Class 8 (24 July 2014)

Well that wraps it up for this London journey. Today is the lost official day of class, and we didn't make it to the Museum of London. They are closing early today at 4, and we probably would've gotten to the museum a little too late.
I pretty much took a chill day today and didn't venture out too much, especially cause I'm kind of tired of taking the tube. I collected my Oyster card deposit money, which is £5. It isn't much, but hey it's £5 extra I have. Currently I am packing all of my clothes and packing my souvenirs. I'm a little worried about surpassing the 50lb luggage limit, but I think I'll be okay. I'm going to put some souvenirs in my carry on backpack. Basically I don't plan on going off with a bang because I'm tired, and I'm packing all of my dirty clothes already... Everything is pretty much dirty!
Our flight takes off from Heathrow tomorrow at 9:30 ish AM, and well our taxi is picking us up at Colombia Hotel at 4:30 AM london time. I'm expected to be back in McAllen around 6:30 pm, and to be honest with you... I cannot wait. I deeply miss my bed, wifi, food, cheap prices, and the special people in my life.
I've taken a lot from this journey, and it's one I won't ever forget. I'm very grateful and honored to be a part of the 2014 UTPA London Study Abroad Program, and I do plan on visiting London within the next 10 years of my life again... Except without all the school work. I'd like to thank Dr. Zwerling for guiding me before we even got to London, and a special thanks to Mrs. Infante for always being here for us, worrying, and carrying for every singe one of us throughout the trip. I will always remember her waiting in the lobby for all of us on the first day, waiting to give us all a big welcoming hug! Thank you so much!

 
 

Class 7 (23 July 2014)

At the IWM

Well today was a good day. Today’s class visited the Imperial War Museum in London, and well let me say… I wasn’t all that interested in the beginning, and it wasn’t until I started really getting into the readings on the displays that my interest was sparked. I spent most of my time in the Holocaust part of the museum, which is about two floors full of belonging from the Nazi’s to the Jews that were murdered. I knew a lot about the story, especially since I’ve read the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel a few years back. It was crazy to think what these people went through at the time. I learned that most of the people took refuge in the United States and the United Kingdom. I was also reminded about the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, in fact they even displayed the same jump suit that Shu was put into in the building. Unfortunately, today I didn’t get pictures. The area about the Holocaust was restricted to photos.

Class 6 (22 July 2014)

Inside the Tower of London

So I didn't get a chance to post yesterday's blog so I'm posting these two together. As we continue to wind down the London trip, today I visited the Tower of London. I got to see where they tortured criminals in the castle. One of the most interesting parts of the tour is where all of the crowns, jewels, and what not are kept. We walk into this huge vault and get to see the priceless items on display. It was a spectacular viewing of these royal jewels. It makes me wonder why they get these crazy priceless things? Wouldn't it be amazing being born into that family?
After the Tower of London, I made my way into a play. A play on the Importance of being Earnest. It's a play I read back in high school, and I even got to see a production on it at my high school too. I love the irony of it. It's a spectacular play and it was even more amazing to watch it being performed live in front of me in London! Although it is cool to see a real show on the famous play, I didn't really like how it was performed. 
The play began with a group of old folks pretending to rehearse the play... so they actually began saying the story as if they were rehearsing in the living room... after the intermission... they began the story as if it was actually happening.I didn't like the way they went about the performance. I was really expecting young individuals playing the parts, it was odd seeing old people do... "no offense" (Class insider, courtesy of Brittany). But anyways, overall... I enjoyed the play, I even bought myself a little ice cream as I watched :) 


So yeah, that was basically my day. 

Class 5 (21 July 2014)

Outside Sherlock Holmes Museum

Another day in London, my bank lessens. It’s amazing how expensive this city can be. The exchange rate is currently at $1 = £1.71 meaning that the U.S dollar is just about half the value of the British pound. You would think prices here would drop to match the price of th

e U.S. but that is not the case. If you stop by Burger King, which I had today, a burger in the U.S. is about $7, here the burger is £7 as well, but the conversion to dollars is equaled to $11.95. I know it doesn’t seem like a huge deal with that example, but when these prices continue to amount, considering the only “free” meal we have is the continental breakfast, which is composed of toast, croissants, and nasty cereal. I’ve spent near $900 in the U.K. with 75% of that being on food.  Today I found out that a large pizza from Papa Johns is £17. That’s nearly $30!!! So one piece of advice from me is if you do ever visit the U.K. you should come with a lot of money, I’d say try to have $100/day, if you plan on visiting a ton of tourist destinations.

Enough with my venting, today our class visited the Regents Park. It was a very beautiful park. As we sat on the grass, we held a class discussion about the novel A Vindication of the Rights of Women. The novel really zeroed in on women’s rights and education. At the time the novel was written, women were basically educated to become servants to the men. The writer of the novel, Wollstonecraft, gives her ideas on how women should act, and how everybody should be educated in order for women to become respected human beings. I completely agree with a lot of her feminist proposals, but one thing that did strike me was her education proposals. Of course, these are her ideas and aren’t very perfected, but she was talking about how students should be split after the age of 9 into different groups by their gender. It didn’t make sense to me. Splitting by gender might compromise everything she worked for in her feminist ideas. The idea was interesting, because today it would seem insane to do such a thing.

Anyways, on to the rest of my day.

My London journey is soon coming to a close. I’m getting ready to wrap up the trip and start gathering my things. We have 3 official London days left and I’m going to try to make the best out of them. I won’t say that I’m homesick, but I really do miss my bed, and car, and some people. I’m not very looking forward to work and… well, normal life again. Why I do look forward to going home includes, WiFi everywhere, air conditioning, cheap food, and a cheap lifestyle… I really do miss that, and it’s something we all take for granted back in the states.

Regents Park

Class 4 (17 July 2014)

Magna Carta

Today was a fun day! The class tour took us to the British Library where I got to see one of four copies remaining of the Magna Carta. It is also believed that the original copy of the document could be one of the four copies remaining, so for all I know, I was a class away from the Magna Carta. It turns out that after we left the room, there should had not been any photography inside the area, but I accidentally snapped a picture to show you all! I think that was probably the most exciting part of my day… to see something so important and popular. For those who may have forgot the “Magna Carta was the first document imposed upon a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their rights” according to historytoday.com. There was also another neat area of the museum where they show you how they restore old books. There are videos literally showing you step-by-step how they restore books and their covers. I know it sounds kind of boring now that I explain it, but when I was in there, the gallery had my full attention. I like knowing how things are made, and well that kind of reconstructed a book.

After the museum I headed off to Piccadilly Circus, which is an area sort of resembling that of New York’s Time Square. There were a ton of stores, people and even Chinatown! It was interesting to see the different people there and the different types of food. I ended up spending so much money at the stores buying souvenirs. I think the retail therapy made me feel a whole lot better… geez we’re really such Americans :/

Class 3 (16 July 2014)

Westminster Abbey

A better day, that's all I can say... My cold or whatever I was ill of is slowly going away. Today was much more enjoyable than yesterday. I slept well, and woke up to do my presentation which I think went well.
It's awesome how we present... We present on the historical grounds of London. My presentation on Wuthering Heights was outside of Westminster Abbey. That is the cathedral where many royal weddings have taken place, and the most recent one being Prince Williams and Kate Middleton.
History fun fact: King Edward the confessor rebuilt Westminster Abbey to provide himself a royal burial church...

Aside from Westminster, we made a walk in front of the Big Ben where there was a group of protestors or a active group seeking to educate people about the way China has a high number of organ transplants...

Chinese Protest

The highest in the world, and they also don't release numbers on how many prisoners they execute... So this group claims that China is executing people in order to get organs. I thought it was very interesting, I had never seen a protest, and much less one of this manor.
As we continued our walk, we made our way to Tate Britain, which is an art museum... Personally, I'm not a very big art person so my friends and I really didn't see much of the art.
One of the notable things about my day is that I think I've finally mastered the London tube system. It's very simple actually, but coming from the RGV it takes some time to adjust.
Another mention I forgot to add in yesterday's post is that we climbed up 15 stories of stairs, which is equivalent to a 15 stories. 15 STORIES!!! We are definitely taking the elevator (or lift) next time, no matter how long the wait.

Class 2, (15 July 2014)

St. Paul's Cathedral

Today was a tough day. Overnight I had a crazy fever… I woke up in the middle of the night FREEZING. I was cuddled into a little ball so I got under the next set of blankets. As I woke up this morning I woke up sweating from the heat. It was the most unpleasant stay yet in London. This cold seems to be getting worse.
As I prepared for class I discovered a cheap alternative at a local gas station. I found fruits for less than 2 pounds. I also discovered a huge 2-liter bottle of purified water for less than 1 pound… that’s a steal in my book! So guess what I had for breakfast, pineapple and water. For lunch, I had more water, and a vanilla ice cream cone, and for dinner I had a meal deal at a local convenient store called Tesco, which consisted of a sandwich, potato chips, and an orange juice. I thought the vitamin C would help for my illness.

During the class tour we visited St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Cathedral is a prime example of class. The Cathedral was one of the tallest and biggest buildings for many years, I understood that Londoners wanted to make this the grandest building to show their wealth and class.

London Bridge

Another place we visited was the Tower of London. This shows the monarchy. They used that tower to control people in the past. There were many executions inside the tower which I thought was very interesting… especially that it’s said to be haunted. I didn’t get to enter the building because we had to make our way to the Lion King Show. Next door to the Tower of London was the London Bridge.

Aside from that the Lion King Show was AMAZING! It was so entertaining and amazing to watch despite my illness.