It was a Wicked week in London!

Wow, this was a crazy week!  I have a lot to write about, so sorry you have to read so much!  Hopefully I can remember it all. I am getting really good at being a tourist. Okay here I go!

Front row

It all started on Tuesday, the 17th!  And if you know me well, you know all good things happen to me on the 17th (my birthday, High School Musical 2 came out, I got hired at Us in the Son, I met Nick Jonas, etc.)!  Well on this day I got to go see Wicked the musical.  Not only did I get to see it, I got to see it from the very front row!  It was my second time seeing the show, and it was amazing to see it from so close up.  The actress who played Elphaba was incredible, and I read that she had previously played Glinda, so you can imagine the vocal range on this girl!  It was such a great night!

The Telegraph Newspaper

On Thursday I had another field trip for my Media in Britain class.  We went on a tour of The Telegraph newspaper that is located in London. We first listened to a talk by one of the guys that is in charge of advertising, which was very interesting especially after having worked for LMU's school newspaper in the advertising department.  After the talk he gave us a tour of the huge office building and the newsroom where all of the journalists work and meet.  I wasn't allowed to take picture inside the newsroom, but the picture I did include is a picture of the entry way which is decorated with figures of olympic sports.  All of the heads of the athletes are The Telegraph's logo.

Tower Bridge

On Friday after class I went grocery shopping, and the cashier who was checking me out noticed I was buying literally all of the cheapest items in the store.  This lady was super sweet and after asking me if I was from America (understanding how expensive everything is in London) she wrote down some recipes for cheap meals I can make and told me where to find all the ingredients! There are nice people in the world!  Later on Friday, two girls and I tried to go see an outdoor movie that was free and right next to the London Tower Bridge, however we are really bad with directions and got lost and when we got there there were no more seats.  Oh well, now we know and we are going to try and go next week when they are playing Grease!  But the good news is I did get some good pictures of the bridge, and we went back to our apartments and ate ice cream and watched our own movie!

Saturday was a super fun day, and full of touristy things!  Since a lot of people we live with traveled to Dublin this weekend, Aya and I thought we would explore more of London for FREE!  First we went to Abby Road and took pictures on the same street as the Beatles!  Let me tell you, this is the hardest thing to do... trying to dodge traffic, and dodge other tourists, and get the perfect picture is very stressful!  But after many attempts we managed to get it right!  We then got lost again trying to find the Beatles store... but getting lost is all the fun of it!  After Abby Road we headed over to Brick Lane in East London.  Here there is a ton of street art, shops, markets, and really cool paintings everywhere.  We kind of had a mini photo shoot with all the awesome graffiti and paintings.  To end our journey for the day we headed back to our apartment but stopped at one last place... the house that the mom from The Parent Trap lives!!  The house is only about a half mile from where we live and is in a VERY nice area!  It was a very fun and exciting day!

Lastly, Sunday!  Today I got to tour the state rooms of Buckingham Palace!  Unfortunately the Queen is not in London at the moment, so I did not get to see her, but it was a really cool feeling to know I was technically in the Queen's house and that she has been in the rooms I was in.  The palace is beautiful, and so historic.  It was a great experience.  Too bad we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.  The rest of the day I have just been working on homework, projects and papers... because I actually am here for school, you know!

Buckingham Palace Gardens

Once again, I am having a great time but missing everyone so much!  I was so happy to be able to skype some people I have really been missing this week, and I hope to skype more soon!  Let me know if there is anything else you want to hear about or if I am boring you with all my writing!  I've posted a lot of pictures on Facebook recently, so check those out too! Love and miss all of you!

Cheerio,

Bri

P.S. More pictures!

Photoshoot

My favorite of the street art

Who knew graffiti could look nice?

Parent Trap house!!