Day 12 and the Tower of London

Hello everyone!  I hope you wake up to a splendid day back in the states.  Last night I played volleyball with a bunch of kids in the sports hall and it was a BLAST!  I even hit the ball over the net :) Today has been uneventful so far...but I get to meet my host family tonight- Ann and Andrew- and I'm VERY excited! I even bought them some fresh flowers at the market.  I hope they like me!  Also, we are taking the semester picture out front today and we are being sorted into houses tonight (kind of like Harry Potter).  I have also finalized my plans for the weekend- I'm going to a fellow nursing major and dear friend, Desiree, aunt's house this weekend near London. That's my update of the day so far so now it's back to telling you about my London experience!

After visiting the museums, we walked down and took more pictures of Big Ben.  It was so wonderful to finally see the clock that my mother is in love with!  I feel like I was standing at this spot for over an hour- it was almost (just almost) ridiculous.  I then bought some souvenir post cards for some loved ones back home (hint hint, check the mail in the next 10 days!).  I had a lot of fun walking around.  The bridge that is next to me is the Westminister Bridge.  On the other side of it is the London Eye as well as the aquarium.  When we were walking to catch the tube we stopped over there for some delicious ice cream- and it wasn't fake either!  

"He got me!"

Bailey, Sara, and I said goodbye to the nursing majors as we caught the tube from Westminister over to the Tower of London.  I never really researched the tower before I got there, but I was absolutely shocked to see how big it was!  I thought there was no way we were going to leave there before 5:30, which is when they closed.  We started off into the tower and climbed the wall.  This is where I saw my first "crazy photo opportunity" as I took this lovely gem :)  One of our friends on the trip, Alex, joined us as we hiked through all of the "bailey", which is the surrounding wall.  We were able to see so many different artifacts.  I definitely recommend it to anyone traveling to London.  There were so many spiral staircases, but it was totally worth it.  By the time we finally finished walking around the wall, we still had the inside courtyard and the White Tower to visit!  

 We then wanted to see the crown jewels, which happened to be on display for the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen.  I wasn't able to take any pictures inside, but let me tell you, I got goosebumps walking through the vaults.  I have never seen so many jewels in my entire life.  They had all of the crowns of the kings and queens from the past century.  It was absolutely unbelievable.  Once we forced ourselves out of there, we went to have fun with the palace guard :)  If you go to Buckingham Palace, the guards stand so far away from you there is no way you could ever make them laugh.  However, we were standing so close to this guard that he could hear us talking in a normal-toned voice.  We started telling him jokes when another family walked up and we were all chatting together.  Out of the blue, the guard busted out laughing- and I was able to snap a picture!  He immediately started marching to gain his composure, but you could tell he was still smiling!  It absolutely made my day to get a picture of a guard smiling- I feel like I have crossed one item off of my bucket list. 

Make sure you click on the picture to see our friend smiling!!! :)





All in all, it was a great time at the Tower of London- I have many pictures on facebook.  Again, just ask if you want to see any.  Time for lunch here!

Cheerio!
Taylor <3