London Town

“In a rainy London town, the sun was shining, everywhere!” I think these immortal words from Michael Buble sum up our London travels. We spent five days running through the rain and sunshine, busy streets and crowded subways, great palaces and deep towers, trying to soak in so much of the city in such little time.

This was my first experience with subways. We were given three day passes for all the underground lines and city buses, and in no time flat, we became pros at jumping here and there from bus to subway.

Each day we did one event together as a group and then the rest of the day was free. The first day we went to Windsor Castle (our first peak at royalty) and as soon as we checked into our hostel, a group of us took off walking to the Hillsong London Church. It was not until 20 minutes into our 45 minute walk that we realized how spread out London was. Hillsong was well worth the walk. They rented out an entire theater for their services and the worship was absolutely incredible. This was the first time going to a charismatic church service since I arrived here and I realized just how different the Old Faith was from the church I usually go to. At the same time, both congregations are Christian and united under one Faith. I thought it was great that Hillsong would just call themselves Church instead our American elaborate church titles such as The First Baptist New Life Seven Waters Worship Center.

This was just the start of our trip. We also went to Westminster Abby, London Eye, Globe Theater, Piccadilly Circus, Covenant Gardens, Big Ben, Platform 9 ¾ (from Harry Potter), London Tower, the crown jewels, London Bridge, Tate Modern Art Museum, British Museum and of course, the Theater.

This was the first time I saw Les Miserables on stage and it completely blew my mind (yes, my head exploded). The acting, the stage, the sets, the music…everything came together perfectly in their performance of this play. Other people in our group who had seen Les Miz before said that it exceeded their expectations. Even now, I find myself singing the songs in my head.

I could write on and on about all that we did and saw in London. At one point, like from a movie, Jessica and David and I were literally running down the streets of London in the pouring rain. Late to our play, Chicago, we were jumping over puddles and running down cobble stone alleys trying to find the theater. David, before he knew it, ran into a gay bar looking for directions. It was quite a night.

My only regret was that I accidently dropped and broke my camera lens the last day we were in London. I tried not to let it ruin my day, but I lost all the possible pictures from the British Museum and a few from Hyde Park. Now in Cambridge, I will need to fork out the money for a new lens.

I have little time to digest London before we start planning for our epic adventures in the European continent.