Our Final Day

January 10, 2013

Hello! I am Lee Bongey, a PSEO student at the College of St. Scholastica. I intend to double major in Asian Studies and Cultural Anthropology when I leave for college next year, so learning about the culture of London has been a fascinating experience for me! Today was our last full day in London, and tomorrow we head back to the United States where we shall have to return to reality.  Although our last day was inevitable, I think that the way it was spent couldn’t have been better!

The day started with a trip to the Victoria & Albert Museum; a decorative arts museum with a variety of exhibits ranging from sculptures and tapestries to theatre and fashion. Eleanor, our guide for previous tours around London, took us through the museum, pointing out key artifacts and giving some additional commentary and explanation about the exhibits; my favorite was the theatre exhibit displaying different kinds of masks used in Greek theatre.  After Eleanor’s tour of the museum, we were free to look around. Many of us went directly to the clothing in theatre exhibit, where we could try on costume replicas from famous plays.

For lunch, I went to a pub called Crowns and Scepters, where I tried the traditional Fish & Chips for the first time, which I actually enjoyed, much to my surprise. After lunch, we went to Hyde Park to meet with some more people from our group, where we visited the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and walked around Hyde Park to the Peter Pan statue. After encountering a very unusual man in red sweatpants who tapped one of our party on the shoulder after whispering at us, we continued cautiously to the train station.

We took the Tube to Leicester Square where we went directly to M&M World. As you would expect, there were more M&Ms and M&M merchandise than I had ever seen before. The four-floor store kept us busy, and when we finished buying our bags of mixed M&Ms and key chains, we returned to the hotel for a little bit of rest before our final dinner in London.

For dinner, the literature and theatre groups went together to a French restaurant (where I had a very good pork cutlet and some extremely chocolaty, but delicious, chocolate mousse). Claire very kindly gave us each a group photo from our trip, as well as a postcard for us to write down what we want to remember from this trip, which she will send to us later in the year so we won’t forget our experiences from this trip. It was a great to get together with everyone for one last dinner with the entire group!

I have loved being in such a diverse and historical city, and meeting all of these great students in our group. This has been a wonderful experience that I have truly enjoyed!

Here’s hoping that our flights tomorrow will go more smoothly than they were coming here!