Monday July 13, 2009

Day 2 –London

By Kelsey Schile

Northern Lights 16-1

 

 

Today was a busy day here in London with a lot of site seeing with Justin.  Justin was the tour guide that we had led us around all these wonderful sites. The very first thing we saw was Big Ben, this year in September is Big Ben’s 150th anniversary from when it was built. Big Ben is actually not the clock it is the bells beneath the clock. There was a man striking outside the parliament building since 2002. The reason for his strike is the war in Iraq. He hasn’t left his post unless he has to go to court under charges by parliament.

 

There were statues all over London of everyone from old kings to new leaders like Winston Churchill, which was the first statue we saw. Winston Churchill was a British politician that was recognized for his leadership during World War II. We learned a lot about “naughty” people who were tried and punished in the house of parliament. We also learned that some of the heads were chopped off and stuck on spikes of London Bridge.

 

Next was the West Minister Abbey, which was a tomb for numerous famous historic people. Almost all monarchs were buried in the West Minister Abbey. Some of the people who were buried are the Kings and Queens of the past, scientists, poets, and great writers such as Charles Dickens. There were also monuments of some people such as William Shakespeare, Mary Shelly who wrote Frankenstein.

           

We also saw all the guards walking down the street to the Queens house, Buckingham Palace. Walking with the guards was quite fun. When the British band and soldiers got to the palace then the Irish guards started to march in. Even though we couldn’t get close to guards we got a few pictures with them standing behind us. They were standing in fenced areas.

 

After the guards we walked to Trafalgar Square, which were more statues. Statues of lions, which we climbed on and got pictures of. After we were done climbing on the lions statues we went down to the food area and had lunch, which was Subway, sushi and sea food, and a chicken place. Then we met after lunch for more sight seeing.

 

We went on a boat after lunch to look at the sites on the river. Some of the sites were the London Eye, the Globe Theater, we went under the 5th London Bridge, we went by Queen Elizabeth old yacht, and we also went by a retired battleship then ended up at the London Bridge. We also toured the London Bridge.

 

The London Bridge was fascinating, there were all different kinds of towers the prisoners stayed in, such as the Bloody Tower, the Beach Court Tower. There were also soldiers that lived in the London Tower. There tower was called the White Tower. There were many tortures and murders going on such as the two little boys were murdered by there uncle, Richard. The two little boys were Henry and Edward.

 

There were ravens “protecting” the London Bridge from outside people who weren’t in prison or that weren’t supposed to be there. The soldiers there fed the ravens big chunks of meat which the seagulls loved as well; they tried to steal from the ravens.

 

We went to see all the crowned jewels, with the largest diamond in the world which had 530 carets. Also all the crowns that were given to the previous Kings and Queens. There was also the coronation robe. After we saw the crowned jewels we went off to the torture chamber, which was all the different ways of slowly killing there prisoners.

 

After the torture chamber we went off to meet together again and headed back to the hotel and went off to dinner at a little sandwich bakery café. After dinner we went to the hotel to get ready to go see the Broadway version of Hairspray. The show was phenomenal! Everyone on the team had a blast and was very excited to go! Tomorrow we wake up at 6 in the morning to head off to Croatia, Which should be very exciting!