ward. During our visit to the castle we were able to walk through the upper ward and tour the state apartments. The interior of these rooms was everything I had imagined a castle would look like. The ceilings seem to go on forever and each room was decorated with a thick red carpet and red and gold walls. There were swords and armor hanging on each wall and sparkling chandeliers hanging from each of the ceilings. While the other castles we have visited on this trip were beautiful on the outside, I often felt that they were somewhat barren on the inside. That was certainly not the case with Windsor. The Queen usually retreats to Windsor Castle on the weekends to get out of the city and I certainly can’t blame her. I’m sure Buckingham Palace is nice and all, but I can’t imagine it is more impressive than Windsor.

                St George’s Chapel is another feature on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Several kings and queens are buried in the Chapel, including the current Queen’s parents. It seems like Henry VIII is a key figure at every site we have visited so far on this trip and I was really interested in seeing where he was buried. From what I’ve learned about Henry VIII, he did everything in his life on a grand scale so I had assumed that his tomb would be spectacular. Needless to say I was pretty shocked when I saw that his resting place was only marked by a plaque on the floor of the church. It seemed very un-Henry VIII to me and I was a little disappointed.

St George’s Chapel

                After our tour we were given free time to explore the town and the rest of the castle. Earlier in the day we watched part of the changing of the guard and I knew that I absolutely had to get a picture with one of the guards before I left. If I had more time I probably would’ve gone all Mary-Kate and Ashley on them and seen if I could get them to laugh, but there was a line of 9 year olds behind me and I don’t think they would’ve appreciated it so I restrained myself. Either way, getting a picture with one of the guards was on my London bucket list so I got to cross off another item which always makes for a good day!

Jack the Ripper

                This trip has been so much fun that I sometimes forget I came here for educational reasons. During all of our day trips and the time I’ve spent exploring the city, I’ve learned so much about the culture and the history of London. Aside from the cultural exploration part of the trip, however, I have also learned a tremendous amount while working on my documentary film.  Prior to coming to London, I had never used any professional camera equipment in my life. I have taken classes at Northeastern in which we carried out all of the steps of making a documentary film, except for the actual filming part so I was really nervous about starting this project. Fortunately, learning how to use all of the basic camera functions wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and I think my group picked it up pretty fast. I’ve learned how to set up the camera, how to mic someone so the audio sounds clear, how to adjust the lighting so that the shot will look good, and that you aren’t doing yourself any favors if you put the camera on auto focus during a sit down interview because the camera keeps trying to focus on what’s behind the subject, rather than on the subject themselves. Unfortunately, I learned that last part the hard way but I think there is a way to fix it during the editing process (at least I hope there is), so it shouldn’t be too bad.

                Aside from learning to use the cameras, I have also learned more about the Jack the Ripper murders than I ever thought possible. I honestly think I could become one of the tour guides at this point. Actually, considering the amount of money I’ve spent here I could really use a part time job so maybe I’ll see if they’re hiring. Before coming to London, I did a lot of research on the Jack the Ripper murders because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about when I reached out the experts to set up interviews in June. I knew that there were five main victims and that the way the women were killed was quite gruesome. What I’ve learned through these interviews though is that there is a big difference between reading about the killings and listening to someone narrate them. During two particular interviews I found myself cringing as they described the condition of the last body they found and I really hope that people feel the same way when they watch my documentary. I’m not trying to scare people or anything but I feel like media is most successful when it evokes an emotional response from its audience so I’d be really happy if this film is able to do that.

The Jack the Ripper walk with Donald Rumbelow, the worldwide leading expert on the Jack the Ripper murders

                Another thing that really struck me during these interviews is the way that Jack the Ripper acquired his name. The name itself is so creepy and well known that I had always assumed there was a great story behind it, but for such a glamourized and historic case the story was pretty bland. Basically, the police had received a series of letters during the murders from various people claiming to be Jack the Ripper or saying that they knew him. At the time he was just referred to as the East End Killer or Whitechapel Murderer, but one day a letter surfaced in which someone claimed to be the murderer and they signed it “Jack the Ripper.” Police are 99.9% positive the letter was a complete hoax and actually written by journalists in order to get more people to take an interest in the case and buy their paper.  Even though police knew this, for some reason the name stuck and he has been Jack the Ripper ever since. I find it really surprising that a fake letter drafted solely for attention purposes is what gave one of the most famous serial killers his moniker. Luckily the rest of the Jack the Ripper story is much more interesting than the tale of how he got his name, and I can’t wait to teach everyone about it in my group’s documentary!

Hampton Court Palace

Henry VIII owned sixty different castles in his lifetime (60!) and apparently Hampton Court was only his fourth favorite. I can’t even fathom what the other three must have looked like because Hampton Court was phenomenal. The castle was actually built by Henry’s right hand man, Cardinal Wolsey in 1514. Wolsey was a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church and acted as the Pope’s contact for England. While the palace is absolutely gorgeous today, in the 1500’s it was revolutionary. At the time, nobody had glass windows, but Wolsey had windows put in all along the walls. The windows were so valuable, in fact, that Henry VIII used to take them with him when he traveled. Similarly, chimneys were nonexistent in the early 1500’s, but Wolsey had chimneys all throughout the castle so that several of the rooms could have built in fireplaces. No one drank the water back then either, for people would just throw all of their waste into it so it was immensely polluted, but Wolsey had water piped in that people could drink. I’m sure that when people visited the castle back then, they were completely blown away.

Walking up to the palace

Inside the courtyard

                While the castle itself is quite an impressive sight, nothing can compare to the gardens. Hampton Court is built upon 50 acres of gardens and 250 acres of deer park. I have never been one to appreciate or even really notice people’s gardens (you can ask my Mom about this, it drives her absolutely crazy), but I think I could have sat in the middle of the Hampton Court gardens for days and not grown tired of looking at them. The purple, yellow, and orange flowers all seem to go on for miles and are perfectly symmetrical around the beautiful fountains spread throughout the landscape. The grass was the most perfect bright green color that I had ever seen and all I could think about was how much my parents would appreciate the view. The gardens are also home to the largest and oldest grape vine in the world, and the grapes are still sold at market value today.

                One of the most impressive structures at Hampton Court is the clock in the Clock Court area. The clock hangs at the top of the castle near the bell tower and was built in 1530. It can tell you the time, the day, the month, the astrological sign, phase of the moon, and the time of high tide at the London Bridge. Russell told us that he has asked several people how the clock can tell the time of high tide and they have all told him that no one really knows the answer to that. Again, I just can’t believe people were able to build these things so long ago. The only flaw in the clock is that since it was built in 1530, people still thought that the sun revolved around the earth, so it shows the sun rotating around us. All in all I’d say it is still pretty impressive!

The clock is at the top of the tower

                Unfortunately, when William III became king he decided to have the entire castle destroyed and rebuilt in the French style, except for Henry VIII’s great hall. The castle is still beautiful but I wish that I could’ve seen what it looked like during the time of the Tudors. Henry’s great hall has the world’s most valuable tapestries hanging on each of the walls. They are quite incredible and each one depicts a part of the story of Abraham, because Henry regarded himself as the modern day Abraham and wanted to remind everyone of that.

Some of the tapestries

                I’ve seen quite a few castles on this trip, but I think Hampton Court is my favorite one thus far. I’m visiting Windsor tomorrow though so it is possible that will change!

London Eye!

             Even though my itinerary for this trip already covers most of the traditional London landmarks that I want to visit during my time here, there are still a few other places that I hope to see as well. One of those places is the London Eye, which is actually quite surprising because I’ve been terrified of Ferris wheels my entire life. But hey, what better way is there to conquer your fear than to hop onto the third tallest Ferris wheel in the world, right? Well, that’s what I kept telling myself as I waited in line and looked up at the monstrosity that is the London Eye. I knew it was going to be really high… but it was like really high! When it was my turn to step into the pod I raced on and tried not to look up right away. The doors were locked behind me (I checked just to make sure… twice), and I knew there was no turning back.

The London Eye from the bridge

The view from underneath

                Thankfully the London Eye moves much slower than traditional Ferris wheels, so I actually didn’t really notice we were moving. We chose to buy our tickets at 9:30pm (which is the latest possible time you can go up), so we would be able to see the sun set over the city. The moment I looked out over the water I knew that was a brilliant idea. I’ve been here for exactly two weeks now and I have seen a lot of London during the day, but seeing the bright pink sunset over the sparkling lights of the city at night was unbelievable. The London Eye lights up a bright blue color and from where we were standing inside of it, I could see its reflection in the water. It takes the wheel thirty minutes to completely rotate one time, and it felt like the fastest thirty minutes of my life.

Here you can see what the pods looked like!

                Once we had reached the top of the rotation, we slid our way over to the left side where we could see Big Ben and took some pictures. I actually may have set the record for the largest amount of pictures ever taken in a thirty-minute period. The girl behind me dropped her iPhone, which made the loudest bang I had ever heard (ok, this is obviously an exaggeration but I was 440 feet in the air so cut me some slack), and I may have had a mini-panic attack because I thought the pod we were in broke. Aside from that minor complication though, the rest of the experience was amazing. I’m so glad I ignored my Ferris wheel phobia and decided to purchase a ticket. I know that some people say the London Eye might not be worth it in comparison to other London landmarks, but I have absolutely no regrets! Given that the London Eye is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the UK, I think other people must agree with me and I would recommend going at least once to everybody.

                Once our ride was over, we took some more pictures of the buildings along the Thames and then went for some gelato. It was the perfect end to a perfect day!