Sightseeing Craziness

The last two days have been a whirlwind, of many kinds, some good, some not so good. (Alos, please forgive any spelling errors- the iPad doesn't let me scroll, so I can't check for them.)

First of all, of course, there is the incredible amount of things we've been squeezing into each day. We leave early-ish each morning and never return until dinnertime (partly because we need to make it and partly because, well, I've talked about London's "nightlife.") Sunday we hit up the Tower of London first thing in the morning. I debated whether I wanted to go or not, as I've already been there twice. I went, and it's not like I didn't enjoy it, but I definitely sped through the museum (Allie took advantage of this; she doesn't like museums.) In the afternoon, Allie and I met up with Adrienne for a Harry Potter walk. I love Harry Potter and have since I was in fourth grade, so I really wanted to see the places where they filmed the movies. Unfortunately, the walk wasn't what I had hoped. It was certainly interesting and our tour guide was good, but it was less a HP walk and more a general Londom facts and movie location tour. This would have been fine... If we had signed up for that. Also, we chose the tour we did specifically to see Diagon Alley and he never took us there. Towards the middle of the tour, it started to pour and did so through the rest of the walk as well as on the way home. We were soaked by the time we reached the flat and didn't want to go anywhere. We did, however, rouse ourselves to get some delicious Strada.

Yesterday, we got up pretty early and went to Westminster Abbey. I was really excited to do this, and desperate to, as well, because I didn't want to have been to England twice and not gone into the abbey. I'm so glad we did, because it was really beautiful. There are no pictures allowed inside, but look it up online; it's amazing.
After that, off we went to the Jewel House, which has nothing to do with jewels anymore and was rather boring. Following that were the Churchill War Rooms, which were just as interesting as the last time I went with Megan.

Today was more sightseeing- we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was, of course, awesome. It was another place I'd already been but was excited to visit again. We had the misfortune of going at the same time as a huge group of German high school kids. They were very disruptive and disrespectful to those around them, and as we climbed the steep, slippery stone steps to get to the top of the cathedral, they were in front of us. Most of them just refused to move ahead if they didn't feel like it, but one girl had a panic attack (in addition to it being very high, the spaces are also very tight. My shoulders could almost touch both walls.) The winner, though, was the guy immediately in front of us. I didn't realize why he was moving so slowly until my dad called up to him, "Could you wait to use your phone until later?" It turns out that he was Skyping. While walking up perilous steps. With several dozen people behind him. As it turns out, careless stupidity is not reserved for Americans or any one nation. It is a worldwide problem.
When we finished at the cathedral, we had lunch, walked over the Millennium Bridge, and went to the National Theatre for a tour, since that interested my dad. We were too early for a tour, so we passed time at the Imperial War Museum. I was really excited to go back here- I went two years ago, loved it, and fully planned to go back this trip, but never did. Both world wars, in particular, are very important to the British, and so they have a ton of war museums. For some reason, I've always been interested in aspects of WWII, particularly the British home front, and I revisited the same exhibit I saw a few years ago. After seeing it, I now recognize why I wrote a novel about that period and place in history the next year; I recognized a lot of things from the exhibit that I had included, and I noted a few more that might come in handy while editing.
Back we went to the theatre for the tour, which wasn't as good as the one the other week, but still different and interesting.

In other developments, I tried in vain to get an audition for that film, even though I knew it was too late. They start filming tomorrow.

I also noticed that I'm becoming a bit irritable, and I think I just don't want to leave. Now I'm looking at everything and thinking it might be the last time I see it, at least for a few years.

Mom has finally let me start reading the book she brought over for me, Libba Bray's latest book, Beauty Queens. It's amazing so far.

Now I must go begin to pack *grumble*