Seize the Day

(Edit: I wrote this post on Sunday night about those events, and I just wasn’t able to post it, so y’all are getting a double post today. Yay!)

I’m not going to lie, the days are really starting to run together (in fact I completely typed up a blog I had already written about because I forgot what day it was), but I feel like I’m finally starting to get the hang of things. While the Tube isn’t completely second nature, it is definitely a lot easier to navigate now, and I have been able to wake up at about 7 AM every day to get the day started, which is vastly different from my normal schedule. In fact, this morning I woke up with enough time to take a stroll through Tavistock Square, one of the many green parks around the city. I enjoyed watching the pigeons chase each other while sipping on my coffee and listening to the sounds of the city. While on my stroll, I found a stone bust of the writer Virginia Woolf. Apparently, she frequented Tavistock Square, and she was able to write a few of her pieces while hanging out in the park. It’s kind of cool to think that I was walking around the same places that people hundreds of years ago did.

On Saturday, we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral and did a short tour. It was a beautiful church, and it is a strong piece of architecture that is important to London’s history. We were told that when the bombings were happening, there was a group of people whose sole job was to make sure the cathedral didn’t catch on fire. Thankfully for us, they succeeded. The interior of this church was absolutely beautiful. The floors, walls, and ceilings were almost completely mosaiced, and as I was imagining the artists putting the works together, I can’t imagine how much time was spent individually placing each stone.

Instead of climbing the 500+ stairs to get to the top of the cathedral, I stayed on the ground and attended my first Church of England Eucharist service. It was interesting to see how similar to a Catholic Mass the service was, and I caught myself saying the wrong responses a few times lol. It was an experience I’m glad I got to take part in. I also was able to light a candle for William while I was there, which made the experience that much more meaningful. I think I might make another trip back to St. Paul’s before this trip is over, but we will see.

After St. Paul’s, we walked over to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, where we saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was fantastic, but I will talk more about the specifics in my next blog post. Finally, a group of us went to see Newsies! I was like a giddy six-year-old before the show with Alyssa waiting for it to start, and that joy continued throughout the whole show. The dancing and stunts were absolutely phenomenal, and so was the set. They even had a zipline in the beginning (I’m not kidding!!). The actors regularly made their way into the crowd, and they made the best use of the entire space they had which was amazing to see. Something else that I thought was pretty cool was that the Newsies from Brooklyn were all girls, which was unique from the originally all male cast, but it’s nice to see that kind of representation especially since the true story Newsies was based off of focused on the unfair children’s labor laws for both girls and boys trying to support their families. The one thing I didn’t love was the British actors’ attempts at a New York accent… it was pretty bad, but I think the dancing made up for it.

Total Score: 8.2/10

               Set: 10/10!!!!!!!!

               Dancing: 10/10

               Acting: 8/10

               Accents/singing: 4/10 (and that’s being generous)

Today was our first free day, and a group of us went to Chessington World of Adventure. We went for the World of Jumanji but really got into it for the animals. It was like a zoo/amusement park/aquarium. We rode a total of one ride called the Vampire after waiting in line for over an hour and it wasn’t great, but seeing all the animals made up for it. We saw some pretty cool critters, but I laughed when they had raccoon, skunk, and armadillo exhibits especially since we regularly are having to fight raccoons off of our bird feeders back home. There were two open exhibits, one with birds (where Amelia was a split second away from getting pooped on and I got to hand feed them), and then one with two cute little monkeys (where Ryan did get pooped on by a bird… somehow). I loved the monkeys until they started getting closer and then one of them decided to try and jump on my head. I thankfully ducked in time, but not before I screamed, and its tail hit me in the face. The park lived up to its adventurous name even if the one other ride in the World of Jumanji we wanted to do was closed, so we ran around completing the “riddles” and took lots of pictures.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time ❤

(if you want to see photos for this post, you can check out my Instagram or Facebook 😊)