London

Wednesday definitely started out with a bang so to say. haha. So we've all bought oyster passes so we can go anywhere on the Underground for free for the week and Wednesday was our first group tube trip to the National Gallery. Imagine the tube as the metro or the L, it's all the same thing.. but they run way more frequently, like every 2 minutes, so there's no reason to rush to get on one ever. Nonetheless, a group of like 6 of us ran down the stairs and jumped on the train.. 5 of us made it.. the last tried to literally superman dive onto the train and got caught halfway between the doors. Literally, a bigger girl with her arms and upper body was on the train and legs and bottom half was on the platform when the door closed. It was absolutely hilarious. Just try and picture it and I hope you laugh.

Anyways, the National Gallery was pretty cool. The Monets were my absolute favorite. I can't even describe how amazing they are in person. After the museum 8 of us went and got sandwiches and wine and picniced in St. James park, outside Buckingham Palace. It was way fun.. I've made good friends with 3 other girls (one from Ohio State, one from Purdue, and one from University of Indianapolis) and a couple guys (one from Ball State and one from Minneapolis).. there must be some sort of midwest bond, haha. But anyways, it was just like great conversation in good company and really pretty.

After our picnic we saw Wiked which was pretty good, but really long, then hit up a little bar across the street after. London pounds suck and they don't have bills smaller than 5 pounds, so when you get change back after breaking a 10, it's all in coins.. they're awful to carry around so we ended up buying a pitcher in change, I guess it didn't help much with the American reputation, but it was hilarious.

Yesterday we had another lecture then a visit to Westminster Abbey. It was gorgeous. I walked over Darwin and TS Eliot's tombstones amongst others, I felt pretty special. haha. We had an AIFS boat ride last night down the Thames.. oh man it was crazy. I got to drive the boat. haha. We'll leave that story there for now. Details can be asked for later.

Today I was awfully hungover, but we went to the Tate Modern.. by far the coolest art museum I've ever seen. There was so much recent art that it's crazy to think that people are still living and creating this stuff. The Picasso's were pretty sweet as well. In the afternoon we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum.. kind of like the Natural History museum.. a cultural museum. It was pretty awesome as well. There was a lot of down time today which was crucial.. then two of the girls and I got sushi and gelato. Right now we're just hanging out, drinking wine and eating strawberries.. girls night in. All in all, London's been perfect.

I'm getting kind of nervous about Wimbledon tomorrow because I haven't heard back from my mentor about meeting times and tickets tomorrow.. so hopefully it all works out. The earliest matches start at noon, I don't know what court we'd have tickets for, but definitely watch anyways! There's some awesome matches tomorrow!

Okay, I probably won't write again until Amsterdam (or maybe even Paris).. of which we leave for at 4:20AM on Sunday morning... coincidence? haha. Love you all!