Dear Mr. Weasley

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Dear Mr. Weasley,

I do not think Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were very fair to you. They gave you a lot of trouble for not being able to use British pounds--aka "muggle money". However, I am a certified muggle and have absolutely no idea how to work the British monetary system. The paper money is a little bit easier because there are numbers on them, but the coins are so confusing! Every piece of paper money and all of the coins have the queen on them. And there is nothing on the coins that let you know what the heck they are. So please, bring out the galleons, sickles, and knuts because I'm pretty sure that is a much easier British coin system!! On that note, I have to wonder in London whether the poorly dressed people are wizards or just muggles with a bad taste in style. It makes you think...

Ok enough Harry Potter talk. This is my first post! I'm using a random blog site because this is the only one I found that will work while I'm in China, so please excuse me while I learn how to use this site.

I arrived to London on Tuesday morning. After finally finding everyone, we got to the dorms here and immediately were whisked away to go explore London. Since then, we've been moving 24/7, and walked from one end of London to the other. We've been on a double decker bus tour, the London Eye, St Paul's Cathedral (and climbed all the way to the top!!), attempted to watch the changing of the guards (too many tourists because of the Olympics), and did a scavenger hunt of London. Although my legs hurt, I'm having a blast getting aquainted with London. After two days of walking the city from end to end, I feel like I know it better than Boston.

I think my favorite thing about London is that it does a really great job of blending its past with its future. In Boston, there are monuments everywhere, and it has got to the point where it somewhat interferes with every day life. The thing about Boston is that they have monuments everywhere, and while this is great, the sheer number of monuments takes away from the few awesome ones. If George Washington sneezed somewhere in Boston, you can be sure that there is a monument for it. Whereas in London, there is history woven in, but they have also done a great job with updating some buildings and each building (old and new) is beautiful and the architecture is stunning.

The London bus tour was surprisingly awesome. We saw a lot of places where some of our children's songs are based off of. My dorm is actually right by where the muffin man used to live, and the tour bus guide showed us where the plague swept through London and caused the creation of "ring a round the rosies" song, although how the Americans got what we sing from the British version is beyond me.

Another great thing about London is that they have very nicely labeled every single street corner with which direction you as a pedestrian should look before crossing the street. It has saved my life at least 7 times since I've been here. It will say "look right", "look left", or "look both ways". I guess obviously you should look both ways but oh my goodness is it confusing which direction traffic comes from. A lot of the streets in London are one way streets, so I always forget that they drive on the wrong side of the road (If they don't drive on the right side of the road, they must drive on the wrong side!)

So far, I am throroughly enjoying London. I'm pretty sure I'm moving here right after college.

More to come soon,

Chelsea

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Photos

My new phone!
A picture of my old and new phone. Sad story that my "old" phone is the iPhone 4s. Although I guess since I got a cell phone so late (high school) I missed out on all of the awesome technology that my middle school friends all had.

Market Place
They took us to a little market place today. It was tucked away in the heart of the city. It was really cool and great food, although I wish I could say great things about the smell of the place.

St Paul's Cathedral
We climbed to the very top of the cathedral today. 528 steps! Although it seemed like 65,000. Once up there though, you have a 360 degree view of the entire city of London. It was a beautiful view!!

They Do Weird Things In London...
A picture of one of the street performer's we saw. Questionable to say the least.

The Guard
Marching band on steroids.

Big Ben...for now
They are thinking about renaming this "The Elizabeth Tower"...or as I like to call it "Big Elizabeth"

The London Eye
You can see other cool things in the background as well!

London Bridges
The only thing is, I heard they fall down.

The Group
Our entire group on the London Eye. We had an amazing view of a good part of London--it was great!