1/2 Week in Review..

Monday:

      On Monday we went to The Banquet Halls and Westminster Abbey.  One of the most noteworthy things about The Banqueting Hall is that King Charles I was executed outside of it on scaffolding. It used to be among the White Hall Palace but in 1698 it all burned down with the exception of The Banquet Hall. This place is unbelievably beautiful, when you are upstairs in the actual banqueting halls you are seriously taken aback by the beauty and drama of the ceilings. There really isn't much else in the room anymore because they want everyone to enjoy the artwork on the ceiling. They have bean bags there where you can lay down and look up as well as mirrors you can stand over and examine the art. I can't help but imagine how in the heck the painter was able to do such a good job all while laying on his back like that! I like to think my mural will be on my bedroom ceiling one day! :)

  

      Westminster Abbey is actually a dream. My mom and I still have the Royal Wedding on DVR and we still cannot get over the beauty of it. When I was here in England last year with my family and Rach and Daniel we never went it because they have tricky hours so I was so happy to finally step foot in there! The tile on the floor the ceilings the stained glass the statues like I cannot even begin to express the beauty in that place! I want to get married in their soooo bad. The whole time I was there I was just trying to imagine Kate walking down the aisle (I told you i'm a royal family groupie) Just like all the rest of the Cathedrals and Churches I have gone into here, I lit a candle and "requested" a prayer to be said. It's kind of fun you can fill out a prayer request card and give it to a priest and then you say your own prayer and light a candle.I can appreciate things like that and it's a lot of fun to do everything the site has to offer, for me at least. Another thing that I certainly didn't realize about the abbey is all of the people that are buried inside of their. So many hundreds of people are in there, from Henry II to Bloody Mary, everyone is there. Poets Corner is such a cool part of the abbey. A bunch of influential British writers and others a like are either buried or memorialized in this area of the cathedral. Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, Thomas Harding, C.S. Lewis, Alexander Pope, Oscar Wilde etc. You name it, they're there. They are all there is some form or another and it is really neat. It never really ceases to amaze me that I am seeing history with my own two eyes every day!

Tuesday:

      Yesterday we went to the Inns of Court and hung around the legal area of London. First of all, SO. MANY. GOOD. LOOKING. MEN/LAWYERS. EVERYWHERE. Holy cow.. British Law is so interesting to me, the outfits, those wigs I mean come on that is amazing! For lunch we ate at The Middle Temple in the dining hall which was so cool and as you may know it is one of the four Inns of Court, and maybe one of the best meals we've had here yet. It was such a Harry Potter moment I think we all kind of felt like we were eating in the dining hall at Hogwarts. (Fun HP fact actually, this is where the cast would have there post-filming parties) I thought that this day was very informative and fun (especially as I explore the major of legal studies) but a lot of it went over my head :( 

     Later in the evening we went to a play called "The Audience" in Leicester Square. It is about Queen Elizabeth II (current queen) and all of the 12 prime ministers that she has worked with during her time as queen. I seriously loved this play. Which kind of came as a shock to me because I wasn't quite sure I would enjoy this. Obviously i'm not from here but I really don't know much about the Queen but this kind of personalized her life a little bit and now I feel like I can almost relate and bond to her (ha ha, because that's necessary, yeah) I loved the aspect of drawing in her thought of when she was a young girl and her father became a King and how she was so unsure of the life that she suddenly had in front of her. But if we're being really honest I mostly loved it because their were two Corgi's in the play and (duh!) i'm obsessed with dogs!

Wednesday:

     Today as I was in class I had a moment of realization of how busy the remainder of my time abroad is going to be and I am sort of overwhelmed. Next week we go north to The Lake District and Scotland (AHHHH!) the following week, during our free travel days my friends and I are jumping over to Geneva, Switzerland and  Annecy, France and then I have only a week until my sissy, mom and grammy get here! I know that sounded a bit like a countdown but it wasn't although I miss my family terrible i'm not sure I ever want to leave here! Anyways so as i've realized how busy the next while will be I imagine that I will spend the afternoon snuggled up in my Oxford crew neck reading and getting some homework done! A lazy day is so nice every once in a while! 

What I need to be better about is blogging. When I finally get around to recording the last few days I have such a hard time remembering everything i've done already and I never never want to forget all of this :)

Sincerely,

Mackenzie