London

So on Friday I went to London for my tutorial. I got up quite early and walked to the bus station in the rain. About 90 minutes or so late we arrived in London, where it was partly sunny and not raining at all. First we headed to the Tate to see the van Dyck exhibition - it was great. Ashely (the Yale student in my tutorial) and I walked around with Yu Ping and had an amazing tutorial. It was great to see the pieces first hand. You get a true feeling for their size and you realize things you just can't realize from an image. After this we headed to the cafe at the Tate and had our actual tutorial. Next Ashley and I headed to Whitehall (Yu Ping had a meeting back in Oxford) where we saw the ceiling Rubens painted. After that we saw the London Eye, Big Ben, the House of Parliament, Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. It was pretty great in all honesty to just walk around London and see all of the sites - which are all rather close to one another. After that we got some lunch and headed back to the bus station. When I got back to Oxford it was still raining. I went home and changed clothes for formal. Formal hall was good, with rather amazing food, then in the JCR we had champagne and chocolates night. After that I went out to a pub and then home. Today (Saturday) I went to the fete (like a small carnival) at Regents where they had face painting, a three legged race, etc etc. It was rather enjoyable. Next we headed to lunch at Noodle Nation (as close as I'll get to Yang Kee Noodle while here, although YKN is better) and went to see Angels and Demons at the theatre. All in all that's about it over the past few days. It's been quite fun.

Big Ben

Protest across from Parliament

House of Parliament

the London Eye and the Thames River

The Burghers of Calais (a sculpture by Rodin)

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace...again

Trafalgar Square

Guard outside of some cavalry museum (I don't remember the exact name); I was impressed the the horses remained to still when tons of people were around them taking pictures and such

Whitehall Banqueting House Ceiling - by Rubens