The Nelsons Go To London

Hello all :)

I had a great week with my parents here. My mom arrived last Thursday and my dad arrived on Friday, both very safely. Friday night we met up with the Hazeltons to go see "Wicked"...which was awesome!!!!!!!!! I loved it. I love "Wicked" and I've wanted to see it for two years now, so it was great to be able to see a show that I literally know every note and every word to, and also great to see the Hazeltons again. I also finished Chapter 6 on Friday! So the next installment on PhoenixSong went up on Saturday morning. Really exciting stuff for me as I hadn't posted a new chapter since December. Thanks to all who have left reviews so far. :)

On Saturday, we joined Caelah's group for a trip to Greenwich. We walked around for a while and we went to the Prime Meridian museum/observatory. We took a catamaran boat ride down the Thames to get there, which was really cool. It was nice seeing the area around the river. :) Mom, Dad, and I were really tired after that so we chilled out at my apartment with Whitney and Adam, and then I went down and hung out with with all the kids here for the weekend in the boys' apartment.

I showed the family St. George's on Sunday morning. They all really liked it, too. :) The whole church was really friendly and John Valentine did a sermon on Ephesians about experiencing the fullness of God...Sunday was Pentecost. Caelah had a class thing in the afternoon, and it was raining a lot, so I did lunch with the parents and then we went to the British Museum for a bit, then down to Covent Garden where we had afternoon tea. Mom and Dad were tired after that so they took naps while I did some more writing. We went to a late dinner at a French restaurant near their hotel.

We got out of London on Monday for a trip to Stonehenge and Avebury with the Hazeltons. Mom, Dad, and I took the train to Princes Risborough and then we drove 2 more hours to Stonehenge. It was kind of wet and cold and miserable outside, but we had a lot of fun hanging out and keeping one another warm and speculating about the purposes for the big rocks, since, as our wonderful audio guides informed us, they really have no idea about why Stonehenge exists. It was very enlightening. After a really nice lunch in Marlborough we drove to Avebury, a small town built literally inside of a henge (a circle of stones). It's the largest stone monument in the world in land area. It was really neat to see the various rocks scattered around the community, and see how the town was just literally built up inside of it. Caelah met us back in London for dinner in one of Dad's favorite locations, St. Christopher's Place. There are all kinds of different restaurants there, but we chose one specializing in Spanish Tapas. :)

Mom and I went with my class to Cambridge on Tuesday while Dad stayed in London to do work and prepare for his meeting on Wednesday. Another cold, wet, rainy, miserable day...but we still had fun. The early afternoon walking tour was a bit much, though the town is sooo nice. I preferred the size to Oxford's size. There was a lot more shopping than in Oxford, but less places to eat. Mom and I found a restaurant/student bar with Dima, Jenny, and Greg that specialized in wood fired pizza. They have all kinds of special meal deals...we each got a personal pizza and salad for four pounds! Definitely a student place, and there were a lot of kids studying as they're in exams right now. Tuesday night I went to a comedy show with Max, Lavinia, Becca, and Max's Uncle Eddie. It was hilarious! Mostly standup, political humor. We really enjoyed it.

Wednesday was Mom and Dad's last day in London, and Dad spent the whole day working. Mom and I met up with Caelah for a long lunch before she joined the class again for a tour of Shakespeare's Globe Theater. It took them 10 years to rebuild the Globe from 1987-1997 because they built it in exactly the same way it would have been built in the 1500s...which means they had to carve these huge nails by hand. Each one takes an hour and a half to make, and there are over a thousand of them. We couldn't take pictures because they're rehearsing for "The Merchant of Venice" which opens this Saturday, but we got to see the final blocking process, which was really cool. :) Mom and I got our fill of modern art at the Tate Modern afterwards, which is right next door. It was cool seeing a lot of the art that I got to study in world history in high school and also in some of my history classes at W&L. Mom went back to her hotel after that and I got ready to go back to the Globe that night to see "Othello" with the class. Max, Lavinia, Adam, Whitney, and I didn't quite leave enough time for us to enjoy a meal before the play, so we had to get take out and eat it really fast in front of the theater! The performance was alright, it kind of seemed like a read through, though the second half was better than the first. It was hard to understand what the actors were saying since Shakespearean language is so fancy and word-filled, they weren't miked, and the theater is open air. But, it was still really cool seeing the play the way in a similar setting to how it was originally performed.

We were supposed to have two speakers today, Thursday, but the one this morning on Northern Ireland cancelled because she was sick. I was really bummed cause I was interested in hearing her. Adam has had this semi-obsession with wanting to go see this guy, Jeremy Bentham, who was preserved after he died and whose body is on display at the College of London. So, he roped us (Whitney, Lavinia, Becca, Robin, Lauren, and me) into going and we did. We found Jeremy. It was kind of creepy, but still interesting. Google him and you can see what we saw. ;) After that, I went with Michael, Lavinia, and Mason to indulge Michael's fancy to see this pub called The Holly Bush in Hampstead. His father really wanted him to go there, and it was easily accessible on the Northern Line...though pretty far out. Lucky still in Zone 2 with our Oyster cards. The pub was really old and really nice, kind of tucked away at the top of this hill. We spent a while there and then walked around Hampstead for a bit before taking the tube back down to central London. In about an hour we have our second speaker on the European Union and tonight we're going to see a show called "Whipping It Up" which is apparently a political satire.

Time to do some more writing before class :)