Days 1-3 (Tuesday 6/28-Thursday 6/30)
Ello from London! Sorry I haven’t posted since I’ve arrived! It’s been a crazy busy couple of days here and I haven’t had any time to write. We touched down Tuesday afternoon and it’s now Thursday evening, so I’m gonna give y’all a little recap. Actually, it’s a big recap, but I want to document as much as I can!
Tuesday:
When we first landed we took our first ride in the tube and popped up about a block away from our swanky little hotel. After we checked in, my roommate, Ben and I were surprisingly impressed with our room. It’s super modern with all kinds of cool features like a rain shower and a bathroom window that switches from clear to opaque with the touch of a button.
After we got settled in and cleaned up we headed out on the town. All 15 of my ‘classmates’ and I walked around for about an hour, taking photos and buying souvenirs until we ended up the oldest pub in London called “The Anchor”. It’s right next to Shakespeare’s theatre. In fact, they say he used to be a regular. The remainder of our first night in London consisted of cold beer, bonding with new friends, and lots of laughter.
Wednesday:
I woke up at 7am after a late night feeling surprisingly refreshed and energized… probably because I was so excited for my first morning in London. Wednesday was probably the longest day of my life.
After eating a delicious English breakfast, we all packed into the tube and headed downtown where we met our tour guide named Shawn. He was a stereotypical Londoner with a thick cockney accent and a funky, charismatic personality. He took us around and enlightened us on the incredible history of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the changing of the guards. We then parted ways with Sir Shawn as we nicknamed him and made our way to Buckingham Palace (pronounced Buckingem) where we took virtual tour with a little smartphone-type thingie and headphones. It’s really fascinating how old this town is and how much it has evolved yet is still the same in many ways.
Believe it or not, we then WALKED a mile and a half to the London Eye. If you don’t know, it’s a GIANT cantilevered ferris wheel on the River Thames that fits up to 25 people per capsule. We had another guide for this 30-minute ride who was in his 20’s and also gave us some great insight on the local nightlife. The London Eye was truly an incredible experience that I will never forget. I must add that I had the world’s greatest hot dog in line for the Eye.
It was about 4:00 pm and we were released by Dr. Jenkins (our professor) for ‘cultural time’, which basically means ‘go have fun’. By this time we all kind of fell into two groups of 7-8, and we named ours the “Turn Up Team”. I have to say, LOVE THESE PEOPLE!! We have already grown so close and made tons of great memories.
Next thing we did was buy tickets to The London Dungeon, a funky show/maze/haunted house thingie that depicted some of the darker history of london, such as Jack the Ripper and King Charles I (who was beheaded for treason in the 1600’s) . We had two hours before we could enter, so the Turn Up Team decided to turn up and head to a nearby pub. The London Dungeon was quite the experience after a couple ice cold Heinekens :).
On our way to the tube station I reminded everyone to get their passes out only to find that mine was missing. We eventually found it, but when I was upset about losing the $100+ pass everyone offered to pitch in to buy me a new one. It was so refreshing to know that my new friends care about me enough to be so generous.
We went back to the hotel, cleaned up, and hit the local scene again.. but this time just with the Turn Up Team. After eating some deliciously authentic pizza at a tiny little Italian restaurant we made our way to Belushi’s, a small sports pub attached to a low-priced hostel. Here, I made friends with a couple of Scottish chaps who were visiting ‘on holiday’. Shortly after I made friends with two trendy Londoners who live in the neighborhood, Simon and Matt. I introduced them to my team and Simon and I ended up hitting it off. We bought each other beers until the wee hours of the night and exchanged contact information. He’s going to “show us the real London” tonight after dinner. 
Thursday:
I think we all woke up on the struggle bus this morning. (Our Turn Up Team weren’t the only ones, either. I heard several others say they only got 1.5-3 hours of sleep and had the stories to make it worth it.) So what do you do in this type of pickle? What else? Get a bloody mary! I drank it in the shower and when I got out I felt like a million bucks again.
Once again we scarfed down a delicious English breakfast (packing a few treats for the day) and hopped onto a double-decker city bus headed for the Tower of London. Here, we saw the breathtaking crown jewels in all their glory. I was expecting to see just the present Queen’s crown and some other large diamonds.. boy was I wrong! There were thousands of years of the English Monarchy’s crowns, sceptres, orbs, swords, rings, spurs and much more. It was the most incredible collection of jewels any of us had ever seen. Honestly, it’s probably the most incredible collection in the world.
As we continued to roam the Tower of London we saw huge collections of armor, weapons, and even an old jail cell with carvings all over the walls from prisoners in the 13th century. I was blown away by just about everything in the Tower of London, especially the dark, cold, ancient vibe it gave. It definitely made me feel some type of way.
Next up.. Tower Bridge. Finished in 1894, it consists of two massive towers tied together at the upper level by two horizontal walkways as well as a 200-foot central span that is split bascules that raise up to allow large ships to pass through. We walked across it on our way the the Shard, London’s tallest building.
The view from the Shard was truly breathtaking. This 87-story building is the tallest building in Europe and we were lucky enough to visit the top floor! We could see all of London and took some incredible photos. I’ll just leave these here for you:
Finally, we ended our Thursday tour just around the block from our hotel at Borough Market, London’s largest and oldest food market. It dates back to 1014, but it’s probably way older than that. One of the groups in our class did a presentation on it, then we roamed around, bought some delicious street food, craft beer, and tea, then headed back to our rooms to get some rest and plan our night. I’m pretty sure everyone fell asleep except for me. Partly because I’m writing this blog, partly because I don’t sleep.
We made dinner reservations at a British pub at 8:30, and plans to meet our new friend, Simon at another pub just around the corner at 9:30. We all have an assignment where we have to go into a “space” of London and emerge ourselves in the culture. Turn Up Team chose to do Soho, an area of the city I understand to be similar in many ways to West Hollywood. We are going for an extensive pub crawl from 9:30 to ???.
Well, as you can see, this trip has been a HUGE success. Definitely one of the most fun trips I’ve ever been on. Actually, one of the most fun things I’ve done, period… and it’s not even 1/4 through! Stay tuned for more on my experience.
p.s. This post is super long because I haven’t been able to post for the past few days. I’ll try to post shorter blogs more frequently! Thanks for reading 
