Thursday, September 13, 2007

Should've packed the hiking boots

Cheers Mates,

Today, I did enough stair climbing and walking to last me until at least the end of 2009; and its not even close to coming to an end!

Today's sight to see was St. Paul's Cathedral. I can't deny at first I wasn't too stoaked to spend another 2 hours getting a tour of yet another ancient building thats been around since forever and hear about the people who built it,when it was built, etc. etc. etc. But, turns out St. Paul's was pretty interesting. For staters the cathedral is gorgeous with sky high ceilings, amazing mosiacs that catch the sun and glitter and gorgeous marble floors.

We started out our tour in one of the chapel areas of the cathedral and believe it or not, my addiction to America's Next Top Model (ANTM) marathons actually taught me something, besides how to take a picture without showing off the ugly squinty eye I have when I smile. There was a statue in the chapel that had to deal with some bishop guy and the 7 deadly sins and the tour guide asked us if we knew which sin the lady in the statue represented. WELL, in one episode of ANTM the girls did a photo shoot where each of them represented one of the deadly sins, and I remembered that one of the girls had dressed up all sexily and been "lust". SO, I answered lust and was right!! Thank You Tyra Banks!!

Another stop on our tour was that of the a beautiful spiral staircase in one of the towers, besides looking AWESOME Chris (our tour guide) told us that they used the staircase in Harry Potter 3!
Since St. Paul's is still a working church, every hour they recite the Lords Prayer, which turned out to be a neat experience. Being in a church in London with people from literally all over and for 2 minutes we were all united, saying one prayer we had in common.
Little did I know that I would also be getting a workout while visiting St. Paul's. Up at the top of the cathedral they have what's known as the "Whispering Gallery". To get there you have to climb up a few hundred stairs that are tiny,cramped, and made of stone . Anyway, the Whispering Gallery is a big round balcony type thing and you're supposed to be able to stand on the opposite side of the balcony and whisper into the wall and it'll carry around to the other side and people can hear you. WELL, either the wall is broken or I don't know how to do it, because I tried whispering to some of my mates and they couldn't hear me.
And then the climbing continued, another few hundred stairs (a total of 434 from bottom to top)we were at the top of St. Paul's and the city was laid out before us and you could see pretty much everything and it was awesome, but scary, being that high off the ground.
Ever been impressed with your Simpson tour and how your tour guide can rattle off random Simpson facts. Such as Wallace hall is the second oldest building on campus and it was built in 1889 or that Simpson has around 1500 full time students and 4-500 part time students with a student to faculty ration of 16-1 and an average class size of 20-25? WELL, our tour guide at St. Paul's put me to shame. This guy knew so many dates about when what was built, redone, fixed, burned down. When this guy died and that guy designed this and yea it made my head spin and I was impressed that he could just rattle it out, without even having to pause and think.
For lunch, Dana, Chelsea and I wanderd around London in the search for chinese but instead found a Pizza Hut and had some good old fashioned American Pizza Hut buffet and it was DELICIOUS! Even though we were getting silently judged by the wait staff there for hanging out in there for a good hour and a half.
A big shout out and thank you goes to Dana and Chelsea's parents for the formula and chart to figure out how to convert celsius to farenheit! It'll definitally come in useful when deciding how to appropriatly dress for the weather here in London-town.
So, while London is AB-FAB, I must admit there has bit some tidbits of drama going on in the house. *insert gasp here* Silent squabbles have insued over people NOT DOING THEIR DISHES! This has included posted notes, nagging, and silent glares. Personally, I find it halarious and have felt a couple times like I'm back in high school. But no worries, things are getting better, as long as well all do our own dishes and put them away, we will all be happy.


*NEW BLOG ADDITION*
I now have a new goal for blogging. London loves giving out free newspapers; The Metro, The London Paper and Lite are the 3 papers you can pick up at any tube stop or on the street and they are most definitally interesting. But anyway, my new plan is to include a little bit from one of the great articles in my blog. So you too can keep up on London news.
Today's headlines
-It is rumored/assumed that David Beckham has cut our beloved Victoria's (Posh to you die hard Spice Girls fans) wardrobe budget. As she was seen wearing the same dress for an ENTIRE 12 HOURS while in New York. The fashionista had changed her outfit twice in one day while attending the New York Fashion Week.
That's it for today!
Cheers
Drew

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The best Chinese food in London is off the Elephant and Castle tube stop. It's a ton of food for only 3 or 4 pounds.

Tiff Hummel said...

wow, sounds like y'all are creating a new Real World: London with the squabbles - lol.

sally said...

Thanks for the trip through London. LOVE the photos... you make me laugh! Sally