January 22nd

Well it's been a busy week. I had another long adventure after my last post and focused mainly on Westminster. I started out by taking the Victoria line to the Victoria station and I walked towards Westminster Abbey. I was on Victoria St. and I walked by a mansion with a nice courtyard and a gated entrance. The gate was open...and my curiosity took over and so I went in and snapped a few pictures.



On my way out, I noticed that the gate had closed and that I was locked in. I looked around for a way to open the gate, but wasn't able to find anything. Thankfully, one of the residents of the place needed to get in, so I thanked her and carried on towards Westminster Abbey. As I got closer to the River Thames, the buildings got taller and more impressive. While I was in the area, I saw:

Big Ben:


The House of Parliament:


Westminster Cathedral:



Westminster Abbey:


St. Margaret's Church with Westminster Abbey in the background from across Parliament Square:


After seeing all of that, I walked up to Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately the guards weren't changing when I was there, but it happens every other day, so I'll definitely be going back there. Here's a few pictures of the palace and the Victoria Memorial, which is just outside of the palace.



After that, I walked over to Trafalgar Square and passed by Admiralty Arch on the way.

Admiralty Arch:


Trafalgar Square:


I then left Trafalgar Square and walked through Soho to get to Oxford street because I wanted to find a store called Primark, as I'd heard they carried hangers. Soho looked pretty cool, but I was getting tired at this point, so I pretty much just kept walking and didn't stop much. I got to oxford street and it was pretty terrible...people were everywhere and I couldn't walk fast. I finally made it to Primark though, and thankfully they had hangers. Primark, aside from being packed with millions of people, seemed like a good store with really reasonable prices. If I have to do any clothes shopping while in London, i'll probably go there.

Since I was right by the Marble Arch at this point, I decided to stop by. It really wasn't that great, but here's a picture of it.


Then I walked back to my room, and unfortunately it started raining about half way through my journey back. I stopped in this place called Eat for a coffee and to wait out the bad weather. Thankfully it didn't take that long. Here's my route for the day.



After those two days, I'm pretty sure my legs wouldn't fallen off if I had walked anymore, so I decided to take a few days off.

My room mate came on the 20th. He's from Washington and goes to Western Washington University. He's nice, but I do miss having my room to myself.

Orientation started yesterday and it was okay. I met a lot of people and went out with 6 of them last night which was fun. Kate, Diana, Oliver, Brent, and my roommate Tyler are Americans and the other member of our group, Natalie, is from Sweden. We started out by walking around the Kings Cross area and we found a pub, the Yorkshire Grey. We had a drink there (I had a London Pale Ale for 4.75) and got some food and then continued on to the Railway Tavern on Liverpool St. We stayed there for an hour or two and I had an Abbot Ale. It was good and cost 3.95. Then we headed back to Kings Cross and I finally got a normal nights rest. Today was the second day of orientation and I got my classes. I'll be taking Personal Finance, Art in London, Theatre in London, and Organisational design and management. Those'll start on the 27th.

That's about it for now, I'll post more another time. Hope all is well with all of you!