Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Free Day in London!

January 2, 2013

Hello! My name is Laura Blasena and I am a sophomore Elementary Education and Spanish Education major at St. Scholastica. I am part of the Literature class and (even though that has very little to do with my major) I am very excited to be here in London and to be travelling overseas for the first time!

Thanks to a decision made by our professor, we were granted an entire free day on Wednesday. A group of friends and I decided to head out to the Tower of London to see what the historic site was all about. We listened to a lovely little tour given by a rather melodramatic Yeoman Guard who teased all of the American tourists and told us all about the executions that had taken place at the Tower of London. 

After that we headed out to explore and see more of the complex, which included the armory, ravens, torture chambers, and the crown jewels. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the crown jewels, so I was unable to get an actual picture of the ridiculous number of salt spoons that are included in the collection (fifteen in total…which is fourteen too many in my opinion). We also got the chance to eat some fish and chips for lunch!
  

While the theater Group went off to see their own production, a few of us decided to go see Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theater. We had stopped at a half-price ticket booth that morning, so we ended up with fairly good seats for a very good price (we could see the stage!). The show was absolutely amazing! I’ve watched the movie more times than I can count and have listened to the soundtrack countless times, but seeing it at the theater was way better than any of those.



3 comments:

  1. For the free day some friends and I took to the city in search of the changing of the guards which was quite the tourist location. It was packed and we barely saw anything but we did get to see the soldiers marching in their band. Next we went to West Minister Abbey, since I am such a fan of the royal couple I couldn't wait to look inside and see where they wed. The Abbey was not only a gorgeous worship area but an amazing museum filled with memorials and burial places of England's finest. We found Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, and Isaac Newtons tombstones plus many more nearly all of the King and Queens. This was so fascinating!

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  2. I went with Danielle to the Abbey on our free day, and I would recommend this to anybody coming to England - but it is slightly pricey. I have never learned so much about the royalty in England or seen and learned about so much history at one time. History is not my favorite subject, but the audio guided tour of the Abbey was one of the most fascinating things I have done in a long time. You learn SO much!

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