December 28th, 2007

The jet lag has subsided for the most part, but I am still quite tired from not getting much sleep last night. Today we woke up early and went off to have an orientation at the Anglo American Education Center in Bloomsbury. A metropolitan police officer told us the ins and outs of safety in the city—pretty basic. Everyone got a big kick out of how English they thought he was. We wandered around and got some lunch before meeting up again to go on a bus tour. Lunch didn't take very long so a few of us did the typical tourist posing with the phone box (see picture). We did a half-day bus tour with a very enthusiastic tour guide named Abigail and her monkey puppet (see picture), and a retired bus driver from Scotland named Amend. We saw pretty much the entire city: Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Tower of London (where we got off the bus and walked around), Millennium Bridge, MI-6 (which was really cool—James Bond!), Shakespeare’s globe, Buckingham Palace (where we got out again—and I was pooped on by a pigeon), Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s Cathedral (where we got out again), Parliament/ Big Ben/ Westminster Abby (where we got out), Prince Albert Memorial, etc. 

After our big/ long day out, it was Steve’s birthday. This is the one time we tried to all go out together. We went to Ye Ol’ Cheshire Cheese pub for dinner and a few pints. Apparently it is a pretty famous pub. It was fun, but difficult with so many people. I drank some bitter and cider -- cider is yummy. After the pub closed (which they do early around there) we wandered all over for another pub, but most were shut in that area. So we went back to the Notting Hill area and went to the Churchill Arms Pub. People really enjoyed talking politics, sports, advertising and culture with the locals. We had a few more pints (I drank London Pride) before all heading home in an absolute down pour. Then straight off to bed to get up early in the morning. I swear I was on my feet all damn day, but it was a really good day.