If my shoes weren't broken in before...

...they sure are now. Today was incredibly full of the fastest sweep through London. The day started with a small breakfast, instant coffee (...), and a house meeting/orientation. Then we were assigned a scavenger hunt of sorts. Our first stop was to the Goodge Street tube station to load our Oyster cards. If you're ever in London for an extended period of time, an Oyster card is a great investment - unlimited tube and bus fare for a low monthly price. And you of course get a fair student discount.

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After we filled our cards, we headed towards St. Paul's Cathedral on the Northern Line to the Tottenham Court Road station to connect with Central.

A little bit down the road we found the Millennium Bridge. You know, that bridge that was destroyed by the Death Eaters in Harry Potter 6. =D

St. Paul's is in the distance here.
We passed over the Millennium and headed over to the Tate Modern and Shakespeare Museums. It was pretty awesome. There was a faint rainbow in front of the Tate. =)

Somehow (I can't remember how..) we made it over to Big Ben, Parliament, and the Eye!

We eventually made it to Buckingham Palace (after walking all the way around it...). We had a great day; full, yes, but great. We basically saw all of London in just under five hours. Pretty crazy, huh? Of course we didn't have time to actually go in these places, but we'll definitely be doing more exploring as part of the classes. Once we got back to the house, we had a classic London dinner - lamb and mint jelly, Yorkshire pudding (basically like cream puffs minus the cream), carrots and green beans, potatoes, gravy...It was all very good.
I don't have class tomorrow, which is super awesome. My plans? Wander. I'm super excited to be able to spend more time in my photography; it was all very rushed today, and it was difficult to get all the shots I wanted. I'll probably wander around the area at first, find the Hillsong Theatre, then go back out to St. Paul's? Maybe I can go inside this time. =)