Another Update from England!

Hello again! I'm really bad at trying to post on this regularly! :( Hopefully I'll do better in the few days that we have left in England.

It's been an interesting few days! London is pretty great all in all. There are some things I would change but I think you'll have that anywhere. So I can't complain all too much.

I’ll recap the week in London so far since this is my first post about things we’ve been able to do in London. The bus tour of London we had was really cool, lots to see (unfortunately I was on a bit of cold medication so I was fighting off sleep during the bus tour). The Tower of London was really cool, especially getting to see the Crown jewels and the Beefeater tour (hard to decide what my favorite part really was). Westminster Abbey was interesting but a somewhat long tour. The London Eye was a great experience and I enjoyed it a lot regardless of my fear of heights. Getting to see Parliament was interesting, security was pretty tight and we did not get to see the House of Commons. It’s a good thing we got to go to Parliament on Wednesday and not on Thursday because of the protests that turned into riots near Parliament and closed the Westminster Underground station.

Back to talking about London and all of the cool stuff we've been able to do. Visiting Great Ormond Street Hospital and St. Thomas Hospital was kind of cool. I liked the little tour we were able to go on of two units at St. Thomas' and when a few of us walked over to Evelina Children's Hospital (at St Thomas') and looked around the ground floor lobby. I enjoyed the production of War Horse, and getting to go to the symphony was interesting - particularly how animated the conductor was. We were seated in the choir stalls and were able to see the conductor's expressions and mannerisms, which is something we never would have seen sitting in the general audience.

So. I've decided I'm a fan of the Underground. I didn't know what to think about it at first, but the more we've used it the more I've decided I like the subway. Maybe that's just because it's a novelty to me, someone who's lived in central Ohio my whole life, that the subway is a new experience for me. I think maybe it has more to do with the convenience of using the Underground. There are so many stations, it seems like there are very few places that are more than a few block's walk away from one or several Underground stations. I think it just makes so much sense! From the Underground you can go almost anywhere in London, and the Underground trains run to several national rail stations as well as to the terminals at Heathrow! It is awful busy at peak times, which can make getting a big group of people on the same train a bit of an issue. But other than that, it works so well. Maybe not so well for people who are claustrophobic, but I like it. Though it's cool and convenient, it's also kind of weird, that the trains are so far below the surface of the ground. Even though the trains run so far below ground you can hear the trains running on the line that runs below our hotel.

More later. :)