Saturday, September 09, 2006

yesterday was our first trip to london and it was great. we went to the British Library and saw all kinds of amazing old documents including the oldest manuscript of the new testament called the Codex Sinaiticus. They think that it was probably written by the disciples of the disciples of Jesus. it was amazing to see something that was actually hand written by a man who knew someone who knew and spent time with Jesus. Also there were two copies of the Magna Carta, the first of Galileo's published works, the only surviving manuscript of Beowulf, which I have never read. There was also some handwritten Beatles lyrics. It was pretty cool to imagine Paul and John sitting around writing the lyrics to yesterday and hard days night on some random piece of paper. one was written on what looked like the back or inside of a greeting card. there were tons of other old documents, but of course the beatles stuff was a highlight for me. after that we went on a little tour of london, given by David, our bus driver. he's the same guy who picked us up from the airport on the first day, and hes quite funny. we were dropped off at trafalgar square, which is memorial for the battle of trafalgar. we spent some time there, taking some of the pictures below, and then headed down to buckingham palace, which i am sad to say, i didnt even know was in london. that night we went to the globe theater, where a lot or all of Shakespeare's plays were performed. We saw Antony and Cleopatra, and it was very cool because it was so much like it would have been back then. there were people standing throughout the whole play down on the ground, then there were three levels of hard benches. If you have ever read a shakespeare play you know that its hard enough to understand while reading it, but its even harder to understand when you actually see the play,especially because the actors had accents. so mostly i dont know what happened, and we were all disappointed because we were promised an appearance by a live snake in the last act, and there definitely wasnt one. we also sat for three hours on a hard bench. overall though, im glad that i can say i have seen shakespeare performed in the globe. so that was our day in london. i leave wednesday afternoon to go to barcelona, so i should have a lot more pics to post after that. here is a quote from the book i am reading for my christian woship class.

"So i urge you, carry on an ongoing conversation with God about the daily stuff of life...For now, do not worry about "proper" praying, just talk to God. Share your hurts, share your sorrows, share your joys- freely and openly. God listens in compassion and love, just like we do when our children come to us. He delights in our presence. When we do this, we will discover something of inestimable value. We will discover that by praying we learn to pray." Prayer by Richard Foster

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this is in king's cross station, which is the train station that leads to hogwarts in harry potter. they attached half of a luggage cart to the wall, i guess so people (tourists) could take pictures with it, which is exactly what we did.

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this is me and brooke in front of the thames in london. the building behind us, poking out behind our heads, looks exactly like the capital building in austin.

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me and kameron on our bus, about to take a tour of london.

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i dont know which church this is, but look at the detail on it, and it was huge!

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tower bridge in london

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the london eye, which we didnt get to go on, but hopefully we will later.

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the monument in trafalgar square. i was really excited when i heard we were going here bc it's mentioned in a caedmons call song, but i had no idea what it even was. now i know.

Trafalgar Square

i have to give credit to lindsey for this picture, but here is a better view of trafalgar square. there were also a lot more statues.

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me and the future roomies on a lion statue at trafalgar square. there arent any steps to get up there so we had to climb/be lifted up. we were all up there except G and this random english women came over to help and had her hands all over G's backside trying to push her up.

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me and the lion.

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me with the royal guard in the background. hes really that small.

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me and elaina in front of buckingham palace.

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dre, me and G at little frankies in london.

The Globe Theatre

the Globe Theatre.

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as you can see from the tag, this is a plague rat hand puppet at the Globe gift shop. i thought it was funny.

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the london bridge at night. i LOVE night time city pics, and i hope i get a chance to take better ones later.

2 comments:

Rosalyn said...

Amy Jo...I love the blog and pics I can't wait for the next one!

Anonymous said...

Hello Amy Jo! Wow! How much fun you are having!!! You look beautiful in those pictures!! You seem to be having the time of your life! Stay safe and know we love you and miss you here!
Love you
Becky