Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Thursday morning we (Heather, Laura, Mary, and I) went to the National Gallery and wandered around looking at the paintings from 1700-1900 for a couple of hours. The Gallery is so huge that they have a map of the building and they have divided up their collection of paintings into different time periods with certain artists in different rooms. The rooms are huge and have paintings everywhere. It was great to see them! I really enjoyed looking the art. I just looked briefly at Monet's work. I am saving that up for a treat later on in the semester. :-) After that, they had class so we all headed back to Bloomsbury and I went and got some groceries (surprise, surprise).

That night we all met up at the Winston House to hear a friend of Dr. Oehler's talk to us about Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury. It was interesting to hear about the history that they have constructed about Stonehenge from looking at all the things buried around it. It looks like an amazing sight. I'll be excited to see it on Monday. He talked to us about Bath as well and about the Roman baths that were there. He told us about how the Romans heated their floors (I wish I had heated floors...) and about how they used a natural hot spring to fill the baths.

Friday (Heather, Mary, Laura, and I) went to a cello concert at the Royal Academy of Music. It was an interesting concert using a lot of modern technology and pre-recorded sound. I didn't really like it. But I guess it is good to be exposed to different types of music. Then afterwards, we sort of split up and I was going to head straight back but then decided that since I was so close to Regent's Park, I might as well wander around in there. And I am so glad I did!! It is beautiful there! I went and sat in Queen Mary's Rose Garden for a while and looked at the birds there that I had never seen before. Then I wandered by a pond with lots of ducks and what looked like some type of black swan. It was so quiet, it was hard to believe I was in the middle of the city. There weren't many people there; enough that it wasn't deserted, but not too many. After that, I headed back and grabbed a couple things from Tesco. Then, after Mary, Laura, and Heather got back we all headed over to the Winston House and watched the first half of Braveheart with Chris and David. It was an interesting movie. Very sad.

Then, at 7, we (Heather, Mary, Laura, and I) went to another concert, only this one was a choral concert by the BBC Singers. They were recording the performance to play on the radio on Halloween. It was a great performance! I really enjoyed that one. They sang 2 of what they called "Plainsong" processing in and out. They were beautiful and reminded me of monks singing. The whole concert was unaccompanied by any instruments. It was beautiful. It was really nice. Afterwards we went out to eat at a rather nice Italian restaurant. It was a lot of fun.

Today, we went to a football match! It was really neat! It was a small stadium, kind of like Cameron Indoor Stadium, but without a roof. The home team, Queen's Park Rangers, were not expected to win; apparently they aren't that good. But we actually scored and it ended up as a draw at 1-1. It was a lot of fun to watch and fun to hear the crowd. After the game, we (Heather, Mary, Laura, Chris, David, and I) decided to watch the rest of Braveheart after we all went back and got some dinner. We just finished it a little while ago; the ending is so sad... Not really what I was expecting. I was expecting justice to win out in the end. That's how it is supposed to end. Isn't it interesting that it is written onto our hearts that justice and mercy HAVE to win in the end? "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men." (Ecc. 3:11, NIV)

Prayer requests: Still searching for a quiet time and place. We are traveling to Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury on Monday, so prayer for safe travels. Thank you for your prayers!!! :-)