December 30- January 1

       Wow, I have a lot of catching up to do! Ash and I have been kickin' our London Bucket list really hard these past 3 days. On Thursday, we started off at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was super beautiful, but we only got to see some of the inside because you had to pay to see the rest of it. I've had my camera on me the past few days, but I've pretty much delegated the task of photo-taking over to Ashley because she enjoys it way more than me and gets better shots too. We weren't supposed to take pics inside the Cathedral, but we snagged a few - oops. We walked from St. Paul's over the Millenium Bridge right into the Tate Modern. I've nearly given up on museums, but I still feel the need to at least check them out briefly. The first exhibit we saw was in a huge hall. It was 100 billion porcelain sunflower seeds covering the floor about 1.5 inches deep over about the area of a basketball court. It was dumb. In fact, I snuck up next to Ashley and whispered that very thing, "This is dumb," and she agreed. We couldn't even walk on the seeds because the dust from the porcelain is apparently a health hazard. Wow, what a waste of porcelain. Anyway, we kept laughing and moved on to another floor where we found more modern stuff, of course. One of the exhibits was about 6 painted canvases about 10x10 feet that looked like the remains of a peeled SKU tag off of various plastic products. Very strange . . . and scratchy looking. I remember being confused mostly for the whole time we were at the museum, but we kept moving. I really don't get moden art. Because Ash and I like to crack jokes all the time, we responded to our confusion by making fun of some of the pieces. The icing on the cake was this room full of canvases that had big pastel stripes on them. Just rectanglur strips. Ash said, "That looks like a faded-out American Eagle t-shirt," and she was exactly right. It was after that comment and a supressed laugh, that I said, "I think it's time for us to leave." Ash said, "Ya, I'm pretty sure I'm not respecting all this, and I'll just keep laughing if we look at more of it." As we walked out, I felt as if I should have been kicked out for disrespecting the "art." I really don't get it, everything we saw. I can't really describe it much more than that, but I was really happy to leave.
       Right next door to the Tate Modern is Shakespeare's Globe Theater. If you've read my other blog posts, you already know by now how I feel about Shakespeare. I just took a picture of the place from the outside and moved on. Ash and I made our way down the bank of the Thames, along the Queen's Walk, and toward Tower Bridge. We came across a museum about London prisons (but didn't go it), a cool clipper ship that was famous for some cool reason that I can't remember right now, and then (here's the best one) a pub called The Horniman Pub. I'm not kidding. I have a picture of it. We both were getting hungry at this point, but I just couldn't get past the name, so we moved on and continued laughing. Dude, what is it with these English people and their sexual humour? First, we have Middlesex University, then Cockfosters (the city our school is in), then The Horniman Pub??? The worst part is, you get used to it after awhile. Wow - I'm not sure this stuff would fly in the U.S. Oh, also they often call cigarettes "fags," which I have heard before but I'm pretty sure is not P.C. back home. Enough of that. Moving on.
       Our feet were already sore, but we kept walking, crossed Tower Bridge, and landed in front of the Tower of London. We decided to indulge and pay for the tickets to get inside. It is much bigger in there than it appears, and there were tons of people! Of course we wanted to see the Crown Jewels, but we didn't feel like spending the rest of our lives standing in the infinity long line that wrapped around a huge portion of the large courtyard. Crazy. Way worse than Disneyland, but probably not quite as bad as those people who had to stand outside St. Pancras Station a few weeks ago waiting for Eurostar. We decided to join a free Beefeater tour instead and spent the next 45 minutes or so listening to our good-looking Beefeater tell us stories about the Tower, the royal dynasties, and various incidents of torture. The whole experience was pretty cool. We left and landed at a pub a few blocks away called the Hung, Drawn, and Quartered Pub - very appropriate considering its vicinity to so many historic killings/hangings. The title wasn't as bad as the Horniman, and we were tired and hungry, so we stopped, had a pint and a snack, and played some cards. I had an ale called Honey Bee, and it was really good. We then headed to Covent Garden just to kill some time and then went back to campus for the night.
       Yesterday was great. Ash and I landed in Camden Town at 11 and shopped our little hearts out until about 4:30. I think I've written about Camden before, but in case I haven't, it's basically a huge collection of markets and stalls that sell all kinds of stuff with lots of personality. It's one of my favorite places in London. When we were done scoping everything out and scoring some cool stuff, we headed to the city center (Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square areas) to meet up with Sarah and Kim. We were early, so we walked around a bit. Of course there were tons of people because it was New Year's Even, but Ash and I managed to find a cute and cozy cafe to chill at for awhile. It was very peaceful - and warm. I've pretty much mastered the art of layering since I've been here, but you can't keep out ALL the cold. We eventually met up with Kim and Sarah, walked past Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster, and along the Thames until we found a spot that looked like a good fireworks viewing area. It was only 8:00 at the time, so we wandered around and found a pub to chill at for a few hours. Kim taught us how to play hearts with the trusty deck of cards Ash always has with her, and we passed the time very enjoyably. By 11:00, we had found a place on a crowded bridge not too far from The London Eye, and we just waited until midnight for the fireworks. The London Eye had a mild light show going to pacify us until the big show at midnight, and it was really awesome. Thankfully, it was clear and not raining that night! The fireworks were amazing, and the crowd was surprisingly mellow. Of course there were a few crazies, but most of the people were very responsible and considerate of the large crowd. After the fireworks, we made a long walk to one of the relatively close tube stations, waded through a sea of people while clinging to each other and our backpacks, and finally made it onto a train. It was about 1:30 by the time we got to Oakwood Station, so we called a cab back to campus where I promptly crashed right into bed and slept until 11 this morning.
       After a lazy morning of recovering from last night's celebration, Ash and I caught the 12:45 bus to Oakwood and spent a good chunk of the afternoon at Portobello Market. I have been planning this week to be a major shopping week for me for awhile now, but I still don't like spending so much money in such a short time! I've scored some awesome stuff, but I'm ready to settle down back home, start making money again instead of living off of my savings, and to start spending less. Ash and I left Portobello at about 4:30, and headed for the British Museum. It was closing just as we got there, but we both were ready to head back anyway. Back at halls, we had ourselves some dinner, popped in Dumb and Dumber and just laughed and relaxed for awhile. We parted ways at about 9, and I got to work on some laundry and homework while Ash did her own thing. It's almost 12:30 am now, and I am ready for some sleep!

Prayer Request of the Day: That I found find the time to finish my assignments as quickly and as well as possible, oh, and with as little stress as possible :)