Day 17 - Exploring London

Today started out with about half the group planning to see a service at Westminster Abbey. It is quite expensive to tour the Abbey, but if you attend a service, you are able to see this beautiful cathedral for free. However, things didn't go as planned. Due to a busy morning in London with various streets and tube stations being closed down, we arrived five minutes late and weren't able to go in.

Since we were already out and about, we decided to go to the Tkts booth in Leicester Square and look into tickets to shows for that night. The Tkts booth is a place where you can get information about all the musicals showing and purchase discounted tickets. There are many places similar claiming to have discounted tickets, but you have to be cautious because many of these places are scams. Many of us got tickets to Wicked and others chose to see Once and 12 Angry Men.

As we continued to walk around, we learned that all the commotion and road blocks were for the rehearsal for the Queen's birthday festivities that will take place next week. We were planning on seeing the changing of the guards today but instead watched the rehearsal. There were a lot of guards and horses, and we even saw the carriages that the royalty will ride in. It was interesting to be able to see an event that most people wouldn't.

We then decided to head towards the South Kensington area to check out the museums. Some people went to the Natural History Museum while others went to the Science Museum. In keeping with the theme of the trip, we spent most of our time at the science museum in the energy area. This was an area of the museum where we could play around on interactive machines and learn about energy conservation and sustainable energy solutions. Other parts of the museum were about space, minerals, medicine, health, etc.

After the museum, some of us went for lunch before searching for a special location. A few of us are big Parent Trap fans (the remake of the film from the 90s). We had a mission to find the house that was filmed as the mother's house in the movie. It turned out that we only had to walk a few minutes after lunch to find our destination. To our surprise and disappointment, the house was under construction! Out of all the houses on the block, the one we wanted a picture in front of had a porter potty in front with a man working on remodeling. Even through our disappointment, we were still happy to see the place!

A few of us then made our way to Oxford Street, which is one of the main shopping streets in the city. We only went into a few shops, as it was really busy, so we didn't stay long! Instead of shopping, we treated ourselves to some Haagen-Dazs ice cream before heading towards the theater. Everyone enjoyed the shows they went to and are excited for our last day in London tomorrow!

Kenna

Senior, Elementary Education

Taylor

Senior, Family Services and Gerontology