I'm not sure why I'm awake right now! We're leaving in less than 6 hours to walk to the train station, take an hour train ride to Gatwick airport, and get on a plane to Dublin!!! So excited. We'll go to Galway right from Dublin and spend the evening and all of Friday in Galway. Then we'll head back into Dublin Saturday until we have to catch our plane tonight. I'm sure I'll wish I was there for longer, but it will be a good little trip, and a good start to the rest of our traveling.

Today was yet another great day in London.. and a busy day at that. To start it off, me, Alex and Jen walked to the Tower of London area to meet up with some friends at a pub for a good ol' English breakfast. It was my first English breakfast and man oh man was it delicious. I wish I could have one every day! Toast, eggs, sausage, bacon, hash brown, tomato, mushroom (we opted for the mushroom instead of black pudding aka some animal's blood. yuck!) From there we met up with our class at the Tower of London where our weekly class tour took place. We were all so thankful we didn't have to pay the 16 pound admission and instead had our tickets purchased by City U. Not bad at all :)

Once again, I am so happy to have a professor who knows EVERYTHING about London, and who can tell us about it in such a narrative, conversational way.

The Tower was awesome! I didn't realize there were so many parts to it, from the first White Tower to the Bloody Tower, and then the little community of housing that over 200 people live in! Who knew that people actually lived at the Tower of London!? They have their own post office and pub, too. Crazy! We were also told about the clipped winged ravens who live at the Tower and the superstition about the tower falling if the ravens left. I never knew ravens could be so big! One started hopping toward us and making noises... was definitely the scariest part of our day as my friend Alex said!

We finally made our way to the crown jewels, and even though there were less than I had expected, it was still an incredible sight! Me and the girls were picking out which ones we liked the best and wanted to have for ourselves. Unfortunately 2,000 ton security doors are keeping us away from them! Afterwards we grabbed some tea/coffee at the cafe and then did some exploring of our own, seeing some of the torture chambers, as well as another part of the tower where prisoners left carved graffiti into the stone.

Then came the Tower Bridge. Never have I seen such a beautiful bridge! I couldn't stop taking pictures of it... it was so grand. After crossing the bridge, we were given free tickets to the top of the bridge by a really nice lady who passed us by. Why sure, we'll take free tickets to the top of the Tower Bridge! When we got up there, it was pretty cool, yet still not as awesome as I was hoping. Much of the view was blocked and the day was dreary and gloomy, so there wasn't much picture taking to be had. Oh well, can't complain too much!

Here are some pictures from the day:

^ Jackie snuck into the picture!

 ^from the top of the Tower Bridge!

Time for some sleep now. Look for a blog entry on Sunday about my time in Ireland!

xxxx