The weather today was freezing but really beautiful. Clear blue skies all day, so my pictures of the city from today look much better than the ones I took yesterday. This morning Alex and I met at 9:00 at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was expensive to get in, but worth it. It's pretty amazing, I guess it has the 2nd largest dome in the world (behind St. Peter's). The whole building was beautiful and huge. We climbed a million (it felt like a million...) steps to get to the different levels of the dome. There were 2 outside levels with awesome views of the city and one inside which was called the Whispering Gallery because it was a mezzanine around the edge of the dome and if you whispered into the wall on one side someone on the other side can hear it. We tried it and we think it worked but it was hard to tell because there were a few other people up there. We went at a good time though; it didn't get too crowded until we went into the crypt towards the end.
After we did St. Paul's Alex and Eva went to the football match so I was on my own for the afternoon. I did the free walking tour which was excellent. It covered a ton of places and I learned a lot of new information and the guide had some really good stories. I met some people too so I wasn't just hanging out by myself....
After the tour I went to the British Museum. I hadn't eaten yet (it was 3:00), so I went to the cafe and got lunch, which I ate while I read the section in my guidebook about the museum. The museum is enormous, and there was absolutely no way I would be able to even come close to seeing everything in a few hours so I decided just to walk through the whole place and just kind of take in what I could. Highlights included the Rosetta Stone, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the marble from the Parthenon. It was funny seeing that in particular because I remember when we were in Greece the Greeks were really mad that the British still had that marble. They're still trying to get it back. As I was walking around I couldn't help thinking about what the people must have felt like when they found all this stuff. For example, there was a big terrapin (turtle for you people not from Maryland...) made out of jade that someone found at the bottom of a well in China (I think). Like how cool would that be?
After the museum I just started walking around. I ended up at King's Cross and I tried to find platform 9 3/4 (they have a sign that says it and half a baggage cart sticking out of the wall) but I couldn't find it. I know the sign and baggage cart isn't at the actual 9 3/4 but I couldn't find it anywhere. Oh well, no Hogwarts Express for me....
I started walking back towards Eva after that and the timing worked out well because they got back pretty much just as I was getting to the underground. The three of us went to dinner at a pizza place which was good, then went back to Eva's to hang out until it was a respectable time to go out. We went to a bar at the UCL student center with 3 other girls from Wash U that are studying here.
Tomorrow: All Souls, Hyde Park, the Tower of London, whatever else I can fit in
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