Only a Fews Days Left

As I am coming into my last few days here in London, I can't believe that my time here is over.  Before posting my final blog post of my trip, I will share with you how I spent last week.

After returning from Italy, you could tell that we all were not ready to leave.  We all enjoyed our time there so much, that we were already talking about making plans to go back in the future.  At my internship last week, I helped one of my co-workers with drawing a section of a kitchen that they were designing in AutoCAD.  I feel like I need more practice creating sections, so I was more than glad to learn and help.  After I was done with that, I helped my other co-worker with drawing elevations of a master bedroom and walk-in closet.  I was tasked with designing the closet and thinking of different possibilities for shelves, drawers, and hanging rods.  Since I had holiday last week, I did not have my British Art and Architecture, but I did have Shakespeare.  For this week read A Midsummer Nights Dream and I am very familiar with this play.  I had to read it in eighth grade and I even had to memorize and act out a few scenes.  Let's just say I wasn't completely thrilled about reading it again.

For the weekend we had a lot of plans, because there were still a lot of things that we had not done yet that we really wanted to.  One of those things was the London Eye.  We wanted to leave this towards the end of our trip, because that is what was suggested to us and so we would actually be able to recognize buildings as areas of London that we had been in previously.  We decided to buy a day and night pass, because we would be allowed to go on the Eye twice by only paying about five pounds more.  So we went at 10:30am Friday morning and the weather actually cooperated.  Although a little hazy, we were able to see a great view of London.  After going on the Eye, Ashley, Minami, and I went with Taylor to help her recreate some old photographs that her Grandpa gave her before she left.  It was fun trying to decipher what was in the photographs and trying to line things up.  For one of the photographs we are sitting in front of Big Ben and the position looks almost identical to the photograph, it was really neat.

 

 

 Another thing that was on top of our list was going to Olympic Park.  Ever since I was little, I remembering watching the Olympics and before I left London I know I had to go and see where the 2012 summer games took place.  When first going to the park, we all looked at each other and said, "is this it?"  But upon further discovery, we found the rings and Ashley and I decided to go on an adventure.  We of course wanted to get our pictures of the rings and we made the long trek towards them.  After our pictures we decided to go and see what else was around.  We ended up going into the Velodrome where they have all of the cycling.  I never realized that the track was so curved.  We then went over to where they held the swimming competitions.  Following swimming is one of my favorite parts of the Olympics and is was really surreal seeing the exact spot where Michael Phelps one all of those Golds.

 After we all met up and ate dinner is was back to the Eye we went.  We were trying to decided if we wanted to either go at sunset or when it was completely dark and you could see all of the nights of the city.  We decided on sunset, because then we could get better pictures and we would be able to see everything clearer.  We chose the perfect time, because the sky had all different hues of purple and pink and it was absolutely beautiful.  While riding in the Eye I couldn't help but reflect on my time here in London and how it really has gone by so quickly.  After getting off of the Eye, it was nearly dark, and you could see it lit up in red.  I waited to get some really nice photographs of both the Eye and Big Ben lit up.

As for Saturday we took our last trip to Burroughs Market.  That is the market that we went to in our first coupe of weeks here and it has all different types of great food and samples!  I ended up buying paella for lunch.  I also bought organic watermelon and apple juice and a tiramisu cupcake, because I was still missing Italy very much haha.  To take home I bought a bottle of winter warmer spiced apple juice and some of the best pears I had ever tasted.  All in all it was a pretty relaxed day.

While in London you just have to go visit Abbey Road and take the iconic Beatles album cover.  So that is where we went on Sunday.  All the interior architecture majors, Taylor, Ashley, Minami, and I, all walked across the road and it was actually really fun.  We also got a lot of enjoyment out of watching all of the other tourists try to also get the photo.  I was joking with a person that it would really entertaining to just sit there all day and watch everyone.  After that, we went to Little Venice, because again I. Miss. Italy SO much.  Little Venice is nothing compared to the real thing, but it was still really pretty.  We went to a café that was located inside of a boat and it was really cute.  The food was also really good; I got a ham and cheese panini with a slice of apple walnut cake.  We then headed back home to start packing and studying for our exams this week.

 

I will hopefully be posting one last blog post about my last week in London very shorty.  Cheers -Heather