Monday, June 13, 2016

Weekend in London

Yesterday, we kicked off the last weekend of our trip with a quick overnight visit to London!  The group was up early to catch a two-hour train ride from Piccadilly station in Manchester.  Some of us dozed on the train while others worked on our assignments for class.

The group checked into Reid Hall on the campus of Regent’s University, right in the heart of the beautiful Regent’s Park.  For some of us, it’d been a while since we’d experienced the communal living of dorm life, but we made the best of it.  After settling in, the group all jumped on the upper level of an open-topped Double Decker Bus to grab in as many sights as possible during our short time here.

The tour took us down the length of Regent Street, through Piccadilly Circus, and into Haymarket where we enjoyed a proper burger and fries.  From there, we continued our tour to the Tower of London.  While some of the group stayed to scope out a peek of the crown jewels, others, including myself, decided to take a trip down the Thames to Westminster.  Views from the Thames were breathtaking as we navigated under a number of bridges, including the London Bridge, which is holding up just fine.  Our group took in the London Eye, Big Ben, and the parliament building. 
At the end of sightseeing, our groups rendezvoused at the Royal Albert Hall Theater for an evening showing of Swan Lake in the round, featuring dancers from English National Ballet.  The English National Ballet Philharmonic sounded outstanding performing Tchaikovsky’s score and the dancers’ performances were very strong.  Even some of the more skeptical among us left pleased with the performance. 

The day ended with a quick reminder of the States: a trip to McDonald’s where we discovered that it is not called a Royale with Cheese.

-Doug Collins 


















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