Museum Day

since i wasnt feeling well at all yesterday i decided that i wanted a day to sleep in to get some extra rest. well it was well worth it because today i feel so much better! my throat doesnt hurt at all and i have a lot more energy than i did yesterday. i think i just needed some extra time to recuperate since we have been busy busy since the day we have gotten here. we are gone all day long doing stuff, i go to bed late and then get up early and i have been doing that for three weeks straight, so i think it all just hit me the past day or two. so today i didnt get out of bed till 10! yikes, first time sleeping that late since i have gotten here. but in my defense: number one-- i explained in the above, i needed time to rest and number two-- my alarm clock fell off my bed during the night so i had no idea what time it was until m'kynzi finally came back in the room. but even though we had a late start today it was very productive, enjoyable and a lot of fun.

our first stop was Westminster abbey. the only thing i remembered about westminster on our last trip was that the floor was covered with dead people, so every time i took a step i stepped on someone dead. well that hadnt changed, i still stepped on dead people. but this time around i was able to enjoy the beautiful sites. i dont know if they had this last time but now they have audio tours for free (well free after we pay the 9 pound to get in). the audio tour tells you were to go throughout the cathedral and tells you interesting facts about the kings and queens and people that have been buried there. the church is beautiful and so massive that again i had the same feelings from yesterday--that its so astonishing to me that a cathedral of such stature was able to be built so many years ago. except it wasnt the best decision to go to westminster after going to the Salisbury cathedral yesterday, because it was just as beautiful and less crowded which made it more enjoyable. but it was still great nonetheless. the architecture is absolutely incredible. i loved one of the rooms, it was a small cathedral that was in the process of being restored. the tile is the original tile from the medieval period and they are going through each tile and fixing it and covering it with protect coat on it. i just loved that. i decided that i would love to do that. it would be so incredible to restore and work on preserving historical items and artifacts. i just dont know quite how to figure out how to get into that. any ideas? the other amazing thing about this room was that the walls had originally paintings on it too that were deteriorating but were also trying to be restored. so phenomenal. unfortunately no pictures allowed in westminster, but when M'kynzi and i were in the cloisters outside we snapped a few pictures. and towards the end right before we were about to leave i convinced M'kynzi to take a few pictures secretly. what were they going to do? throw us out? i felt like the devil whispering in her ear, it was funny.

our next stop was lunch. we found this sandwich place called pickles that we thought would be good, relatively inexpensive and fast. well the food was alright but after we left we figured that the guys ripped us off. it was a very weird system. we ordered our food and they told us to go sit down and we pay later. so after we ate we went up to them to pay and they just totalled our cost in their heads and they definitely added on a pound or two to our meals but we didnt realize till after. it kinda sucked.

then we went to the Churchill Museum and War rooms--which i didnt even know existed. it was so amazing. the war rooms are an underground secret rooms that the cabinet members met in during WWII. They were secret rooms that were extra protected in case of bombing. It was made up of a cabinet room where most meetings were held with Churchill and other dignified politicians of the day, a telephone room were Churchill was able to make phone calls to the US presidents on a secure line, a map room were they logged where ships where, and bedrooms were all the men slept. the coolest part of the war rooms is that most of them (the cabinet room in particular) are laid out in the exact way that these men left them in. after the war ended the war rooms were simply left, locked up and forgotten about. and when they were rediscovered they were found exactly they way they were left. in the map room it was obvious that it was the actual map that was used to trace the allies and axis movements. and the room in which Churchill lived in is made up completely of all the things that were in his room at the time. it was a very interesting place to be since it was basically a bomb shelter that men like Churchill lived out of secretly during the war. all of the British war affairs were controlled from these war rooms. and its just crazy that they were forgotten about and then rediscovered many years later just how they were left. the other part of the war rooms is the Churchill Museum. Wow. so amazing, it isnt the largest museum--it was only one floor--but it felt huge! there was so much information in that museum, and dad you should be happy to know i read everything! M'kynzi and i spent so much time in there! It felt like we were in there for like 5 hours. It was a whole museum dedicated to his life, so we read things about his childhood and upbringing, his early political life and then his years as the prime minister, as well as things about his personal life. i walked out of that place feeling like Winston Churchill was my best friend. At the end there was a place that displayed questions about his life followed by the answers--i got the first 5 questions right. i was pretty proud of myself. Cathy and Lillie were with us but M'kynzi and I were taking so long that they left us there. Some interesting things i discovered was that a relative of ours made him his favorite breakfast table that he ate off of everyday. well, i dont know for sure if he was a relative but his last name was robins, so im just assuming. but the story gets better--the guys name was robbie robins. Man! that could have been me! if only i was a boy and dad had his way with the name. Another really cool thing was that Churchill was giving honorary citizenship in the US. The best part of it is that the letter granting him his citizenship showed Churchill's address to be 28 Hyde Park Gate---I live at 37 Hyde Park Gate! I live just around the corner from where Winston Churchill lived and died. When M'kynzi and I walked home today we found his house and outside there is a plaque saying that he lived there. we were very excited.

well after m'kynzi and i spent our whole lives at the Churchill museum we finally decided to go to Harrod's. WOW. that place was way too crazy for me, i coulndt handle it for very long. its the craziest place though. it is way nice. even the escalators are amazing looking--they had this Egyptian theme, it was bizarre. i wanted to take a picture of it but i felt weird. we went to the designer parts of the store (well i think there is only designer parts of the store) and we were at ralph lauren and there was a jacket that was almost 2,000 pound! and like i said to m'kynzi--thats not even converted to dollars!!! so we definitely felt out of place, and looking at ridiculous overpriced designer clothes that arent even that cute, gets old. so we spent less than an hour there. then we came home for a bit and then the "terrible quad" (as cathy dubbed us) went out for dinner. we decided once we got to london that we have set things for certain days--we have sunday picnics, monday dessert night, wednesday walks and friday dinners. its the one night where we finally get to go out and eat. so this friday we went to an Indian restaurant thats really close to our flat. we were sold on this one cause we got 10% off for being students. it was great! ive had indian food before in provo and wasnt the biggest fan of it but tonight it was great. and i had lots of fun with the fab four (as i said we should be called) we had lots of laughs. the best was when cathy flinged a pea at m'kynzi, or when m'kynzi said she needed washcloths. good times. the hardest part of dinner was trying to figure out what the waiters said to us, it was way to hard to figure that out.

so in all it was a really good day. we got in some great sightseeing and was able to do lots of things, even though we didnt leave the flat till about noon. tomorrow i think we are going to hit him either a medieval fair or covet gardens. not really sure yet.