Olympic Park...or the Lack Thereof

16 July 2012

I got an email from my professor last night saying that classes were going to be cancelled today. Not sure why, but I was excited! We were all ready to sleep in. But of course, we didn’t. At least not very much. Because there is just too much to do here! So at 10:30 this morning, we left to go to the National Portrait Gallery. I really only went because I had to for my English history class. So in a matter of minutes, I went through and found the portraits on my list and then left. But while I was there, I noticed a picture of a man called Henry Lee. Well that’s a name in my family history, so I wondered whether or not there was any connection.

I looked at the family search website later, but couldn’t find anything. So I Googled Henry Lee and according to Wikipedia, “it is unknown if this family was related to the Lee Family of Coton Hall, Nordley Regis, Shropshire, England from whom the Lee family of Virginia was allegedly descended.” My family is the one from Virginia (like Robert E. Lee). So unfortunately, I didn’t make any exciting discoveries about my ancestors, but it was fun poking around a little bit.

After we left the portrait gallery, Palmer, Kylee, and I walked around Trafalgar Square for a few minutes, just to say that we did it. And we got a picture with the countdown to the Olympics:

Once we left Trafalgar Square, Kylee and I went to Westminster Pier, where we boarded a boat for a river cruise down the Thames. It was so fun! I’m glad we did it. We went under the London Bridge (and honestly, it’s just an ordinary bridge since they rebuilt it) and the Millennium Bridge (the one from Harry Potter). So that was exciting.

Waiting to board the boat

On the back of the boat with Big Ben behind us

After our river cruise, we took the tube to Olympic Park. We had seen on the internet that we could go inside and tour the venues for ten pounds. So we started asking around, and nobody seemed to really know what we were talking about. They just kept telling us that there was no public access. So that was disappointing.

But we did find a Primark. When we were at church in Cardiff, Wales, this girl told us about this store, and she said it has super cute stuff for super cheap. So Kylee and I decided to go in. We found sandals for one pound ninety and bags for five pounds! It’s my new favorite store. Too bad there aren’t any in the States.

When we left, we decided to ride a double decker bus back. It was a little weird climbing stairs in a bus, but once we were sitting down, it just felt like a regular bus. So now I can at least check it off my list.

Our next stop was Westminster Abbey. We decided to attend Evensong, and it was so cool! Most of it was singing by a choir, and it was beautiful. It gave me chills. But even though I could feel the Spirit there, I felt so grateful for the Gospel. They gave two lessons that consisted of a reading from the Bible. And that’s great, but the speaker didn’t explain any of it or offer any kind of interpretation. And I just think that it is so cool that we can go to Sacrament Meeting and hear different people’s views and interpretations of things.

I didn’t get to take any pictures of the abbey since I was there to worship, but my group will be going back next Monday for a tour, so I’ll get some pictures then.

This is all I got

After Evensong, we stopped by the William Tyndale statue (we figured out where it was). That was cool. He’s just awesome!

When we got back to our flat, everyone got together for a crepe party, and that was a lot of fun. And delicious! If you’ve never had sweetened condensed milk on a crepe, you need to try it. SO good!

Later, I got to Skype with my mom and my sisters, and that’s always a lot of fun. Even though we’re miles apart, we still have our girls’ nights. :)

The rest of the night, I just studied for my first final, which is on Wednesday. I’m a little worried about it because I’m not sure what the test is going to be like. We’ve only had a couple weeks of classes. So I guess I’ll just go over the slides a lot and then pray! It will be nice to finish and then leave for Paris.