Tours of London

On Friday afternoon, we took a walking tour of Westminster.  Our tour guide was really informative, but not boring.  Unfortunately, it rained a little during the tour but most of us had umbrellas.  We saw Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and some cool old houses.  We also walked through Westminster School, which is a "public" school, even though that means private in America.  It's mostly a boy's school, but girls can go for their final two years of high school.  Lots of their students go to Cambridge or Oxford.  We didn't get to go inside the Abbey, but we walked all the way around it.  There's an area called "Poet's Corner" where some of London's most famous writers are all buried together.  We learned about why things have certain names.  Parliament was originally set up as the government building where people would go to talk.  "Parlia" comes from the word talk and "ment" means place.  Westminster is the name of the "city" and it comes from the church.  Minster is like ministry and this particular church was west of the City of London.  There are two cities, City of London and Westminster and then 32 boroughs inside of London including Knightsbridge, Camden, South Bank, West End and Bloomsbury, where I live.  

We also learned about a man named Guy Fawkes who attempted to blow up Parliament during a ceremony where the King came to speak to the house.  Luckily, his plot was found out and the police were able to catch him and his conspirators when they found all of the gunpowder laid under the building.  He was "hung, drawn and quartered" which is basically the most horrifying form of execution.  First he was hung, but before he lost all consciousness, his stomach was drawn open and his innards were held up for him to see.  Then he was dragged through the city so everyone could spit on him.  Finally, his body was decapitated and his head was put on a stake on a bridge so that birds could peck at it until only a skull was left.  As our tour guide told us all of this, we all made the most terrified faces.  They don't kill people this way anymore (duh) but Guy Fawkes is very famous here in London.  Since this would have been one of the largest acts of terrorism in history, it's celebrated every year that he didn't get away with it on Guy Fawkes Day in November.  People set up bon fires in all of London's parks and burn effigies of Guy.  

Today, we took a bus tour all over London.  We stopped at St. Paul's Cathedral to walk around and take pictures as well as Buckingham Palace.  I'm still having trouble loading my photos, but I'll get them online somehow.  We drove by Harrod's, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Prince Albert's Monument and over the Tower Bridge.  We also got off the bus down at the Thames river to take photos of the Tower of London and the skyline.  The Thames Festival was this weekend so it was really busy down there.  My friends and I went to the festival yesterday.  There were all kinds of vendors selling jewelry, clothes, hand made soap, toys and crafts.  I bought some earrings, a scarf and a few gifts.  There were also lots of street performers.  There were guys running up the sides of buildings and doing crazy somersault tricks over each other.  There was a skate park along the road too.  Tonight, they had fireworks but we were all too tired to go and see.  We start our jobs tomorrow and we all want to be ready to wake up early.  I was able to see a few fireworks from our window just over the buildings.  I'm really excited to start work tomorrow and I hope my first day goes well!