London

A Year Ago Today...

March 14, 2009

Itinerary:

Saturday, 3/14 London

-Breakfast: Groceries bought Friday

-8:00 Walk: Along the South Bank (of the Thames), past Shakespeare's Globe, across the Millennium Bridge (over the river). St. Paul's Cathedral

-British Library

-Bunhill Fields (Bunyan, Watts, Owen, Susannah Wesley graves)

-Walk through St. James' Park to get to Buckingham Palace

-National Gallery/Trafalger Square (Meet Ali's friend Ben here)

-Abbey Road

-British Museum

-Quick dinner at McDonalds before show (£2. 28)

-Les Miserables at the Queen's Theater (£42.50)

-Lodging: Holiday Inn, London-Camden Lock

After a good night's rest, we were ready to tackle our second day in London. We set off from our tube stop: Camden Town.

We headed down to the Thames to catch some of the beautiful London sites such as the Millennium Bridge, London Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral which is in the background of this photo.

We walked past Shakespeare's Globe Theater which is a recreation of the original that burnt down in 1613.

And checked out some amazing and timeless manuscripts and documents at the British Library. Here we got to see Handel's Messiah, some of Jane Austen's manuscripts, The Magna Carta, and much much more!

At the library we got directions to Bunhill Fields and made our pilgrimage over to John Bunyan's grave.

Isaac Watts is buried here too (pictured below) as well as Susanna Wesley who was the mother of 19 children!

Like good little Covenant High School students, we pulled out our notebook and sang some of the precious hymns of Isaac Watts.

Moving on through London, we walked through St. James' Park on our way to Buckingham Palace. The flowers were a few weeks earlier in London than in Tacoma so we enjoyed the springtime immensely.

Here we are at Buckingham Palace. I don't think the Queen was there.

I had to steal a photo of the National Gallery from the internet because we forgot to take one--can you believe it? I love the National Gallery and just wish we had more time to spend inside. It is filled with so many art treasures with some recognizable ones among hundreds of others. Here, we also met Ali's friend, Ben, who was living in London at the time.

Ben came along with us to Abby Road.

We had to do a Beatles photo. Autumn went all out--taking off her shoes and everything!

Finally, we moved on to the British Museum. Oh I feel like I could spend years in the British Museum and still not see everything! I love it! There is so much to see and a lot of it is right out where you can touch it and interact with it. The museum is free and you can take photos of everything.

Here we are just hanging out at the Assyrian gates that the Jews were most likely marched by when they were brought into captivity...

And enjoying some quality bonding time with the mummies... wish I could show you more, but then we'd be here all day!

And to top off our fantastic day? We saw Les Miserables in London. It was amazing!