Last days in London and details for next week

Hello!

This will probably be my last post in London because on Monday we leave for our last week of travel and internet access will likely be very limited. However I wanted to fill you in on my activities of this past week and let you know what next week holds as well!

On Monday Hillary and I visited the Tower of London and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite the cold and semi-rainy afternoon. We toured the old armory and then got to drool over the crown jewels ... magnificent! Tuesday was a full day - Hillary, Joy, Melissa and I took off for the Imperial War Museum after classes and spent a good three hours there. In light of the museum's size, we contented ourselves with walking through the World War I and II galleries and the Holocaust exhibit, which included special rooms like "The Blitz Experience," "The Trench Experience," and "Auschwitz." Very powerful.

After the museum Joy and I made our way to the National Theatre were we saw St. Joan by Bernard Shaw - probably the most incredible production overall that I have ever witnessed. We got to see it in the Olivier Theatre (one of three within the National complex) and the set, lighting, acting, music, and choreography were just phenomenal. I wish I had time to do the play justice with my descriptions!

Then yesterday Cathy Rodgers took our Modern Drama class (which consists of Joy, Meredith and I) on a tour of the National Theatre - we got to go backstage and everything! After the tour, Cathy, her son Chip, and I stayed and saw a production of Gorky's Philistines - which was very good, but not as wonderful as St. Joan had been the night before. I'm afraid she stole a bit of Gorky's thunder!

Today has been a catchup day for me. It's been overcast and downright gloomy, so it seemed a good day to stay in and get work done. As tomorrow is our last day of classes, final papers and projects are on everybody's minds right now - and I know we're all excited about the prospect of sight-seeing with no outside work involved! This afternoon we are having an ice cream social with the nuns, and then later tonight I am going to see The Pain and the Itch (a satirical play on many absurdities in American culture that originated in New York and has been a big hit over here) with Hillary.

Tomorrow I am going to tour Westminster Abbey and hopefully the National Portrait Gallery as well. It will also be a day of journaling, laundry, and (sniff of woe, sigh of dread) packing. I don't even want to think about how heavy that humongous backpack is going to be ...

Then on Saturday the group of us is riding a bus up to Bath for the day! I am soooooooo excited about spending a day in the location where scenes from several of my favorite Jane Austen books take place. We're all hoping for blue skies and warm, sunny weather! But even if it rains I'm sure Bath will be delightful anyway. It's supposedly so gorgeous that it is banned from the annual most-beautiful-city-in-England ... to give the other cities a fighting chance!

On Sunday I am attending a service at St. Paul's Cathedral and then hopefully catching a tour at Shakespeare's Globe that afternoon before I see Love's Labour's Lost that night. I can't wait to step foot in the theatre and see it with my our eyes for the first time. It's something I've been looking forward to all summer, and I can't think of a better way to spend my last night in London.

Monday morning we leave the Maria Assumpta Centre via bus and head to York. Our next stop is Durham, then two nights in Edinburgh, Scotland and then the following back in England for a day/night in the Lake District. Then from the lakes we head for Manchester for a day and then the next morning we fly out of Manchester (at 6 AM no less!) for HOME! The flight schedule is as follows - Manchester > Munich, Munich > Charlotte, then Charlotte > Raleigh. I should be arriving at RDU Sunday afternoon!

Well if I don't write again, thanks for listening! It's been a wonderful summer and I'm so honored you have tuned in for my updates. I can't wait to show you all my other pictures :)

See you soon!

Hugs and baci -

Bekah