London with the Lads

Hello, everybody! This has been a fast-paced week for us, covering everything from hoop skirts to board games, and from afternoon tea to a home-cooked feast. I'll share some stories about Monday and Tuesday, and then Nicole will follow up with Wednesday and Thursday.

On Monday, Nicole and I met up with Nate in Kensington to see the Victoria & Albert museum and Kensington Palace. I didn't know anything about the V&A museum, and was surprised to find six enormous floors filled with thousands of paintings, statues, and artifacts. I guess I had assumed the museum would actually be about its two British namesakes, but instead, it contained exhibits from all over the world. Our favorite part was the theatre exhibit, which had a whole closet of costumes for people to try on. It was entertaining to play dress up like we were little kids again, and the final result was certainly more flattering than the oddly-bent hoop skirt I tried on in a different part of the museum!

The trio of travelers then set off for the Kensington Palace gardens, where we ate a picnic lunch that we shared with a puppy friend we met, but not with the dozens of greedy swans in the pond. The gardens were massive, stretching farther than the eye could see. If I were Prince William or Kate Middleton, the residents of the palace, I would go for morning runs every day through those gardens! Speaking of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, we did not run into them as we toured their home, but we enjoyed getting to see an exhibit on Diana, Princess of Wales, and her fashion story. If only we could try on those elegant dresses!

To conclude our day, we dropped by St. Paul's Cathedral back in London, and we were allowed to enter for free to attend their Evensong service. So we got to admire the gorgeous architecture of the cathedral while listening to their choir and prayers. What a stroke of luck! The only thing that would have made it even better is if it were Catholic. Well, we'll have more Catholic Churches than we know what to do with in Rome!

Tuesday was packed with more adventures with Nate, as we took a train to Hampton Court Palace, home of the Tudor dynasty. I don't know why it is so entertaining to learn about a man who married six women, divorcing/beheading four of them, but it is, and we had a great time!
Compared to Kensington Palace, Hampton Court Palace was far bigger and grander in both Tudor style as well as William and Mary's later redecorated fashion.

One of the highlights, however, besides the floor-to-ceiling tapestries or the hedge maze, was the board game we played in one of the rooms. I got all the way to the second to last space, but then landed on a space that said I was discovered to be a Jacobean spy and was executed for treason, so I had to go all the way back to the beginning, while Nate surged on ahead to victory. All in all, it was a fantastic day trip, and we were all ready to go to bed by the end of it! I'll hand it over to Nicole now to recap Wednesday and Thursday :)

Hi guys! Wednesday was tons of fun, we spent the day in posh style. To start, we slept in for the first time since Emily
arrived. One of the hard things about getting to do so much while we are here, is that it often means early mornings in order to get everything in. The sun sets so early, plus a lot of the attractions close pretty early here. I got up around 10, showered and then climbed back in bed to read and journal. It was such a relaxing morning. One of my high priorities for London, was going to a high tea at one of the nice hotels in London. Following my senior year of high school, I interned at the Willard Incontinental Hotel in DC and have since been obsessed with old historic hotels and of course, the fancy lifestyle that accompanies them. My grandparents were gracious enough to make reservations for Emily and I to have tea at the Ritz Hotel, which was recommended to me by my mom. She always appreciates these things and we used to go to high teas together when I was little.
And it certainly lived up to our expectations! Emily had never experienced a high tea before, so I was even more excited for her. The tea lists are always extensive and I had a delicious orange and passion fruit tea while Emily sipped on a mint chocolate tea. You start off with finger sandwiches of salmon, cucumber, egg salad, chicken, and roast beef followed by various pastries and tarts and conclude with fresh scones and clotted cream and jam. Safe to say that this was my one and only meal of the day and I was so stuffed.  But the best part about high tea is the atmosphere: live soft piano music in the background, people dressed up and chattering away over a cup of tea, and sophisticated waiters catering to your every wish ;)

After tea we ran around trying to find a post office to mail a large stack of postcards and then also to the bank to withdraw some more cash for Emily and then we parted ways. I had booked tickets with Nate to go and see Les Miserables at Queens Theater and Emily had preferred to stay home for the night and continue our relaxing morning and catch up on her journal. It's sometimes hard to come home from a long day of adventuring and find the motivation to pull out the journal or blog and write when all you want to do is collapse into bed and sleep. But Emily has been very diligent, and I am attempting to follow her example. But Les Miserables was amazing!! I've always loved the musical and remember seeing it three times when it came out in theaters and then watching countless rehearsals and performances when I was the assistant stage manager for it my freshmen year when Christendom did it. But nothing beats a live, broadway-like performance. They did a phenomenal job with the music and sets! I will certainly be singing the tunes for weeks to come!

By Thursday, our group had grown in size yet again as Felice and Tom had arrived just after midnight to stay with Nate's uncle as well. We all met up at Westminister Abbey and got the chance to tour the beautiful church. There was such much going on in there I was grateful that we had the audio-guides to keep us on track and feel like we were absorbing as much as possible. So many sovereigns and famous people have been buried in these holy floors. We also got to tour the connecting monastery which dated back to the 11th century. We easily spent a good hour and a half inside of this famed Church, which boasts the coronation chair of the royals.

After this we wandered to Trafalgar Square and went to the National Gallery to check out a sampling of some of the famous works on display. These art museums can be quite daunting and its easier to tackle a small section at a time. After the art gallery, we headed towards Buckingham Palace. The queen's flag was not flying, so she wasn't home, but we did get to see some dignitarian arrive in a horse-drawn carriage. We cut through Green Park back to the underground station to head back to St. John's Wood where Nate's uncle lives.

They had been gracious enough to invite us over and allow us to make dinner in their kitchen. It was a group effort and so much fun. We brainstormed what we wanted to make before heading to the grocery store. Felice was in charge of making a family recipe for Chicken and 40 cloves, it was amazing! Tom and I tackled the sides of bread, garlic parmasan potatoes, and asparagus. Emily made some shortbread for dessert and we gave Nate the task of doing the bulk of the dishes (with our help, of course). It was such a nice evening spent in laughter and conversation.  After dinner we walked to Primrose Hill to get a fantastic view of the city of London at night. You could spot a lot of the major landmarks such as St. Paul's, Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. But Emily and I needed to leave before midnight as to make it back on the underground before the trains stopped running for the night. We would be leaving for Stratford-upon-Avon in the morning and still needed to pack and get some sleep. It's crazy how fast our time is going by, I've already been away from home for over a month, so much has happened! I can only hope that the rest of the semester will be full of many more nights like these, spent with my dearest friends!

The Blonde and the Brunette