This past weekend was quite long, but eventful! I woke up nice and early on Saturday morning in order to fit in a day of art! It was too early really, I woke up at 5:30am in order to go to the National Gallery to line up for tickets to an exhibition on Leonardo Da Vinci. I met up with another MUN engineering student living in London who told me all about the limited time exhibition going on at the Gallery.

The exhibit was all about Da Vinci and featured 9 of his 15 paintings! The Gallery had many of his paintings on loan from other museums and had collected dozens of his other sketches and works. We had to stand it line for a whopping 5 and a half hours to get tickets, but I must say, it was worth it! The exhibit is here for 3 months, but it’s so popular that you always have to come line up at 6am in order to get tickets.

The surprise of the exhibit was that a new Da Vinci painting has recently been discovered; Christ as Salvator Mundi. It showed up at a private art auction in the States a little while ago and it’s recently been restored. Apparently this is the first time it’s been on display for the public to view. BBC is doing a big documentary about it. Needless to say it was definitely an experience to get to see so many of his paintings in one place!

In the afternoon, we decided to check out London’s very own Banglatown and had some tasty Bangladeshi cuisine. I also went inside St. Paul’s Cathedral for the first time since I’ve been here and I have to say, it is incredible! I didn’t get a chance to go up to the dome, but the inside is beautiful. There was a service going on when we walked in and the organ was just booming throughout the church. It’s easy to understand why it is called Christopher Wren’s masterpiece.

Sunday was not quite as exciting as Saturday, but I still had a nice day. I decided to go to the London Sealife Aquarium; unfortunately it was a little bit of a letdown. It was quite expensive and mostly aimed at kids. I found it interesting to discover that you’re not allowed to keep whales in the UK, so the aquarium was focused on different kinds of fish and sealife; they did have a few sharks though. My personal favourite was the penguin exhibit at the very end of the aquarium. The penguins did everything as a group. They would swim in a formation, jump up on the ice together and then all dive back in the water at the same time, it was super cute!

This weekend I’m looking forward to seeing Les Miserables and I’m hoping to take in the Chinese New Year celebrations in Chinatown.

Much love,
Maria

If there’s one thing Londoners know, it’s fashion. After seeing some of the truly awful outfits in some of my favourite British movies – think Bridget Jones and Love Actually – I thought the British had no style. However, all the Londoners I pass on the streets every day certainly do. Men go to work in crisp, clean suits and women in business skirts and high heels. I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed of my salt-stained Newfoundland boots, so naturally I went shopping!

I spent last Saturday afternoon taking advantage of the Christmas sales still going on in London. I went to Oxford Street, which is the shopping center of London. It’s not high fashion with designer prices, but it has a huge selection of reasonably priced stores and shops. I have to say, shopping in London is just better. While I didn’t buy a new pair of boots, I am now the proud owner of 1 (okay 2) new pairs of heels for work! The next time I go shopping I am going to check out some local markets, so stay tuned for that!

On Sunday I continued my walk along the Thames. Last week I walked half of the river, from Parliament to the Millennium Bridge; this week I continued along the South Bank and saw Shakespeare’s Globe, City Hall, and Tower Bridge. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I managed to get some nice shots of Tower Bridge, which you can see on my facebook page. I finished the afternoon by going up Tower Bridge; there’s an exhibition in the tower about other famous bridges in the world. The civil engineer in me quite enjoyed it! I also never realized you could walk along the top part of Tower Bridge, so I got some nice shots of London up there as well.

My weeks are usually much less eventful then the weekends, but today on my lunch break I went to check out the Monument. The Monument is a huge pillar in the center of the city, which stands as a reminder of the great fire of 1666. I mentioned the fire in my first blog post; it originally started in a bakery where the monument now stands and unfortunately burned much of London to the ground at the time. The only way up to the top of the Monument is to walk the 311 stairs that circle around the inside of the column. However, once you make it to the top, the view is totally worth it! It gives you a beautiful 360-degree view of the city.

I now have a local cell phone if anyone wants to get a hold of me. Skype is cheaper (it’s free!) but if you prefer to call, let me know and I’ll send you my number. Hope to hear from you!

Love Maria

It’s been a whirlwind of emotions over the last week. There was the excitement of first arriving in London, followed by getting physically sick, homesick, and then finally starting to settle in. Things started to go rapidly downhill after my last blog entry when I woke up really sick in the middle of the night. Unfortunately I caught a stomach bug and spent most of last Friday in bed.

I’m feeling much better now, but being physically sick always makes me feel a little bit homesick (even though I just arrived). I was missing my family quite a bit over the weekend, but I’m starting to get settled in now and into a routine. I did try and make the most of my first weekend in London though; I just took it easy as I was still recovering from the flu.

I decided to visit the Natural History Museum on Saturday and really enjoyed it! The Museum is located in this beautiful building in South Kensington that has stone animals carved into it’s exterior. There are dozens of exhibits in the museum, so I had to narrow it down to a few that I really wanted to see; the first one being the dinosaur exhibit! The whole exhibit is just filled with these huge dinosaur skeletons, it’s unreal to see them just hanging from the ceiling all around you! I posted a few pictures of them on my facebook page if you want to take a look.

I also went to a mammal exhibit; the whole exhibit is featured around a life-size replica of a blue whale, which as you can imagine, is huge! It’s surrounded by other life-size mammals and there are several whale skeletons hanging above it. I also went to an exhibit on ecology, fossils, climate change, the beginning of the earth, and human biology. I stumbled upon the biology exhibit; it was an interactive exhibit about how the human body works and was actually really interesting. I finished up the day by going skating on an outdoor rink just outside the museum. It was especially fun for me as I got to skate circles around all the Brits 😉

On Sunday morning, I decided to go to church. One of the things I discovered in Malawi was that no matter where I go in the world, there is likely going to be a Salvation Army church nearby that I can go to. London, of course, is no exception. The London Corps is located on Oxford Street, smack dab in the middle of the shopping district. The front of the church looks like a storefront, but once you walk inside it open opens up in the back. It is a nice church and the people are just as friendly. It’s nice to find a little bit of home in the middle of a place where I don’t know anyone.

I spent the rest of the day walking around London. I didn’t make a plan or decide what I wanted to see; I just did as I pleased. It was nice to just walk around the City and do whatever I felt like. I walked to Trafalgar Square to see the fountains and the huge Lions. If you spend some time looking at the Lion statues you’ll notice that their back legs look kind of out of place. Apparently the sculptor didn’t know what real lions looked like, so he just modeled their legs after the legs on his cat.

I walked up the canal in St. James Park and caught a glimpse of Buckingham Palace. What I find odd about London is that everything here is green. The park is filled with green grass and all of these blooming flowers. It looks nice, but out of place with the chilly weather. I left St. James Park and walked to Big Ben and then I walked the Thames River back to the Millennium Bridge, which I finally walked over! I’ve wanted to cross it for years, having seen it in so many movies!

I haven’t done any sightseeing during the week, but I have been spending some of my lunch breaks sitting next to the river by Tower Bridge. I’d love to hear from some of you! Feel free to leave a comment, send an email, or give me a skype call!

Take care,
Maria