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Published: September 19th 2010
Hyde Park
Ben playing Captain Hook next to a Peter Pan Statue.Hi there everyone! I am so sorry that I have not posted in a while! But here is the long-awaited update of what Ben and I did with our week this past week! 😊
Wednesday, September 15: We went to Hyde Park today to have a relaxing evening walking outdoors. There are lots of parks here in London, all of which seem to be quite large. It is not like they took one city block and made it into a park, these parks are spacious and seem to be well-maintained. There were some statues and fountains and flower gardens throughout the park which we took some pictures of, but we mostly just enjoyed spending the time walking and talking. That day was a little rough for me, because we have been here for over 2 weeks and I am starting to get a little homesick. But, that evening walking through the park and talking to Ben about it made me feel a bit better. I am planning on doing more with my daytime while Ben is at work, because if I keep myself busy, the time will go by faster. Also, I might as well make good use of the
St. Paul's Cathedral
Ben and I outside of the Cathedral! time because I am in London!!
Thursday, September 16: Ben got out of work early this day, so we took advantage of it and went to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was so magnificent, so of course they didn't let us take pictures of the inside. This site has been a place of worship since 607AD, but the building that is currently there was built around 1697 or something like that. It was so beautiful! There were gorgeous archways all around, and the main central dome was covered in paintings. Then, the altar at the front of the church had a ceiling covered with mosiacs, and the altar itself was elaborately decorated in gold. It was amazing. After admiring the cathedral floor, we went upstairs to the "whispering gallery". We were up along the rim of the dome, and apparently you can whisper on one side of the dome, and someone can hear you on the opposite side! Then, we climbed even higher and saw a beautiful view of the city along the outside of the dome. Finally, we climbed so that we were almost to the top of the dome, with a breathtaking view of the city below. It
Museum of London
The pretty Princess Carriage!! was so cool! After taking in the gorgeous sites up there, we made our way down below the cathedral to the crypt. There were many people buried beneath the floor here, and plaques on the wall in memory of people who have passed away. There was a chapel down there, and of course a gift shop. Wait... a gift shop in a place that is supposed to be a house of God? Hmmm... interesting.
We also went to the Museum of London, which was about the area's history from the time before it was a city to the present day. Unfortunately, we walked in and only had about 45 minutes to explore what we could, so we missed a lot of it. Perhaps we will be able to make it back there to see the rest before we leave. It was pretty interesting, though, and gave us some insight into the culture and how the town has grown and changed. My favorite part was seeing a real-life princess carriage! So, Ben took my picture with it 😊
Friday, September 17: On Friday, we made our way over to the National Gallery. This is an enormous place filled with
The National Gallery
Ben and I oustide the National Gallery very old paintings. Of course, they didn't let us take pictures inside here, either. But, it was still a neat place to go. One of the things I noticed the most was how the painting style had changed over the years. For example, it seems that the earliest paintings they had there were good, but when we went to the next century, they were so lifelike in comparison. Then, moving from that to impressionistic and other styles really helped define the different styles of painting for me. We also got to see some famous paintings, such as some of Degas' Ballerina paintings (similar to the one I based my ceramic ballerina on in High School) and Van Gough's Sunflowers. It was fun to see the variety in styles and see the famous paintings firsthand.
Saturday, September 18: We went to 0 degrees Longitude! That's right, we went to Greenwich which is the place where they have set the basis for our time zones and longitude lines on the planet. It was such a touristy thing to do, but hey, we are tourists!! I don't think I have heard such a variety of languages spoken during our visit here as
Greenwich, 0 degrees
Ben and I standing on the line that marks 0 degrees Longitude. See the silver and brown line beneath us? That's it! I did on that single day. I couldn't even identify many of them! Anyway, after seeing the line and taking our own picture like everyone else, we went to the planetarium and saw a show about "Our Violent Universe" narrated by Patrick Stewart. For all you Star Trek fans out there (like Ben), you know that Patrick Stewart played the part of Captain Jean-luc Picard. For all you X-Men fans, he was Professor Xavier. 😊 It was a neat show, but they had to restart a few mintues in, because the video was acting up. After exploring that area and seeing some science exhibits in the building, we made our way down to the National Maritime Museum. This museum was all about ships and pirates and had some pretty neat artifacts (or "artefacts" as they would spell it here) and models in it. We stayed until they closed, and then went to Greenwich Market. This had a similar setup to Camden Market, with little stands everywhere and people selling different things at each one. We didn't spend much time here, but it further convinced me that I really really wanna spend a day just shopping at one of these markets;
National Maritime Museum
Ben using his big muscles to turn the wheel of a ship! they are so neat! Hopefully I will get to do that this week sometime while Ben is at work. After that, we went home and ate some much-needed dinner! We spent the remainder of the evening relaxing and even went to bed fairly early!
Well, that's all for now. We were going to go on a tour to Stonehenge today, but didn't arrange it because we have no way of printing tickets. So, we spent hours on hold on the phone trying to find a company that would not require us to print our vouchers, but still hold a place for us. We finally found one, but they were booked for today. So, a week from today we will go instead. Also, we still haven't made it down to Westminster yet (with Big Ben and other major sites) but hope to be able to take a tour of the Houses of Parliament this week sometime, and see the rest of Westminster on Saturday.
Miss you all very much, but we'll be home next week Saturday!!
Love,
Michelle and Ben
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anonymous
non-member comment
I'm glad you're still having fun!