Rachel’s London Travel Itinerary and Commentary-Day 1

9:00 Bus to London—great opportunity to sleep and then wake up to take pictures of London!

11:00 Victoria and Albert Museum

• Filled with cool artifacts and collections! It was a little overwhelming to try to see everything, so I tried to just get a real sense of the place. Favorite part: Interactive design-a-ring computer module in the jewelry room. It is weird to think about just how much history is in that building.

12:30 Walk to Hyde Park, lunch

We learned that the Serpentine is a lot bigger than our really cool pop up London maps would have us believe. It’s very tiring to walk around the whole Serpentine when it’s hot and you’re hungry. There was a triathlon going on which made it very crowded. It was a gorgeous day, though, and we stopped for lunch after our death march around at Café Lido for pizza.We also stopped by the Albert Memorial and saw the Royal Albert Hall--two more things to check off our must-see list.

2:30 Harrods

• The coolest department store building I’ve ever seen! There were so many people in there and so many rooms to walk through. My favorite room was the chocolate room—it looked like it came straight of either a) Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory or b) a little kid’s dream. I can’t imagine that store at Christmas time. After leaving, we all decided we want a ten thousand pound gift card to Harrods-(they were advertised!).

4:00 Starbucks and go to hotel

• I got my second experience on the tube and traveled to Leicester Square which was close to our hotel. The underground system is so extremely easy to use and we were there in no time. We walked to Trafalgar Square and it was absolutely incredible. It is a sunken square with four statues on the corners of it, (one is always changing with different submissions or contest winners-really cool!), and there were so many people there. More about this later. We wandered for a little while to find the hotel, (I didn’t print out a map but just had the address) but it turned out to be REALLY close! Score for Rachel’s booking skills!

6:00 Dinner

• The group got dinner at an Italian restaurant called Prezzo. It didn’t break the bank and was a very good dinner, making me feel very grown up. It is still just hard to grasp that idea that I am abroad and eating dinner in London with friends!

7:30 See Anne Boleyn, the play, at the Old Globe Theater

• By far one of my favorite parts of the day. Not only was it awesome to be in the Old Globe, but the play was wonderful. I’ve learned so much about that theater, and it was surreal to be there! The play followed the story of both Anne Boleyn and James I, portraying Anne as a manipulator and James I as slowly degenerating into hallucination. The cast was phenomenal, and even though we had standing tickets and my lower back and legs lost feeling, it was totally worth it to see the play. It was witty and funny and very entertaining.

10:00 River walk

• The boys left the play early, (not their thing), so Meg and I walked along the Thames River to meet up with them. It was gorgeous at night and I experimented with my camera night settings to take pictures of the Millennium Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral. We walked by the London Eye and over the Embankment Bridge, appreciating how gorgeous London is at night. We took the tube to Tottenham Court to meet the boys, grabbed a drink at Weatherspoons, and finished up the night at the Zoo Bar—filled with lots of teens dancing. Action packed, tiring, but fantastic day!

July 24