It's been a hectic week!!

This week was completely packed with sight-seeing, tours, shopping, and trying to get lost in the city to see if we could find our way back! Overall, very very fun and it feels like time is just flying by. I learned a lot of random facts about the city and we spend some time each day learning about the financial crisis that affected London and it's 150 Billionaires and everyone else both in London and every other city/country. On monday, we began with a 2 hour lecture from our canisius mentor/advisor about the Financial crisis, which is our seminar topic for this semester. After that we walked over to the St. Lawrence Jewry which now is known as the Church of the Corpoartion of London. Here, we discovered that there was once a Roman type arena where remains and artifacts still lay underneath the ground. See below... and here's what is above it...

Where the major does all his business and here's his Rolls Royce...




After this we were given a presentation by Jeremy Fern the Head of City Affairs over tea and cookies! He told us a brief history of the city and how much it has changed regarding population (only about 8,000 ppl live in the city now) and how it has become much more modern...Here is a model of the area of land that he was so knowledgeable about...(this model, if sold or ruined is worth about 2,000,000 pounds)...
After this presentation we went to the Bank of England where a women gave us a history of money and it's obvious importance in the world. We also learned about the controversies people had with the Bank and general scrutiny many of it's employees went through since it began..Here is the Bank of England from the Outside...

Finally, we are to Tuesday... Early Tuesday morning we went to Parliament and were given a tour of the House of Lord, House of Commons and everything in between...The building is beautiful and everything is furnished with gold. It was cool to actually be in the room that the Queen (or King) sits at each year and actually being allowed to go to the House of Commons, where the Queen isn't even allowed to go into because of traditional rules but in place centuries ago when the house of Commons began to demand more power from Rotalty. It was interesting but sorry, couldn't take any pictures inside but here are some from Westminster Hall where we began our tour and were allowed to take pictures... This is just a view from inside the gates of Parliament... After the tour we continued to walk and make our way over to Trafalgar Square where we all decided it would be a fun idea to climb on the giant statues, which you'll see a bit later...On our way there though we passed by the Prime Minister's "House" which was pretty much an entire block if not more...Here I thought we saw him coming out of the gates but it turned out to just be some guy on his blackberry that was being driven around... here are some guards that I just kind of wanted to get a picture with...what you can't see here is the giant pile of poop the the horse was stamping its hooves into haha...but i'm still happy despite the smell...



Wednesday we walked around London a bit more, on average about 5 or 6 miles each day...Here is Piccadilly Circus (London's Time Square) and China Town...




...and at night we went to see Billy Elliott the Musical and it was actually pretty funny and the theatre was pretty cool looking, not very large and smelled old but both of those factors are easily ignored when the musical began...




Thursday we saw this memorial to the Fire of 1666...It is placed here, about 200 feet away from where the fire began because if the monument were to be placed vertically, the top of it would touch the point where the fire began. This can also be climbed up and used to be used to read astrology...you can see the slits in the tower where you can see out of, where the stars would be observed...



Thursday!! Going to the Tower of London was probablly one of my favorite things we did this week...We got to go within the walls of the Tower where Kings would rule the city of London and all the people within the city. What's funny is that it's actually outside of London's Walls but they maintained power over it's civilians anyway. There were tourguides who are called "Beefeaters." These men served in the British military and were very educated on the history of London and pretty much role played those guards that were there centuries ago. It's very weird because these people, along with their families still live inside the walls of the tower, which apparently is locked up each night at 10pm. What is most amazing to me, however, was seeing the King's and Queen's Crowns, coronary robes, gold dining arrangements and Royal Jewels. Inside, there was the coronation staff of a past king whose staff contained the largest diamond ever found. Originally, when the diamond was found it was over 3,200 carats...but after it was cut it was only a measely 530 Carats. no big deal. I couldn't believe some of the jewels inside there...I went up and down the conveyer belt that we had to stand on to keep people moving about 6 times cause i couldnt believe it...Sorry, no pictures allowed here either!! but here's a small jewellery store we passed by later that day...




and these are from the inside the tower...And outside you can see Tower Bridge in the distance...



My future boyfriend?...


Here was where prisoners were brought into the tower...


And here is where they were beheaded...




Later on thursday we went on a Jack the Ripper Walk and it was actually very entertaining...plus i got to see Diagon Alley from Harry Potter, or at least what it's like without digital enhancement...use your imagination...i'm not even sure i see it and i've seen the movie plenty of times...

Here is where Harry bought his first wand...


and this is where the "Wizard Bank" stands...


Church in "28 days Later" movie...


Friday we went to Canary Wharf and the London Docklands Museum. Here, was a major port where shipt would make their deliveries by using the Thames. Now, the Thames is used less commercially but the Docklands museum seems to be trying to preserve what it used to be rather than what it is now...That being probablly the most modernized part of the city. There are skyscrapers and major businesses all over this part of the city but it was interesting to hear how much different it used to be in the past...Here are some pictures where you could imagine there were docks all over the place...and also here are all the buildings that took over...


What is happening here...










After this we kept walking and bumped into the Church of the Templars, which is described in the Di Vinci Code...


We also visited Bride's Church where the tiers of a wedding cake inspired the tradition we follow today...(A baker once owned a shop across the street from this church)...


Friday night was the last night that our Professor and Tour Guide for the week would be with us so we decided to head over to Ye Ol Chesire Cheese, the oldest pub in the City of London...The fish and Chips were delicious!






Well there was my week and it doesn't even cover most of what I was able to see! Love you and miss Buffalo, but not enough to come back just yet... ;)

London is calling!!! ...

SO it's currently Sunday night and I just spent the entire day walking around London and we saw so much! The city is very beautiful and all the buildings are so detailed. It's generally pretty clean for this large and populated of a city. Today we walked from Clerkenwell, where i'm living, down past many historical landmarks and got to the Millenium Bridge (the one that is destroyed in Harry Potter 6 haha), crossed the Thames to the South of the city and walked along "The Queen's Walk" and past all the art and theatre district which was very entertaining! We walked until we reached the "London Eye," crossed the Westminster Bridge toward Big Ben and Westminster Abbey and of course both of them were absolutely amazing! finally, we got something to eat and continued our walk and found ourselves in St. James' Park leading into Buckingham Palace. I got to see the guards walk around and wahtnot. At this point it was about 4:45 and we decided to walk toward Harrods dept store and i obviously didn't buy anything because it's all ridiculously expensive but fun to look at all the candy and clothing! anyway it was a really great time but very tiring, i'm sure there will be much more soon to talk about but here's some highlights or my day I just described...

St. Paul's cathedral... Millenium Bridge... Sweet Sand Creation at the polluted shore of the Thames... Art work on the sidewalk of a DiVinci painting... Westminster here we come! :) ... View of the Thames and the Eye... View of Parliament... Westminster Abbey... St. James Park... Buckingham Palace... At Harrod's...A box of chocolates worth 10,000 POUNDS! insane...

Crawford House

So I found out where I'll be living for three months!! Just slightly NE of central London in Clerkenwell, England...