Stopping in

Pizza's in the oven, so I'll make this quick. Yesterday we took a speedy but thorough bus tour with Trudy, our Blue Badge Guide, stopping at Westminster Abbey:
which is where all the kings & queens have been crowned since 1066 and many of them and other famous people are buried, including Queen Elizabeth I.
We were also quite lucky to come across a once-in-a-lifetime sighting of the Queen's carriages (not with the queen in it, but still) on their way to Buckingham Palace for Her Majesty's birthday tomorrow (which I believe we are attending).
They are apparently the only ones allowed to go through this arch in anything with wheels.

(Here is another photo of Westminster Abbey, including, I think, the school where the princes are educated...though I'm not for sure on that one.):


We also got to see London Bridge, Parliament & Big Ben (which, if you look at the picture above, would be over to the left if the picture kept going), and St. Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt in 1660's after the Fire of London (1666):

The statue out front is Queen Anne.
Also, this cafe is next to it (this is for you, Dad):

They named it after you! We didn't really get to stop long at any of these places, so I will be going back for sure.

Speaking of Pauls, one of the professors on the program is originally from Yorkshire, England, and I found out the other day that he now lives in Springfield, probably not far from where my house is. It was fun to talk about his impression as an outsider of Springfield. Very interesting indeed.

After the tour we went to the portrait gallery, and I got to see some original portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (including the one of her standing on the map with the clear sky and the stormy sky behind her...it's amazing...AND the one of her coronation in which she is so young and still has her own hair), Sir Philip Sydney, Robert Dudley (Leicester), supposedly the only portrait of Shakespeare that was done with him present, John Donne (what a hunk), Ben Jonson, etc, etc. It was amazing to see these, half because the men were important enough then to have a portrait done, part because these paintings are so old and you know...Shakespeare was THERE when the painter painted the thing, you know? Amazing. Plus, Donne's was really great; he looked very melancholy and it wasn't very straightforward like the rest. Very characteristic. Very hunky. :)

After that we took care of our Oyster cards (to use the tube station) and rode the tube (for the first time!) back to our borough. Quite grand.

Then in the evening, our RAs and our resident copper, Paul, took us out to several pubs in the borough, including the one (of three) at our University. It was probably the best; the students were very nice and easy to talk to, though several of us did talk for a while to a very nice young British soldier with a New Jersey girlfriend and a sort of (English) country accent at one of the pubs. I think he's part of the ceremonial portion of the military, so he told us all to look for him on his horse at the Queen's birthday.

Today we had orientation at Imperial (the university we're at) and had our first BLC (British Life & Culture) lecture; it was really interesting. He told us to pay attention to different accents, as they denote not only region but in some ways class; he sort of talked a bit about the differences between American and British humor (British humor sounds like the kind I like, anyway); and he gave us a nice, succinct history of Britain's beginning, some basic info about Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and the sort of relationship between them all.

Well, pizza's done and eaten, time to look for a cheap sweater--as it turns out, they don't really have summer over here....
Cheers!