24 Jan

Woke up 20 minutes later than I planned to this morning so I had to rush a bit to get ready. Ate breakfast with some Americans and Brits before heading to the train station with them. The ride to campus was uneventful but afforded a pretty view of London in the morning sun (yes, the sun was back out again). Our class this morning was “Causes of War.” It’s a freshmen/first year class which means it covers basics topics that the other JYAs with me who are polisci or history majors all already know. Poor guys, they were bored to death while I was actually learning something. We got to talking about relative power of countries and then of militaries and at one point a Brit decided to make an unrelated and snide remark of the state of the Iraqi army. We were discussing whether or not the United States was the world’s only major power and if so, how that status was achieved/ being maintained. I understand that many people are highly dissatisfied with the way the war in Iraq is going, myself included, but that guy really pissed me off. His comment was both uncalled for and juvenile and added absolutely nothing to the discussion. I hope he’s in my seminar. I only wish I knew more about this stuff so I could actually speak up and talk intelligently about it. I’m afraid to betray my ignorance if I speak out in class. Gregg was also a little pissed (and terribly bored) so I can count on him to start a good and intelligent argument.

After class Gregg, Micah, and some other JYAs who later joined us ate lunch at the Terrazza. The sun was shining wonderfully outside and I decided not to miss this great opportunity for some sightseeing. Gregg headed over to Tate Britain while I caught the Tube for Tower Hill. After spending a few minutes near the Tower (I wasn’t going to pay the £8 entry fee until the weather was more favorable) I walked down to the river and Tower Bridge. It was fun seeing the real tourists there with their cameras out and often confused looks on their faces.

Tower Bridge is gorgeous! It’s a suspension bridge that was built later than most people might think; work started in 1884 and it was finally completed in 1896. I took tons of pictures of it while walking along and it and then several shots from other bridges. After crossing the bridge I walked along the south bank of the Thames until I reached London Bridge. Because it was such a pretty day (though freezing!) and I was feeling rather adventurous, I crossed the river again across London’s most famous bridge (at least in stories) and admired the view the whole way. When I reached the other side, I noticed a sign for the “Thames Path” which is a very pleasant walk by the bank of the river. I decided to follow it and continued to do so past Southwark, Blackfriar’s, Queens, Millennium, and a couple of other bridges. I took lots of shots along the way because it was just such a day to do so. I stuck by the river walking almost continuously until I reached Parliament and Big Ben. It’s a long walk…I was at Tower Bridge around 13:30 and heard Ben chime out the hours for 15:00.

I still had 30 pictures-worth left of memory in the camera so I decided to stroll around Parliament and Westminster Abbey for a bit before heading back home. I walked along a street called Great College Street which it a stone’s throw from Parliament but nearly deserted when compared to the busy area between Parliament, the river, and Westminster Abbey. After circling Parliament I caught the Tube back to Temple and walked out across Waterloo Bridge (only because I missed my bus on the Strand even after running for it a bit). I saw another bus on WB but missed that one too (again, despite some frantic running). For once I was leaving before sunset but events seemed to conspire to convince me to wait for the sunset anyway. I would have loved to, since the sun was being wonderful all day, but I was tired and had only one shot left in the camera by the time I reached the bridge. It was time to go home. In the course of just over ~2 hours, I had taken over 200 pictures. I've been averaging ~20 pictures a day since I've been here...

I ended up getting home close to 17:00 and just relaxed for a while before dinner. Spicy vegetable pizza…mmmm except for the fact that it wasn’t spicy and barely recognizable as pizza (not too shabby though). They served corn too which was nice.

When I got back to the room after dinner, I realized I had a ton of reading to catch up on for tomorrow’s classes and proceeded to work on those until midnight! Yeah, lots of poetry and dialectology…fun fun. After reading, just a bit of blogging and picture downloading then sleep! Cheers!