Day 3: Woke Up in London Yesterday

Except it wasn't in the city near Piccadilly, it was at the BYU London Center!  And please listen to this song just because.  "This has gotta be the good life" for real!


So today was jam packed with activities.  First, I woke up early to read my scriptures and then went jogging in Hyde Park.  I just, ya know, ran from the Centre past Kensington Palace.  No big deal.  But really, I loved it!  I ran around this man made pond that had swans swimming in it and amazing statues.  The grass was incredibly green.  There were other runners out and people doing jiu-jitsu.  It was the most peaceful run I have ever gone on!  I'm definitely doing it again.


Our first activity for the day was heading to the Tower of London.  We saw the beautiful, glistening, crown jewels (no pictures).  They were absolutely gorgeous!  One of the scepters contained a diamond that was 540 carats.  What?  Who even knew those existed?   We also saw the armory which was pretty interesting.  I saw Henry VIII's armor and he was one big man!  We also saw a torture chamber. It wasn't even scary.  There's a myth that when the ravens around the tower fly away, either the tower will fall or London will fall.  So to prevent this from happening they clip their wings.  I think that's just cheating fate!  Although from the looks of things, neither the tower or London will be falling anytime soon.

(Kayley and myself- still looking rather jet lagged)

(Kennedy, Jaden, Katherine, Kelsey, myself, Paige, and Mallory trying to stay dry outside of the Tower.)

(the White Tower)

(Kayley, myself, Kayley, and Whitney)

In the Armory

(Henry VIII's armor)

(Harnessing my inner Katniss)

After a quick lunch we went on another walk for our London Walks class.  We walked around the city where the old Roman walls used to be (the Londinium Walk).  The Romans occupied London for about 400 years.  That's like from Shakespeare's time to our day.  So they're a large part of London history!  "The City" of London is actually inside of the old walls.  We saw a few large parts of the wall that are left and just imagined the rest of the wall as we walked around the perimeter of the city.

Our walk took us all the way from the Tower to the Museum of London. It was a long walk, and it rained, and we almost got hit by a double decker bus but it's fine.  It was great to see more of the city!  The Museum of London was all about London's history.  We saw some artifacts from pre-Roman and Roman times up through the time of the Great Fire, War Time, and today. London's geography, people, and neighborhoods have changed so much but it has stayed wonderful throughout the ages.  I love this town!

I went with a few girls to get Fenton's Ice Cream after dinner.  Super yummy!  And now I need to do homework because I've already kinda forgotten that this is study abroad.  So I should probably study... cheers!