Day Seven from Melissa

Hi!

Today was busy and very fun. 

We started with class and discussed art and music and the places we're going to be required to visit. It's actually really exciting - most of the places we're required to go are places that I really want to see. So I get two birds with one stone - sightseeing and homework at once!

As soon as class ended, Miriam and our friend Anna and I set out on one of our required walks. It took us around Big Ben and down by the Thames and up near Buckingham Palace. We got a little lost a couple times, and passed the building where Bloody Mary died. 

Queen Mary I died in the red brick building. If we followed the directions right, that is. 

Time is so weird here. Four or five hundred years are nothing. Anything built after the Great Fire is considered modern. The thing is, the fire was in 1666!  There are monuments everywhere, scattered across the sidewalks and in the middle of streets and all up and down the sides of the buildings. It's incredible. Today I passed the monuments of Edith Cavell, Florence Nightengale, Scott (the Antarctic explorer), the Duke of York, Lord Nelson and Tyndale - and those were only the ones whose names I recognized. 

Tyndale monument. You can't really see, but he's leaning on a printing press. 

Monument to Florence Nightengale. 

Memorial for Edith Cavell - a nurse who was shot in the line of duty. I used to read her story all the time. 

Speaking of the Duke of York, his monument is at the top of a flight of stairs. So I sang "the noble duke of York" as I marched up, and again as I marched down the same stairs a few hours later. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. 

This only shows the top third of the stairs. 

I actually got to see something rather rare. One of the Household Guards' horses acted up!  Usually they stand stock still in alcoves in the wall, by this one was having such a hard time with the crowd that it had to be lead away. These weren't the olive-hatted soldiers by the way - they have shiny metal hats. 

Another neat thing we saw - they were filming a movie!  We weren't allowed down that street - it was all blocked off, and you could see old cars and people dressed in 1920's costumes milling around inside. The guard at the gate said it was a movie set in New York called Genius. I'll have to look it up!  It was fun to watch them take their positions, move when "Action" was called, and then return to the exact same places when the director yelled "Cut!"

After our walk, we ended up by Buckingham Palace. It's very grand, and I'm pretty sure something dramatic must've happened earlier - there were news vans all over, including NBC. I didn't see anything odd though. 

Then we looked at our watches and realized we'd have to hurry to get to Hyde Park in time for the gun salute in honor of the new baby princess. Consulting our map, we discovered to our surprise that it would be faster to walk, so off we set. 

We were almost there when the first cannon went off. I jumped, but that was nothing compared to everything else. With a rush, every bird in the trees took off in frantic flight. It was hysterical!

We made our way to the line of people, and got so we could see. Officials were holding people in a big enormous circle, so we were very far away from the cannons, but we could hear them just fine. The concussions reverberated like the big fireworks during the Fourth of July.   I lost count, but people afterwards said there were 41 shots.

Afterwards, they galloped out horses, hitched them to the cannons, and drove them through the park with a band leading the way. It was like a parade!

The park was very lovely, with little daisies and buttercups growing in the grass, so we stopped and had lunch there. 

After that, we headed to the National Portrait Gallery. Not on foot though - we did something new!

We hired a bicycle taxi

Riding through the streets of London

This is a big building filled with nothing but portraits, and we had an assignment to do there. We saw portraits of Queen Elizabeth, Walter Raleigh, Mary Queen of Scots, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, Bonnie Prince Charlie, his father James II, Hayden, the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Queen Victoria, Robert Baden-Powell (started boy scouts), Shakespeare (yes, the one with the earring), and hundreds more. Very, very neat. I'm a huge history fan, and I've looked at all those pictures a million times online - but this was the real thing!

One of my favorite rooms was this one. 

On one wall, you see this gentleman:

On the other wall, you see this:

Look closely. Recognize anybody?  I'll tell you. In this one room, you see King George III, Lord Cornwallis, General Burgoyne, and George Washington!  In one room!  Also, a plaque with an explanation of the Revolutionary War from the British point of view. 

I was particularly taken with the sentence that states "North America... was the jewel in the crown of Britain's first empire."  Jewel. Yup, that's us!  

Actually, there's also a statue of George Washignton on the lawn out front of the National Gallery. That makes three monuments/statues in honor of American Presidents we've found so far. The others included a statue of Abraham Lincoln across the street from Big Ben, and a memorial for FDR in the Westminster Abbey. 

Other things we saw: 

The Bronte sisters, drawn by their brother.  The blank space in the middle is thought to have been for him, but he ended up leaving himself out.

Jane Austen. Drawn by her sister, this is the only known portrait done during her lifetime. 

Queen Victoria. Hairstyle look familiar, Nauvoo people?

We stayed in the museum for two hours, and would have stayed longer, but they closed and we had to leave. There were some really odd things there, like the portrait of a cross-dresser from the 1700's. The government of France offered him a pension if he would wear women's clothes for the rest of his life, so he did, and made a living by doing sword fighting in a long black dress. Weird. 

Also, there was a head carved out of frozen blood. It's kept in a glass freezer.  That was gruesome. The artist makes a new one every ten years to chronicle his progressing age, since it's a self-portrait. 

And there was a painting - I would've sworn it was a photograph. And then I got closer, and still thought it was a photo. And then I got right up to the painting and looked as close as I could without actually pressing my nose against the canvas - and I realized it was a painting. The painter had detailed every hair, every pore and line and wrinkle and shadow - it looked exactly like a photo. 

Couldn't take pictures of any of those - sorry.

Oh, I found out the name of the new princess.  A chalk artist was drawing out in front of the National Gallery.

Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana

Then we went and got dinner. It's a "bank holiday," so we were given money to buy our own food because the chef had the day off. I had a Swedish meatball wrap, but they were nothing like the Swedish meatballs I've ever had. Way too spicy, but good. 

Then we stopped on the way home for gelato. I had mint. 

Here's what you need to do. 

Go out in the garden. 

Pick a leaf of mint. 

Bruise it between your hands and then put it in your mouth. 

That's what my ice cream tasted like. No kidding. We sat there for an hour, swinging our feet from the high stools and chatting. 

Worn out, we came back to the center, and now a bunch of us are watching Pride and Prejudice - the new one. It was too late to watch it down stairs, so we've dragged some of the mattresses onto the floor of our room, and are all huddled on them with our blankets and pillows, watching it on somebody's laptop. 

I wonder if this is what boarding school feels like?

My feet hurt.  I walked almost ten miles today. 

Anyway, bye all!