Day 4

This morning consisted first of breakfast (in which I am getting good at stealing bananas and apples for my lunch or snack), and then a walking tour of Central London.  We left at 10 for the tour, and walked to the Tube station which is about a little less than a mile away. We got off on the stop called Embarkment, and walked across a bridge so we were right across from the London Eye and Big Ben. It was so beautiful and the temperature was actually nice to walk along the river and just take pictures.  However, Professor Hamakawa is a speed walker and he will not let anyone stop for any reason.  If you take one picture, you'd better sprint to catch up with him.  Three of us (me included) stayed to take a picture of Big Ben and we turned around and he was gone and spent 20 minutes finding him again. He is the worst chaperone.  He doesn't let us stop and eat or use a bathroom and never tells us where we are going so if we do get lost we don't know where to meet up. Luckily, I know my way around so there was no harm done. After Big Ben, we continued walking and passed Westminster Abbey, but once again we were ushered away so I barely got any photos. I don't really mind though because my camera is currently out of service and I know I'll go back to take a tour of it anyways.  After Westminster Abbey we walked to Buckingham Palace where we actually got 5 minutes to walk around and take pictures.  Then we continued walking to a place none of us knew, and we got lost multiple times.  Our Professor was taking us past different countries' embassy buildings, so we had assumed he was showing us where the US embassy was. However, after passing all the buildings and having fun guessing which flag was from which country (although I think I was the only person doing that), he finally asked someone and then told us to turn around.  We still didn't know where we were going still. Bad chaperone, as I said. We kept walking then he asked for directions again from police officers in front of the Turkish embassy.  They told us to go in a different direction. Then he asked directions from two British men walking by and they told us to go in a different direction.  Finally we saw Harrod's in the distance and finally realized where he was taking us.  He gave us 30 minutes to explore, but it took us that long to find and use the bathroom since he hadn't stopped anywhere before to let us go. Some people also went to buy food, but I'm keeping things cheap so I ate those bananas and apples I've been keeping. After Harrod's (and after the 5 hour tour), we went back to Richmond to get ready for the boat party.

We ate an early dinner at 4:30 after getting dressed, and then met in the front at 5:15 to go to the boat party.  This event was poorly organized because we were told that a bus was picking us up from the school and driving us to the boat.  However, ten minutes before the supposed departure, they told us we needed our Oyster Cards because we actually needed to take the public bus ourselves to get their.  We followed our RAs to the bus station with a whole group of people, and all the RAs and some people got on the bus, and the rest of us who couldn't fit stayed behind.  Realizing none of us knew where we were going, we went back tot Richmond and they told us that we were actually supposed to take the Tube to Temple. So we walked the mile to the Tube station and got off on Temple and then found the boat docked on the River Thames from there.  We got on the bus at 6:30, and were told that it started at 7. At 8:00, the boat was still docked and I was still not good at socializing.  People were buying ridiculously expensive drinks and talking and being friendly and I was kind of just enjoying the view and saying a comment here or there. Eventually, at 8:30, the boat started moving and it was absolutely amazing.  The view of the London Eye, Big Ben, Tower of London, and Shakespeare's Globe Theater were so amazing at night as they were all lit up.  The boat also went directly under the Tower Bridge so I got some awesome photos on my phone. After we passed the Tower Bridge, all the touristy buildings were gone, and it was way too cold for me to keep standing outside.  I also didn't really want to talk to the people drinking and stuff and socializing is a lot of effort, so I went downstairs (2 floors down actually because one had a dance floor), and sat on a bench and stared out the window. However, I noticed this girl doing the exact same thing as me and was wearing a Harry Potter t-shirt, so I decided to be social for a change and started talking to her (Note: I can easily spot a nerd in a crowd, there's one in every group).So while everyone was dancing and drinking and being stupid, we talked about Doctor Who, Supernatural, Harry Potter, and pretty much everything else. She's from Wisconsin and studying abroad too, and I missed having those TV debates so I actually had a lot of fun on the boat party, even though it wasn't really a party for me. After we docked, the girl and I went to get something to eat because we were hungry, and then made plans to eat breakfast tomorrow, and then went to our own rooms, and now its time for me to go to sleep finally.