London Baby!!!

we left cambridge on thursday and arrived in London later that day. Our final day in Cambridge was wonderful. We had class in the morning and then went punting on the Cam. The boys in our group decided to do punting Olympic style and had races. It was pretty comical to watch. They wound up getting each other completely soaking wet and spent about 10 minutes getting all the water our of the little boats. Even Dr. Pointer did his fair share of splashing all the boys...i got it on video so it will be perfect if I ever need blackmail. one of the boys even jumped into the water jumped from boat to boat...boys will always be boys! Us girls had a more relaxing punting experience. We all took turns doing it and luckily no one feel in or got wet! For our last night we had a getting-aquainted party for the whole group. It seemed a little strange that our getting to know you party was 2 weeks into the trip but it was fun regardless. One of the best memories from Cambridge was Mikey coming into class in the europe semester outfit which has been passed on from the boys of last semeseter. the outfit consists of white pants and a big union jack tshirt...he looked ridiculous! I guess the tradition is for all the boys to wear it one day on the trip! too funny

In london we are staying at the London School of Economics in the High Holborn area. The area we are staying in is great! there are tons of shops, restraunts, it's within walking distance to most major areas and super close to covent gradens. I'm in a double room that is clearly meant to be a single. There is about 1 foot inbetween the 2 beds and no room for us to open our suitcases...we are being optimistic and calling it cozy...very cozy! it is definitely the smallest space that we've had to stay in so it will be intersting.

On our way to london we stopped off at Stowe Gardens which is this huge landscape garden. my favorite part of it was seeing the castle that was used in the james bond movie and the rotunda used in the lastest version of pride and prejudice! i could just imagine all the characters from jane austin's novels walking around in the gardens. It was one of the girls bday that day so her boyfriend orchestrated it so that all the boys would sing to her "i can't help falling in love with you". It was too cute! We had tons of reading to do for the next day of classes so on our first night a few of us wandered over to covent gardens to sit at a cafe and finish our reading. It was perfect! The weather was so warm...it was after 9pm and still felt like it was in the 70s. Of course i barely got any reading done b/c i was so distracted by all the people watching and all the street performers and just being so excited to be in London! Kendra imagine me at a coffee shope and multiply it by 10 and that's how productive i was :-)

Our first full day in London was good. We had class in the morning and spent the afternoon at the Imperial War Museum. That museum was incredible...I highly recommend it. I'm not usually into that kind of thing but I was so intrigued...most of our group easily spent 2 hours there if not longer. Then went out to dinner at this great little italian dinner with some people in the group that I didn't really know as well...we had a great time and I am continuously surpised at how great the people on this trip are! We went to a play as a group...Emperor Jones and basically had to run there from dinner so that we could get our tickets in time. The play was alright...it was probably the shortest play i have ever seen only about 1 hour. After the play a huge group of us (20) ventured back to covent garden to go to a bar that overlooks the square (the one u and i went to leah). but going out in a huge group is slightly impossible so we had to leave and went to this great place called shakespear's head. i have never seen a bar so big and it was the first time i didnt' feel like our westmont group has taken over a place.

Today we had class again in the morning (so weird having class on saturday) and then spent the afternoon at the National Gallery. We tried to get some theater tickets for Les Miserable for tonight but the only ones left were super expensive. We are going to have to go another night...not on saturday. Tomorrow we have a free day so a few of us are going to Bath...which i'm sooo excited about!! So far london is everything I remembered and love...i'm so happy that we are here for 11 days!