A Day of Exploring. Day 10.

July 1st

The plan for today was to have no plan.  We just wanted to explore the city and end up wherever we ended up.  We decided to begin with the Westminster part of the city!!

 

Our first view when we got off the tube was the wonderful Big Ben!

Then we walked through the Victoria Tower Gardens…it was nice and green and pretty!

Then we ended up at Westminster Abbey and Larissa, Erin, and I paid 13 pounds to go inside.  Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures in there..but believe me, it was gorgeous.  Also, lots and lots of important dead people.  That place 

 After spending a good amount of time in Westminster Abbey we met back up with Allison and walked to The Tattleshall Castle which was actually on a boat and was a restaurant. 

We had the best seats next to a giant window that had a great view of the London Eye! It was so cool!

After lunch, we walked across the bridge to South Bank. 

We got ice cream…

He was funny and nice so I took a picture of him.

We sat outside of the National Theater and listened to live music…

This is Gaba Kulka. She sang, and played piano and the ukelele. And she's from Poland. She is wonderfully talented.  She reminded me a lot of Regina Spector..

 We saw many awesome street performers…

Here's one of them:

This guy was crazy-cool. Not only did he walk on that rope, he also juggled knives while balancing on it!! He was from Switzerland I believe..

It was just a lovely time..it was relaxing not to have any plans and to just feel free to wander.

Later in the evening, Allison and I wanted to go back to go out dancing with some our other friends, so we began the journey back home on the tube.  It was ridiculous.  There were all kinds of delays and it was so crowded and smelly and we just wanted to get out of there so so so bad.  

Finally we did!  Before heading back to the room we bought a bottle of wine to share because we were all planning on doing all of our drinking before we left so we wouldn’t have to buy drinks while we were out that night.

We got back and got ready for the night, and then we all just hung out in one of the kitchens playing fun games and getting to know each other better.  We had a lot of fun, but I drank more than was probably necessary, I didn’t get sick though! (I haven’t gotten sick once this whole trip! *knocks on wood*).

Guess what's in my glass? ...You don't want to know...

:)

Next we went out to a dancing club and I had a great time! There was lots of dancing and I’m pretty sure I was picked up at some point…so much fun!!

Getting a cab to get home was a semi-long process and there were some sketchy-ish people out on the streets..a group of men stole my balloon and made it fly away.  That made me very sad.  Finally we found a cab and got home safely! It was a fun and carefree night!