Bank Holiday! Monday 28 May 2007!

Yesterday was a bank holiday in the UK, so we didn't have class and decided to spend the day going to various places in London (like we've been doing all weekend!). First we went to St. Paul's Cathedral. The inside is really beautiful! It's decorated in the baroque style (I think) and it's not as overwhelming as Gothic architecture, but there was a lot of ornate ceiling paintings and mosaics, which were amazing! We couldn't take pictures inside, but I have some postcards I can show when I get back!

After St. Paul's we went to King's Cross station where Platform 9 3/4 is (from the Harry Potter books and movies)...I'll have a set of pictures that I'll explain about that later!

From King's Cross station we went to the British Library, but first Wendy and I got hot drinks, a hot chocolate and chai tea respectively. Well, I was walking outside and it was raining, so I got out my umbrella and opened it one handed since I was still holding my chai tea. That went fine and then we continued walking to the library. While crossing the street, the wind picked up and my hair was bl0wing everywhere and then my umbrella turned inside out and THEN the lid of my chai tea flew off and chai went EVERYWHERE! It was probably a riot watching me with chai and hair flying everywhere and carrying my inside out umbrella! Anyway, it was fine, I still had 2/3 - 3/4 of my cup (no lid, but then it cooled faster!) and I let the wind blow my umbrella back to normal.

Okay, now onto the British Library. They had an exhibit about the "treasures" of the British Library, which included: Beatles manuscripts (handwritten lyrics to Yesterday and Ticket to Ride, etc); handwritten music by Chopin, Mozart, Bach, Britten, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and some others; an original copy of the Magna Carta (really difficult to see what it was); and there were lots of other neat artifacts too.

We went back to the flat for dinner around 5 and then went to a really cute cinema in Notting Hill around 7/7:30 to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3! The theater only had 2 screens (unlike Hollywood's 12 or 14!) and it was so cool!

Okay, here are some pictures for you all to enjoy :)

St. Paul's from the side

We went up probably 300 stairs (in a VERY narrow spiral staircase...I got kind of dizzy!) to get up here and have this view of the city (and in this case, one of the towers on St. Paul's)

Here was a church and garden I thought were pretty

St. Paul's from the front (there's the tower that was in the picture above on the right)

The tourist photo stop for Platform 9 3/4 (it's actually just a wall NEAR Platforms 9 and 10)

On the left is Platform 10, on the right is Platform 9...9 3/4 would fall on the tracks somewhere...oops!

This is a wall in between Platforms 4 and 5...maybe not the exact wall used in the film, but closer than going between Platforms 9 and 10!

A bench in the British Library...pretty cool, huh?


The theater where we saw Pirates of the Caribbean...sorry it's so dark, but movie theaters usually are ;)