London Week 4 – Vince Acri

Hello everyone! My fourth week was an awesome experience yet again of getting to explore new parts of the city and do things I have been waiting years for.

Immediately the day after I submitted my last journal I had a busy Saturday. We woke up at 10 am to go on a 2 hour bus sightseeing tour of the city. We saw new buildings, were told of things to do, shoppings centers, and restaurants that we all wrote down to do later on this trip. After this, I had a school ticket to visit Parliament on an audio guided tour of the building and the different chambers. I really enjoyed the tour, especially the historical artifacts, statues, and pieces of work lined throughout the chambers and halls. I wish I could have taken more pictures of Parliament, but unfortunately pictures are restricted after leaving St. Stephen’s Hall which is the main entrance to Parliament. It took around an hour and a half to complete the tour, after which I bought some Christmas ornaments from their gift shop for my mother. I felt very connected to the history of England during this tour, which is something I have been looking forward to for years. Unfortunately, I did not have time to go next door to Westminster Abbey for a tour, since the cut off time was at 2 pm on Saturdays, and they are not open on Sundays. Visiting these types of places on the weekdays are difficult due to having classes during the day and hours being so limited.

On Sunday was our program’s planned visit to the London Eye. To be candid I am very much afraid of heights, even going up a tall ladder is a hard task for me at times. It was unfortunate that this was the only day of the week that it was the famous London rain and fog weather that I have yet to see much of. Due to this weather the view from the London Eye was not nearly as great as it would have been on a regular day. I took dozens of pictures but the raindrops on the glass disrupted the focus of my camera so I got only a few pictures that were clearly showing the skyline and buildings along the Thames. I did surprisingly well with the heights, the worst being when I reached the very top of the rotation and stopped for a couple minutes.

My week of classes went fantastic as usual. I love my classes and the professors are amazing! My punk rock class studied and discussed the Sex Pistols and the Clash, two of my favorite classic rock bands. My food and cultures class did a taste testing of different traditional British foods. This included: black pudding (blood sausage), pickled onions, jellied eels, Marmite, English cheese, biscuits, yorkshire pudding, mince pies, pork pie, spicy mustard, and mackerel. It was all very good, some of the offerings did not seem appealing at first to me, but I was not going to judge a book by its cover. The only thing I did not like was the jellied eel, I thought the eel was fine, but the jelly was very strange with it.

I have a trip to Stonehenge planned for tomorrow along with Salisbury Cathedral through the school. I will be gone from 7am-7pm so it will be a long day of getting to see some awesome sights, where I plan to take a video for a vlog!

The pictures attached below are of me in the London Eye, and myself outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral during our bus tour.

Thank you all so much for reading!