So. Many. Stairs!

Phew!  Our days here at the London Centre are jam-packed!  Yesterday began with our first day of class.  In 3 hours, we had our orientation for life here in London and an overview of our two classes here.  They're not kidding when they say it's a study abroad.

First Day of School!

Then we went to St. Paul's Cathedral!  When we got there, we all started singing "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins and believe it or not, there were two girls feeding pigeons!  Then we went inside to take a tour.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from the inside - apparently, the British don't allow many pictures inside things.  One of the first places we went was the geometric staircase - most recognizable from Harry Potter as the staircase coming down from Divination!  Fun fact about the staircase: it is called the geometric staircase because it is built based on mathematical principles.  Each step is placed into the wall a few centimeters and then each step rests on the one beneath it.  The rest of the cathedral absolutely sparkled!  There were 6-7 million tesserae - pieces of glass used in mosaics.

In front of St. Paul's (also, new wellies!!)

After our grand tour of the inside, we climbed 528 steps to the very top of the cathedral.  The views were breathtaking and the wind was crazy!  It was a great way to see the general layout of London.  From the top we also saw our second Harry Potter site of the day - Millennium Bridge!

Kennedy and I in the wind on top of St. Paul's

When we were finished up there, we had to climb the 528 stairs down again, but then we had free time so we decided to make it a Mary Poppins themed day, so we headed to the Bank of England!  We were a little confused as to which building we were looking for but we found it and we went to the free museum inside.  Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us into the main inside of the bank.

Today's activity was the Tower of London!  We started out by seeing the crown jewels.  They were amazing!  One of the diamonds was over 500 carats!  We then saw the various torture devices they used and the armory.

After that we went on a walk tracing the route of the old Roman walls, seeing the mix of historical and modern buildings which defines London.  This walk took us to the Museum of London.  We saw the history of London starting with the pre-Roman era.  Believe it or not, I found some family history in the museum!  It was only a small entry on the timeline, but it was there!  Presenting the first king of England, aka King EGBERT!

First King of all England!

And tonight ended with ice cream at Fenton's and a trip to Tesco!  I stocked up on my treats for the next two weeks...

(Thanks for the suggestions Kris!  The Jaffa cakes are AMAZING!)