Not all who wander are lost

Hey everyone, my name is Luc Schlosser and I am going to start my second year of occupational therapy next fall.  I graduated this spring with my bachelors degree in health sciences this spring.  I am the camp director for Day Camp Kitchigami this summer, staff training starts the day after we get back. I've  studied abroad before in New Zealand, which included a home stay in Wellington.

Now to start with the fun part!

We began the day with breakfast, which consisted of orange juice, tea, and a ham sandwich. We then had a coach bus tour of the entire city with blue badge guide Eleanor Jackson.  She brought us all around the city and we really got a good introduction to London. We got to get off the bus in a couple times to get a close look. Our main area of focus was the City of London, which is where the ancient roman city of londimum was located. It is now the main financial hub in the UK and also the home of St. Paul's Cathedral.  We learned a lot of the history of London from the early days to some more modern history. We then went to Southwark and Westminster to see Tate Modern,  Westminster Abbey, and Parliament square.  We then walked through St. James park to Buckingham Palace, the queens house.  The royal flag was flying over the palace meaning that the queen was at home.  We then said goodbye to Eleanor and then split into smaller groups and explore.  I would just like this chance to say how awesome Eleanor she knew so much about London and helped us plan future expeditions.

After we split up Thomas, Krissy and I stayed around Buckingham to take pictures and start our Top 10 assignment.  We then headed towards the queens gallery and the royal mews (stables) it was almost 17 pounds to go into both so we decided to skip it.  We then made our way around the Buckingham gardens, which was just a tall brick wall with barbed wire on the top, at least that's what we saw.  We then headed towards Hyde Park where we started to head in and then we saw people riding bikes and thought that would be a lot of fun.  We then went to the nearest bike station (a public bike rental system) and had a lot of trouble figuring it out.  We then decided to take the tube to get to the other side of the park because we had left the park and our legs were getting tired.  We then had a mess up at the tube transfer point and got on the wrong one. When we got off we went to Tescos and got sandwiches for lunch. We were planning to go to the park to eat but ended up going the wrong direction. We could not find any public gardens so we ended up walking around the borough of Kensington for about an hour. We finally ate at a bus stop and then found our heading to Hyde Park/ Kensington gardens. This was similar to a trip to Leicester square that Matt, Thomas and I took yesterday, we ended up winding around and going in circles.  We also extended that trip so that we went and hear Big Ben toll at 8 pm from the opposite side of the Thames. But back to today, once we got to Kensington Gardens we found another bike hire station. With some help from another user of the system along with Thomas' we figured out that you had to leave your credit card in the machine until it told you to remove it and not swipe it.  We had a half hour free to use the bikes on each trip.  We rode by Kensington Palace, the home of William, Kate, George, and Charlotte.  It's crazy to think that their backyard was such a huge public park, too bad they probably never get to use it.  Then we made our way through Kensington gardens to Hyde Park, they are connected.  We then returned our bikes after 25 minutes and then went to the Peter Pan statue (see picture), which was really cool to see  in person and it was such a nice day outside.  We took the tube back to our hostel, it ended up being a lot shorter of a trip than I thought it would be.  

We then had a little break before the entire group headed to Les Miserables at the Queens theatre near Leicester square/ Chinatown.  The show was really awesome, it continues to be one of my favorite musicals ever.  After the show five of us went down to Piccadilly Circus, which I kind of compared to New York's time square even though I've never been there. There is a giant electronic billboard and a lot of shops and restaurants near by.  We stopped at St. James pub where Mike and I ended up with free drinks after he brought someone their jacket they had forgotten.  The pub made it feel like we were  experiencing real London culture and we got ideas for places to visit during our time here. Then we made our way back towards the hostel when we realized we are all hungry.  The only place that was open this late was McDonalds near St. Pancreas station (location of a spice girls music video). It was a great way to end our second full day in London!!!!

Peter Pan

Fun things from our day! Oyster (tube) card, money, Miranda (from the Tempest) chocolate bar, Les Mis ticket, Top 10 book and our hostel key!!