Exploring London

On Saturday I had to register for classes so I decided to stay close to home. I went to Pollock's Toy Museum which is just a couple blocks away from me, I found. It was rather disappointing after all the other museums that I've been to. It was a bunch of toys crammed in a small house, normal size relative to houses here. The toys were all crammed in small cases and covered with dust. But it was still a lot of fun to see all the old toys and all the different countries that they were from. Then I headed back to the flat and registered for classes at 1:30.

Sunday I went to church and then headed back to the flat. That afternoon I made some Camper Stew (which is not made of campers, contrary to the apparently popular belief) and some Apple Beth. It actually turned out much better than I had hoped! I didn't have the right sugar for the 'Yucky Dough' that goes on the Apple Beth, because apparently our 'powdered sugar' they call 'icing sugar' which I found out after the fact... But it ended up very good anyway. I just have 4 different types of sugar on my shelf now...

On Monday I went to the London Aquarium. That was a ton of fun! They had a huge tank in the middle of the whole building that you could see on both floors. There were several places on both floors where you could see the tank. In this tank were maybe half a dozen sharks as well as lots of sting rays and other larger fish. I believe that there were several different types of sharks. Some looked more different than others. They also had freshwater fish, rainforest fish, and tropical fish and there were also small jellyfish and seahorses! There was also a 'petting pool' where we could pet sting rays. I got to pet one, on the top it was rough and felt a bit like sand paper and on the bottom it felt like jello. It was really neat! I had a lot of fun wandering around and looking at all the different animals.

That night, everyone came back from Ireland and France. It was interesting because I had gotten used to having the room to myself and not really ever talking to anyone so it was a shock when I suddenly had 2 roommates again. It took me a bit to readjust and get used to having to talk and having to share 'my' space with 2 other people and having to relinquish the idea that it was 'my' space. It was an interesting adjustment.

On Tuesday I had music class and then we went to a vocal performance at the Royal College of Music by Jennifer Smith and some of her students. It was a very good performance of a bunch of French poems. After that I had science class. We talked about our field trip for Friday. We are going to the Greenwich Maritime Museum. I am excited about that! It'll be interesting to see all of the old chronometers and other developments as well as the Greenwich meridian.


This morning we went to the Cabinet War Rooms which is basically a bunker that Churchill and his close cabinet worked in during the entirety of World War II. That was amazing!!! After the war was over, they had taken only what they needed from the bunker and then sealed it off. Then a while ago it was opened back up and people set it up the way it would have looked with some of the original furniture and wax figures and opened it up as a museum. It was amazing to walk around in there and imagine what it had been like. They even had most of the original maps still on the walls from 1945. Someone had drawn a Hitler on one of the maps in one meeting room and in another room you could see pin marks in the maps marking the progress of sea and air craft. It was awe inspiring to see all of that and imagine Churchill walking around in the halls and talking to FDR on the secret secure telephone that Bell Telephone had installed in a room that had been a broom closet. I spent about 2 hours wandering around and looking at stuff... I was so absorbed by it all that I forgot to take pictures until the very end and then went *back* through and took a couple pictures. It was really amazing.

After that I had Shakespeare class and we talked about King Lear and then we had WWII class and talked a bit about the Cabinet War Rooms since that had been a class field trip. Then we talked about the Italy front during WWII.

And I just finished talking to my sister on Skype. It was fun to talk to her again and catch up. :-)

Prayer Requests: Patience and more sleep. I think that's about it. Thanks so much!!