Let me start with a brief rundown of Katie's visit. To see some pics you can check out my last post!
Saturday 3/14:
-Katie landed a little after 9:30, emerged from the airport doors around 10:30
-Bus ride back to Royal Holloway
-Brief walk about campus, visiting the Founder's Building, etc.
-Grocery run to pick up the essentials for the week
-Staying local and simply taking our time as we walked everywhere.
-Make spaghetti dinner
-Go to the Happy Man pub off campus for sticky toffee pudding dessert
Sunday 3/15:
-Train into London
-Tower of London (and the weird former port authority building across the street from the Tower), complete with Beefeater tour and crown jewels
-Trafalgar Square to check out the St. Patrick's Day celebration and get lunch from a street vendor place. The celebration turned out to be a huge free concert of Irish bands and boy bands... the Irish boy band was really bad, but we had a good time.
-Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park. That's where are the crazy religious and political nuts go to espouse their ridiculous theories while standing on soap boxes, step ladders and buckets. Very funny to watch.
-Casual time sitting and resting on the grass in Hyde Park. It was a beautiful day. Actually, it was a beautiful week. Katie never saw rain in England.
-Buckingham Palace... as anticlimactic as the first time I was there. But a couple good pics.
-Walked over to the area around the Houses of Parliament and the Eye. Got some daytime pictures. Ate dinner (grilled cheeses... budget). Got pictures at night.
-Trained back to school and passed out!
Monday 3/16:-Monday was a slow day because I had class in the afternoon (2-3), essentially killing possibilities of going anywhere.
-In the morning I showed Katie the absolute chaos of the computer center as I had to hand in my final paper to the Geography Department.
-Class (Katie did homework I think).
-Long walk around Engelfield Green (another town essentially touching Royal Holloway) and the Engelfield Green cemetery, looking for old graves. Surprisingly not very many.
-Night filled with homework, unfortunately. I had three classes the next day, and one I had to make a presentation for... and then he never got around to letting me give my presentation!
Tuesday 3/17... St. Patrick's Day!-Lazy morning.
-Class 12-1. Katie used the time to go visit the farmers' market held at the students' union every Tuesday. She grabbed some apples and potatoes. Nothing too exciting.
-Lunch together... then back to class 2-4.
-Immediately after class at 4, threw a bunch of clothes in a backpack, and took off on a train for the city!
-Arrive after battling rush hour type crowds on the Tube at the Generator Hostel. They initially put Katie and I in different rooms, despite telling me when I booked that we were together in a four person. After objecting we wound up together in a 7-person. Weird. But it worked.
-After dropping our stuff we headed to my favorite pub in London, The Boot, for dinner. Nice atmosphere with St. Patrick's Day decorations up, and Irish folk music playing in the background. Made me love it even more.
-Next we headed back to King's Cross Station to take pictures with the Harry Potter Platform 9 3/4 pushcart. Mom, you'd know what this meant if you just read the books like I asked...
-From there we hopped on the Tube for a ride to the Square Mile/City of London. It is where the original city of London began, where the original London Bridge led, and where the current financial sector lies.
-We saw "The Monument" in that area, which commemorates the Great Fire of 1666 which burned down most of the city, yet ironically also killed the rats that were spreading the plague.
-We saw the inside out building (you'd have to see it to understand) that is Lloyd's of London.
-Also views of Tower Bridge at night from London Bridge.
-Snapped some pics in a red phone booth
-Hit up a pub that I had read was the best in London, called the Nag's Head. Turned out to have terrible service. Left us both with a bad taste in our mouths.
-Headed back to the Generator to attempt sleep.
Wednesday 3/18-Started the day with a search for Greenwich Park, which is dissected by the Prime Meridian. Katie and I met on spring break last year in Ecuador, where we jumped over the equator... so we wanted to jump the Prime Meridian together too! It took us a long time to find (it's just generally a trip to find anyway...). We first wound up in Sloane Square due to some bad information. Eventually we found the park, and looked on a park map to see where the Prime Meridian cut it in half. We found the spot we were looking for, but it was not marked with a line. So we made our own with our coats, and jumped over! One of the highlights of the trip.
-We then hastily returned to the Eye in the middle of the city to hop on (we had bought time specific tickets). Another beautiful, sunny day gave some nice views, and our fellow passengers were nice, so we got lots of pictures.
-From the Eye we grabbed a quick hot dog lunch and headed towards Wesminster.
-Got confused by where we were going and wound up just behind the Houses of Parliament, but eventually figured it out.
-Found Westminster and discovered it was closed! Took some pics outside, and headed to St. Paul's, which we had been intending to do as well.
-Spent a good long time in St. Paul's exploring the art, sculpture tombs, and dome (climb lots of stairs for views from above both inside and out!).
-Stayed in St. Paul's for Evensong, a short evening service.
-Headed home for a very late dinner!
Thursday 3/19:
-Started the day with a walk to Runnymede, where the Magna Carta was signed. It's still nothing but a big field, but now Katie can say she danced where the Magna Carta was signed.
-Ate some lunch at home.
-Caught a bus to Windsor. Queen wasn't home when we got there. Explored St. George's Chapel, took pics with the funny bear hat guard, explored the State Apartments. As we were getting ready to go, we wanted to kill time, because it wasn't quite time for dinner. So we went into a couple gift shops. As we finally were choosing to leave, I was going to comment about the Queen never being around during my three trips to Windsor, and my two to Buckingham, when I noticed that her flag was flying! She arrive while we were there!
-Explored the town a bit.
-Dinner out.
-Home for a movie.
Friday 3/20:
-Slow day... class 10-12, 2-4.
-Just generally spent as much time with Katie lounging about as possible. I think she explored a bit on her own while I was in class.
-Made dinner together.
-Back to Happy Man pub for more sticky toffee pudding.
-Explore Founder's Building... find really creepy closet. Really creepy.
-Back for a sad bedtime :-(
Saturday 3/21:
-Up early to catch a bus to the airport. Super :-(
All in all it was a splendid week. More to come about what's happened since then, and what's coming up. Soon I hope, because I leave Sunday!
