LONDON!!!

Hello Everyone, forgive the lack of posting lately but i've just been SOOO busy. This week was wonderful, the work is definitely beginning to pile up, but hey, it's doable, and plus, Oxford ROCKS. After a somewhat iffy week, where I ended up finding out that i'm STUCK in my arthur class whether I like it or not, things are going much better. On Wednesday we had a field trip to St. Albans cathedral and Hatfield house whichI don't have time to post now, but expect another in a few days with pictures from that. Yesterday was LONDON!!! 3 of us decided we had to go for a day and we did and what fun! We hopped the 7 a.m. bus from Oxford and got there roundabouts 8:30. Then we saw Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, The Houses of Parliament and Westminster abbey before heading up to the national gallery where, yes, I saw the Rokeby Venus: the painting I wrote a 28 page paper on in first year. And yes, it was incredible, simply stunning really. After the gallery we went to see the changing of the guard at the horse guards palace which was also quite nice, then we paused for a little lunch in the park. I had brought sausage sandwiches, which were good, although english mustard is REALLY spicy. In the afternoon we went to Harrod's where I ended up splurging and buying myself a really nice pipe and something for Ariane too. Then we went on to Leicester square to get show tickets for that night. Following that, we headed out to Tower Hill, saw the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Globe theatre and HMS Belfast. Yes, it was quite cool. By this point we were all pretty exhausted so we headed on back to Covent Garden and checked out the pub that my Dante tutor recommended where Dickens used to go, etc... Though since the kitchen was closed and we were hungry, we had to continue onwards. We arrived at the Cambridge, which was a nice pub, 2 floors and air conditioned. I ended up ordering toad in the hole.... not realy sure what it was.... well it was authentic all right... a GIANT yorkshire pudding on the plate with a glob of potatoes and a round of sausages that looked like something Allegra might do in the back yard. Later I found out that this was the equivalent of HALF A POUND of sausage. No, I didn't finish it all. Actually I'm off meat and fried foods for at least today if not tomorrow too *shudder*. BUT, to cap it all off, we went to see......wait for it..... WE WILL ROCK YOU! The Queen Musical that i've been waiting 3 years to see! It was the greatest show i've ever seen in my life!!!!! The actors were bang on, the music ws incredible and wow, jsut wow. I ended up buying the sheet music since I know i couldn't get it anywhere else. You can see the theatre in the pictures, that big gold statue is a statue of Freddie Mercury. Yup, cool, or what? Anyways I should run and go buy lamb and such to get irish stew going, Love you all lots and will hopefully write again soon, B