Today we embarked on our five mile walk through the City. As we left the center this morning at around 10:30 am I was still feeling bummed about being far from home. I have always wanted to make the trek out here and study abroad for a semester but this was particularly a very hard time for me to go away for three and a half months. But, the good news about this is that today got me a little bit closer to being very happy with my decision to come abroad.
As we walked out of the doors it began to rain a little so we grabbed our coats and umbrellas and departed.It continued to sprinkle on and off throughout the day, but it did not really bother me. Today was my first experience on the tube and I found it all pretty simple. We then arrived at St. Paul's tube stop and began our walk. As we walked along Cheapside I was excited to see a Topshop/Topman store and made a mental note to return and shop there another time. Cheapside was pretty and I enjoyed all of the shops. Unfortunately we decided to walk there on a Saturday and it seemed the further we got into the financial district buildings, the less places were open for business! But as we walked along we saw many other fascinating and interesting places.
The St. Mary Le Bow church was something that I loved to see because I have read how old it is! In the London Walks book it tells us to imagine in our mind what it would be like there and after reading the description of jousting matches I was easily entertained and excited for our next stop along our walk. I was also appreciative on the John Smith statue and began whistling the song "Colors of the Wind" from the Pocahontas Disney movie.
The Mansion house also grabbed at my curiosity and I wish we could have gone inside to see it all. We stood at the corner of the two streets just taking it all in. Its pretty cool that the current Mayor resides there after all these years have passed since it was created. If I ever get a chance to go in, or happen to be here in London on the Public day, I am going to beg the tour guide to show us the prison down below.
Another part of the walk I particularly enjoyed was seeing all the different tall buildings in the Financial district starting with the Royal Exchange. We stopped for lots of pictures of The Duke Of Wellington on his horse and also read the sign on the top that reads "The Earth is the Lord's, and the Fulness thereof." All of us being of the LDS faith, we were happy to see that sign and are in agreement with the statement. The Lord created this beautiful for us to explore and enjoy, and that is what I feel we are doing here in London. Getting an amazing experience and enjoying a new place and new people.
Of all the places we saw while walking along Cornhill, I found Old Broad street very cool because of the idea that Gresham had to give free lectures there. We all took turns reading out loud the London Walks book, and I read this out loud to the seven of us and found it so inspiring. Gresham seems like he was a good guy from this information!
We quickly enjoyed the buildings on our right and left down Leadenhall street and made a photo stop for Emily Lloyd to get a picture at "Lloyd's Building". This building reminded me of the cartoon movie "Robots". It looked like it would fit in perfectly to the "new and improved" world that Ratchet and her son were trying to create. We moved quickly to the restaurant "Eat." because we had not eaten anything since dinner the previous night and all the places we had passed were closed. Eat was just the thing I needed! Diet Coke and popcorn are two of my favorite things, and happened to be available to me while I was slowly fading away from starvation.
The last stop on this walk was one of my favorites because it falls under the category of a world record. It is The Monument, which is still the tallest stone column in the world today. I am very drawn to the gold atop of the many buildings and statues here and this one was no exception.
This walk was my very first one for this semester, beside the Walk around the Neighborhood and it did get me excited for the other nine walks I will complete by the end of the semester and of course got me excited to do some exploring of our own choice!
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| Brooke at the Front of the Mansion House |
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| Duke of Wellington in front of the Royal Exchange |
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| The Royal Exchange |
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| Emily at Lloyd's Building |
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| The Swiss Reinsurance Tower |
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| Lunch from Eat. |
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| The Monument : 202 feet tall |
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