our 2nd week in London

alright here you got the second installment...again so sorry it came so soon after the first and so near the 3rd..... ;)

Monday the 4th of October

There was a planned Tube strike for this day…so we knew that we would be unable to get anywhere in the city on the Tube…and the buses would have been crazy so we had a couple of morning classes but other than that the day was free for the students.

Many chose to go back to the British Museum to continue exploring but Stephanie and I decided to find some free wifi to load pictures!

We were successful and found a nice little chain coffee/sandwich shop just down the road…we spent a couple of hours there just enjoying the internet, chatting, and reading. Sigh. Got to love those times!

OH! And We also made GUACAMOLE! Ha ha I know that is random, but not really, because you see when we were in Portobello road we bought a ton of avocados and a ton of limes for just 2 pounds…so per Mindy’s suggestion we made Guacamole!—I love guacamole…and we bought some diet coke and squeezed the extra limes in it! Wow so great! Ha ha

So all in all even though there was a tube strike it was a wonderful day.

Tuesday the 5th of October

Tuesday’s are trip days.

And our destinations were Blenheim Palace and Oxford.

Blenheim Palace was built for the Duke of Marlborough after he won the battle of Blenheim against France; the Palace was built between 1705 and 1724.

The grounds were awesome and the Palace was also very impressive. The World War II British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was born in the Palace, because the Dukedom belongs to his family; his cousin was the Duke of Marlborough during Churchill’s lifetime.

We spent the morning exploring the Palace and going on an excellent guided tour; after exploring the grounds briefly we hopped back on the bus and headed to Oxford!

Lauren was really excited to go to Oxford because she and her husband just moved there, because Tyler (her husband) is in graduate school getting his MBA.

I have been to Oxford before with my Mom and loved it; it is a great college town, buzzing with student activity. When we went it was “fresher week” which is the week when all of the 1st time students come and have orientation basically—so it was SUPER busy.

We had lunch at “the Eagle and the Child” which is the shop where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien met with their writing “group” the Inklings back in the day to write, share and discus! So wonderful! Lunch wasn’t too bad either! My mom and I ate their when we visited so it was fun to go back, made me miss my mom but fun to be there again.

We had a guided tour of Oxford with our new good friend Jo; he was hilarious and informative—the perfect balance for a tour guide (as I’m sure I’ve stated before)—he took us around to some of the colleges and talk about some of Oxford’s history.

The system at Oxford is COMPLETELY different from the states or actually completely different from the rest of the world (save Cambridge). There are colleges in the University and you belong to a specific college…so when you apply you do not just apply to Oxford but Jesus College at Oxford. You “pref” your colleges’ (just like when you’re rushing a sorority/fraternity or social club)…and whichever on you get accepted to is where you live, attend classes, eat, play spots for/with, and each college has it’s own library. SO in essence when you go to Oxford you really GO to a more specific college WHICH does not necessarily have to be for a specific major or area of study…yeah I know kind of confusing right!? Ha ha

We had some time to explore after our tour THEN we headed back on the bus to London! Great day!

Wednesday the 6th of October

An exciting day of outings:

We went to the Tower of London! And had a tour with a “beefeater” which is basically one of the Queen’s special soldiers whose sole responsibility is to live in and protect the Tower of London and the Queen (mainly for ceremony these days)—but the beefeater’s or Yeomen Warder’s are distinguished and well decorated men and women of the British armed forces who apply to become warders after (I believe) 25 years of service to Queen and Country.

The tour was fun—I mean not joyful because you see where Ann Boylen and other men and women were beheaded; BUT we did get to see the crown jewels!!!

We had a small window of time before our dinner reservation SO we decided to go to the London Eye! (we had planned to go earlier however because of the tube strike we could not make our original appointment). While the rest of the group waited for a couple of people to show back up I rushed off to buy our tickets for the eye! It was fun “rushing” (not really) through the Tube stops and maneuvering lines to complete my mission! Ha ha

We got on the eye with barley NO time to spare BUT not after a few of the girls ran into Ina Gartener or “the Barefoot Countessa”—yes the famous foodie of the food network! I was super jealous—so let’s talk about it…

The Eye was fun—my mom and I also did this when we were hear last BUT it was great to see the views again! ☺

After the eye we rushed off to make our dinner reservations, which luckily the Organs and their family were able to get there early and “hold” our large table.

Dinner was excellent—Pizza Expresses are everywhere in the city. So I was a little nervous about the quality of food because of it’s chain status but it was SO GOOD! And well priced too.

Thursday the 7th of October

We had a free long weekend so after classes Stephanie, Mindy, and I went off on an adventure to see what the price for “Les Mis” tickets would be—then after that we stopped in at a Starbucks, journaled and talked for a bit THEN we walked around Hyde Park for a couple of hours! It was beautiful and so nice AND we got to see the Peter Pan statue! Mindy said it changed her life! ;) Now that’s a powerful afternoon if I do say so myself.

Friday the 8th of October

Mindy, Stephanie, Lyndsey, and I headed off for a day in Cambridge!!!

Oh my Cambridge I have a special place in my heart for this place…but that is another story for another time…if you would like to know more just ask please! ☺

Ok so we got up not too early because I mean come on it’s a Saturday and we hopped a train off to Cambridge. It is about an hours train ride from London…not bad at all.

We started off our adventure by stopping for coffee at a little shop called “le Gros Franc” or in English the Fat Frenchman…bahahaha

After our little stop for caffinee and a little conversation we continued our walk to the center of town…I knew basically where we were headed (aka look for the old tall buildings) but we had to paused a few times to look at the map BUT we eventually made it!

Cambridge, like Oxford, is a collection of different colleges and one of the colleges was built or commissioned by the monarchy—and because it was commissioned by the monarchy it is known as King’s College. And one of the things you must see if you go to Cambridge is the King’s College Cathedral……………..

Beautiful.

It is Gothic and huge and the stained glass is excellently bright and it is just a beautiful place to be ☺

We also walked the ground of King’s College, which were so so green especially against the grey English sky.

Oh.

But before we could walk the ground it took 9 people to figure out HOW to open the freaking church door! NO joke it was actually pretty hilarious watching all of these grown people try and figure out how to open this huge wooden door. Finally one of the men who was trying to open the door went and got one of the workers to help us….she figured it out pretty quickly but she also had some trouble which made us all feel a little better I think.
But my goodness I wish you could have seen it; I was trying not to laugh which was difficult because even the smallest giggle just echoed throughout the whole place.

We did not go putting…which is ridding on one of those flat boats that’s pushed by a pole…but we did watch people who were punting. We actually waved at a cute little boy who was in the boat…he waved back…but so did the young college guy who was pushing the boat. Yeah we had a good laugh after that one as well.

It was a bit passed lunch time SO naturally we headed to tea—which as we discovered later does not necessarily mean JUST tea. “Going to tea” can actually mean “going to dinner” or to an entire meal…. yeah I will tell you more about this later…

But anyways we went to tea…and I had Lady Grey tea, which is my ALL TIME FAVORITE TEA! ☺ so that was quite lovely

After tea and a couple of egg sandwiches we continued our wanderings through Cambridge—we headed towards one of the HUGE book stores and basically indulged and reveled in the shop for over an hour…I’m a sucker for books and book shops.

After our book store stop (which also has a soft place in my heart…connected to that story about Cambridge that I told you to ask me about if you’re really interested….that was a mouth full)

Ok I digress…

We started on our way BACK to the train station…which proved to be a much longer walk than we remembered from the morning…along the way we stopped at a little market, the grocery store, and of course the Gap where Mindy got some excellent new jeans!

We FINALLY made it back to the train station…our feets were a bit sore but our return tickets worked (we had been preciously a bit nervous about our return tickets we had bought in the morning working before a certain time in the evening) so we hopped on the train…I sat next to a random sleeping man BUT all in all it was a wonderfully magnificent day.

Saturday the 9th of October

Oh this day was a great day NOT only because it was the weekend BUT BECAUSE Stephanie and I went to a Ladies Breakfast put on by the Church that I have previously mentioned; the lady, Jen, whom Steph and I had coffee with invited us to come to their annual “Full English Ladies Breakfast”

So of course we said “YES” because who doesn’t like free food and who doesn’t love fellowshipping with amazing Christian women!?!

We headed out around 9 a.m. and made our way to Chris and Brian’s (Chris is a woman) apartment! Found the apartment quickly and easily and made our way down (they live on the bottom flat) into their precious living room.

It was so fun to actually BE with “normal” Englishmen and women…we weren’t in a touristy place, which don’t get me wrong I love those, but we were in a person’s home and we got to spend real face to face time with everyday people. It was wonderful.

A few of the men from the church made the entire breakfast, which was so sweet of them, and so good of them because it was amazing.

NOW a “full English Breakfast” is not too different from what we Americans would call a Sunday brunch or just an “all out Saturday morning feast”.

There are eggs, bacon (their bacon is WAY BETTER here than the states…yeah sorry USA), sausages, chunky potatoes, beans, “grilled/baked” tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, juice, tea, and coffee. No jelly or jam…just butter—but maybe that was just this group of people’s preference however in the other places I’ve been that have served breakfast jelly or condiments are not as abundant as I have found in the states…

EXCEPT

At a “tea”—there are a lot of jellies etc at a “tea”---ok this was one of the topics of conversation at the breakfast table…just like in the states (at least in the south) some people call the evening meal—supper; while others call it—dinner BUT this can be confusing sometimes, especially to the older generation, because they call the afternoon meal “dinner” and the evening meal “supper”…

Ok so you get the cultural implications here…different words meaning different things to older generations but meaning the same exact meal to others…ok this is where the “tea” conversation started.

Europeans, including the English, have different eating schedules shall you say than Americans do---they eat the evening meal WAY LATER than we do. They have either huge breakfasts or huge lunches which causes the evening meal or the earlier meal (depending on which you eat in the larger portion) to be moved around to avoid overeating….or to avoid eating because they are not hungry yet

Ok I’m explaining this WAY too much. The point is because they eat earlier or later etc sometimes when an English person asks you to “tea” it does not necessarily mean just “a pot of” or a “cup of” it can mean a substantial mean during the in-between meal times…so tea can actually mean dinner or excuse me supper.

I know right.

Ha ha so we talked with Jen about this a little more; and Jen (who is from the States) said when she first moved over here and people asked her to tea she would be so confused as to if she needed to eat something before she went or if she would be fed there SO she just had to point blank as them what they meant by the (apparently) universal word—“tea”

Well now that you’ve gotten WAY move information that you wanted (I just thought it was so interesting that something SO SUBTLE could cause so much misunderstanding) I will continue the account of our day.

After breakfast with these wonderful welcoming and just joyful women Stephanie and I headed to Primark to make a “wardrobe” stop…Steph said she was sick of her jeans and wanted more tights (which are basically all anybody wears over here) so we had to stop for some…and we had to fight the crowds but it was worth it because we both got cute CHEAP head bands. ☺

Headed back to the flat to relax…

Mindy was super sweet and made dinner for us—her famous spaghetti sauce AND then after dinner a couple of the students reminded me that I had found a Jazz Club where they have live jazz music!!!! So in a true moment of spontaneity we Mindy, Stephanie, Travis, and I headed of to Ronnie Scott’s---the famous London Jazz Club where greats such as Duke Ellington have preformed!

We were so excited to hear some great music!---but we got there a bit too late and the live music house was full….but the upstairs bar and jazz DJ were not….so we headed up there.

At first we were like “what are we doing here this is not live jazz, it’s not bad jazz just it’s a bunch of people sitting around drinking….” We finally got a seat, hung out, ordered a plate of olives (yes olives) and then something amazing happened…a group of girls hopped onto the dance floor and started to break it down! Ha ha

Eventually the dance floor filled up and so we joined them! And it was so fun because it was just fun goofy dancing, some awesome partner jazz/swing dancing, and just fun!

So we were all glad that we chose to go listen to the jazz DJ (ha ha)

Sunday the 10th of October

Chill day.

Lauren and I went to Hillsong Church in the morning and we just hung out and relaxed the rest of the day. It was perfection ;)

THANK YOU for reading this installment of my London Adventures : ) there is more to come do not fear---even though I’m sure you’re eyes are tired and your brain is a bit weary from my rambling ;)

With a lot of love!

Caroline