A fond farewell to England

As most of you know, the program ended this last week. On Friday the 11th, I made the arduous journey home: a bus ride to Heathrow airport, a flight to Amsterdam, a layover, a flight to Memphis, a layover, a flight to Salt Lake, and a bus ride home. 29 hours in all - sick! I will miss London, but I'm so glad that I'm home. It's wonderful to be back in a familiar place, with family and best friends around me.

Before I forget what I did, I'd better write out what I did for my last two days in London, since I neglected to post for those days. Packing gets crazy, sorry. :)

Wednesday:
Our second and last final took basically all morning. Eww. It was for our Shakespeare class, and we had to identify Shakespeare quotes (be able to say what play it was from), write short answers defining and applying terms we studied, and write an essay.
After the final, I went to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. I'd been meaning to do that for weeks, and I finally got around to it! Aren't you proud of me? It's such a hodge-podge museum - it's great! There was a whole section on metalworking - they had cases of old keys and locks, lots of wrought-iron fences and gates, and even a wrought-iron rose. There was a huge jewellry room with pieces from as far back as BC (Egyptian armbands and such). There was also a big theatre room with costumes from random well-known plays, or that had been worn by famous actors (like Lawrence Olivier). They had a couple of the costumes from the Broadway/West End Lion King musical. Anyway, it was a cool museum.
After the museum, I wandered around that area of Kensington for a while, just to see some of the streets and enjoy the atmosphere. I saw a lot of very cute houses, of course. I also found a Tesla Motors store...and as I stood there staring at the gorgeous car on display right behind the glass window, I said to myself "enjoy this, because it's probably the closest you're ever going to get to one of these". ;)
On my meandering way back to the flats, I discovered a treat. An AMAZING treat. And it's a good thing that I didn't discover it until a couple of days before I left, or I probably would have spent too much money there. It was a frozen yogurt place called Snog. They served real frozen yogurt - all-organic dairy ingredients, sweetened only with agave nectar, full of probiotics. It had that wonderful natural yogurt tang to it. I got the chocolate kind, with fresh strawberries on top. SO GOOD!
I ate that on my way back to the flats, where I ate dinner. Then, it was off to my final show in London: Joe Turner's Come and Gone, at the Young Vic theatre. It was fabulous! The acting was very good, the design was cool, and it was very compelling. I'll admit, none of us really understood it - it was pretty confusing - but we enjoyed it anyway!

Thursday:
I ran around like a crazy person! First, I wanted to milk my last day in London for all it was worth, and second, I needed to keep my mind off of how much I just wanted to be home!
I spent the morning beachcombing on the Thames. That river is disgusting, PS. It's so dirty. But beachcombing was a ton of fun! The Thames has been a garbage dump for centuries, especially since the time of the Roman empire. What that means for us today is that (aside from the river being dirty because it's still unfortunately treated as a dump) there is TONS of old stuff to be found! There are pieces of roman tiling everywhere, shards of pottery from roman to victorian times, pieces of victorian-era clay pipes (from what I read, these pipes were only smoked a couple of times and then tossed, which is why fragments of them are so prevalent), and old handmade nails. I brought back quite the pile of finds. It's great! I made sure I went when the tide was low...unfortunately though, it was low and coming in. So my time was cut a little short, since I had to make sure I could get back to and up the stone stairs to the top of the embankment before it was swallowed up in the dirty water.
After I thoroughly scrubbed my hands in the restroom of the free-entry museum right across from where I was beachcombing, I walked down to Tower Bridge. Again, something I'd been meaning to do the whole time I was there, and just hadn't gotten around to yet! So, I walked across it and took plenty of pictures.
On my way back to the tube, I walked through Petticoat Lane Market. True to its name, it was a market full of clothes! I saw some really cute things, included some adorable summer dresses. I almost bought one of the summer dresses until I realized that the fabric was so thin that I could see my hand through it when I put my hand inside the dress. Umm...not so good. Well, their being transparent saved me 10 pounds, right? lol.
After the market, I took the tube to Holborn. Right by that tube station is my favorite little sushi place - they have premade bento boxes, and you can also make your own boxes from their individual maki and nagiri. As you might guess, I went there one last time to grab an afternoon snack. Mmm...king prawn and mango maki, tandoori salmon maki, and a veggie maki. Yum!
After sushi, I went to a little museum right there by the tube stop, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It's called Sir John Soane's museum, and it's basically his house, preserved exactly the way it was when he died. Admission is free, because when he left his house to England, he stipulated that it would always be a museum, it would be preserved exactly the way it was then, and it would always be free. So, you may ask, why do we care about his house? Well, this man was a packrat. And I mean, a packrat. He was an architect, and he filled his house with sculptures, elaborate carved marble and stone from old roman buildings, books, models of buildings he was going to build or had seen and admired, and even an Egyptian sarcophagus. It was all very cool. You could definitely tell that an architect lived there, because every room was elaborately, beautifully designed. No pictures allowed though... :P Why is it that in so many of the really cool museums, photography isn't allowed? LAME!
After the museum, I went back to the flats to eat dinner and pack. I hate packing, by the way. It's such a pain. *sigh*
After I had mostly finished packing, I went out with one of my roommates. We went to a bureau de change and changed the pounds we had left into US dollars. She was also awesome enough to take a few pictures of my with a London telephone booth, since I didn't have any yet. (Don't ask me how I managed to be there for 6 weeks and not get pictures with a telephone booth until my last day there...I don't know.)

Thus went my final two days in London. I left the flats at 5:00am Friday morning, and bid farewell while I waited at the bus stop for the bus that would take me to Heathrow.

Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to read my blog and keep up with me while I went on the adventure of a lifetime! I've learned a lot of things about myself and the world that I don't think I could have learned any other way. I feel very lucky to have had this opportunity! All of you who are still in college, or who aren't there yet: go on a study abroad - trust me, it's worth every cent! (Even if those cents are your last...you can get a job when you get back!)
Thanks again for reading my blog, emailing me, and keeping me in your prayers while I was away. I love you all! Cheers!!!!!!!