Day 4: Adventures with Simon & Oliver!

Today was amazing! We got to see so many more sites in London and get a lot of information. Only downside? We walked a good 15 miles, at least! Oh well, exercise is good, right? :)

I had a bit of a rough start by not waking up to my alarm clock, and instead waking to Alex knocking on my door! Sooo... I'm going to set like 3 alarms for tomorrow morning!

We all went to the Duchesne Building (a.k.a. the Human Rights Centre, which is where we will do everything academic), expecting to be in class from 9-4, because our schedule noted that Simon Edwards would be our principal lecturer on "Using London as a Resource." We were certainly surprised when we picked up our packed lunches and he told us to change into comfortable shoes, because we'd be spending the whole day trekking!

We all started the day with a laugh on the train. A man sat next to Malik and was talking into his Bluetooth headset while looking almost straight at Malik. At first, I didn't notice his Bluetooth, so I just thought Malik was sternly ignoring the man. I started cracking up at the ridiculousness of the situation and Malik finally found it strangely awkward to figure out how to respond to this man, even though he clearly wasn't talking to him! Maybe it was a "had to be there" moment ;)



We got to walk through Law Office districts, and it was crazy to see the sheer number of lawyers available. We also got to see Middle Temple Hall, supposedly in which the first production of "Twelfth Night" was performed! Additionally, we saw several churches, including St. Brides Church, Saint Lawrence Jewry, St. Paul's Cathedral (where Princess Diana got married!) And of COURSE we had to take the typical London tourist picture!... inside a red telephone booth :)


Interestingly enough, we've noticed that Britain is very closely under surveillance. Not only are there cameras in the train stations, roads, and museums, but seemingly everywhere! Simon said today, "Chances are, if you do something in London, about 20 cameras just picked it up."

We took the Greenwich Foot Tunnel (which was very chilly by the way!) over to Greenwich to see the National Maritime Museum (a nice place built for the British navy).

Greenwich foot tunnel

Outside the National Maritime Museum

Then, we had to hike up a killer hill to visit the Royal Observatory and Bradley Meridian which is at longitude 0 degrees. It divides the Eastern and Western hemispheres. We were able to take pictures with one foot on either side of this line, so that we could be in 2 hemispheres at the same time :)



We headed back to Waterloo station to relax a bit, and meet up with Kirsten, Curtis, and Segolene (a French intern for our Questioning Citizenship class -- the fourth from the right in the picture below), who would be taking us to meet Katie (another worker at the International Centre -- the second from the left in the picture below) at Sway Restaurant. It was a very nice place! We were able to choose 2 courses (starter and main, or main and dessert)... it was a very nice treat out.


Then, we headed to Theatre Royal Drury Lane (passing through the lovely Covent Garden) to see Oliver! the musical. It was so amazing! Besides the fact that we were LITERALLY in the nosebleed section (no really, two kids in the row in front of us got nosebleeds... we were the second row from the back in the top balcony. All of the little children were so talented and adorable with their British accents :) I was very impressed! Then, at the end, there was a guest speaker who was the actor who first played Fagin (a main character in the musical) 50 years ago. He began to ramble and it turned into a strange experience, but nevertheless fun!



We were able to see the beautiful London with all the amazing lights on our way back!


Needless to say, we're all exhausted! We've been playing around with the idea that this is all actually a big reality show called something along the lines of "Which American Can Survive?" ;)