I LOVE LONDON

Today, I finally felt like I was in London.  Why you may ask? I finally got to see the most famous London icons: the London Eye, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Gardens, etc.  And of course more red double decker buses, red telephone booths, and black mini cabs.  We went with a tour group arranged through the school (for free!) and took the train into central London.  They showed us the major sights as well as some off the beaten path treasures.  Our tour guide was VERY knowledgeable, and also quite funny.  And let me just say that London is AWESOME. The mere history of it is amazing.  And we have had pretty fantastic weather so far! (knock on wood).  It has only rained once for a few minutes during the day, and otherwise it’s been a little chilly, but not too bad!

After our little tour (with lots of pictures taken, mind you), we were let loose to find lunch, explore, and try and make our way back home.  We ended up walking around for quite a while before deciding on a place to eat, and afterwards, we slowly made our way back towards the Thames.  Because it was a Saturday, street performers were in abundance.  We saw a knife-juggling tight rope walker in the Covenant Gardens first.  Then when we got to Jubilee Gardens and London Wonderland and saw loads more!  We even saw one man levitating over another man (have yet to figure that out)!  It was really quite interesting and cool to see everything along the river.  We made our way back to the train station and caught our train home to make it back in time for dinner. From what I’ve seen so far, I am LOVING London. I feel like I have been here for more than a week, and Finland feels like ages ago!  I have been so busy (thus the late blog posts) and I haven’t even started classes yet! It has been crazy, but I am loving every second of it. J