Brilliant!

It’s a week in, and I love London more than ever. The weather here is awful, it has rained or snowed for at least part of every day, but I’m used to it and refuse to let the weather interfere with my fun. I haven’t taken too many pictures yet because the grey skies don’t quite invite beautiful pictures, but I’ll keep working on it.

The last few days sort of blur together, I feel like I’ve been here so much longer than one week, so I’ll go over the highlights.

Tuesday morning we had a tour of the Parliamentary archives, which hold every important document that has passed through Parliament in the last several hundred years. All of the old ones are printed on parchment on different sizes, and kept rolled in cubbies. The rows of documents looked like something out of Harry Potter.

Later that afternoon I wandered around Covent Garden in search of rain boots, which failed pretty miserably. I walked from shop to shop in a super touristy area that’s London’s equivalent of Boston’s Fanuil Hall. The best part of the afternoon was watching a string quartet of 20-somethings dance while playing music in the market. They were fantastic! The cellist stood and was stomping and jumping and twirling with the rest of them. Watching them play and dance the Can Can was the most impressive. I wish I had enough talent for that.

On Wednesday evening the whole program went to see the musical Blood Brothers in the West End. The show was weird, it definitely wouldn’t survive on Broadway, despite its long run in London. The music was so-so, the story was depressing, and a significant portion of the show was spent watching adults pretend to be children, with varying degrees of skill. The show was redeemed because the main character was played by Sporty Spice. It definitely wasn’t my favorite show, but I was excited to see it for “free.”

A few days ago a five of us walked from campus to the British Museum, which has artifacts from Britain and several other civilizations, including Rome. There was tons and tons of Etruscan pottery, which was the bane of my existence while doing the museum circuit in Italy. Despite the fact that I saw the Rosetta Stone, a statue from Easter Island, and parts of the Parthenon, the building itself was the coolest part. It was massive and gorgeous, I loved it.

I spent this afternoon walking around Camden Market with my roommate Kelsey. Camden Market is actually a huge stretch of Camden Road (in Camden….surprise surprise!) lined with cool shops and both indoor and outdoor markets. We spent a few hours wandering around (including lunch of steak and ale pie at a really great restaurant). We only ended up exploring some of the area, but it was filled with stands and shops for souvenirs, clothes, accessories and food. A lot of the clothing there was of the black/neon/skulled/grommetted variety, the 16 year old in me was foaming at the mouth at the sight of neon tutus and matching hats.

On the way back from Camden, Kelsey and I stopped at the rail station to pick up tickets to Paris for next weekend. Success! Give me all of the tips you’ve got. Please.