赤黄色向日葵 ~ 橙群青紫陽花

This has been a crazy couple of weeks, and I'm sorry I haven't provided more updates. I do however have a ton of pictures that I will upload when I get back (maybe to my Japan blog so I can make comments on them there), so perhaps then you will get more of the story.

Right now I am back in London. I miss Edinburgh a lot -- we had so much fun the whole time there: touring the highlands, checking out Edinburgh Castle, and just bumming around the beautiful "Old Town" area. Yesterday we returned here to England, and it has been grand as well. In the evening we watched Les Miserables at the Queens Theatre. It was amazing. It was really the perfect production to see because I adore Les Miserables, and with my experience as student director when Illiana put it on, I could've sung along 90 percent of the time. We were far to the back of the theater, but we could see all but the very front of the stage (which was a revolving circle -- very good for staging). I really enjoyed it.

Today my friends Christy and Emily and I went to the Tower of London for a few hours. A few of the Tube (subway) lines were closed down just for this weekend, so we had to switch around the lines and finally rode a double decker bus to our final destination. (Well, we had wanted to ride a double decker anyway, so that was fine with us.) The Tower of London is actually a complex of buildings -- "towers" of London would be a more accurate description. We saw the Crown Jewels (dazzling!) and explored all of the different exhibits on defending fortresses, torturing prisoners, murdering princes, etc. It was a very good time. (And we did a whole lot of stair climbing, so yay exercise.) My favorite part was perhaps seeing one of the six ravens always kept on the ground (it's an old superstition that the Tower will fall if there aren't enough, so their wings are clipped) at close range. The raven cawed threateningly at Emily and I actually saw its breath in the cold air! (I really wish we had a video of this.)

I only have one day left in the UK, and although I'm eager to return, I'm also very sad to leave. And there's so much left to do! I still don't know how I'll be spending my last day here, but I'm sure it will be jam-packed with exciting things.

I am writing again already, which sort of surprises me, but computers are clearer in the morning than the evening, and it is morning now. Yesterday we toured St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a very lovely building and our guide was a sweet old man named David who really disliked the Victorians' sense of style. Today we will be worshipping at Westminster Abbey, which is really, really exciting. (I even feel like using some exclaimation points in honor!!) I hope we have some time to tour the building because many, many famous people are buried there.

In any case, though my writing feels a bit off, I am doing much better after two (somewhat) good nights of sleep. My earache is still there, but once I take Tylenol, it really only feels blocked, so perhaps it's getting better. (I'm waiting to end up near a pharmacy/store so I can see if there's any over the counter meds that might help some more. For now, I'm just tilting my head at strange angles to try to unblock things. At the least, it hasn't gotten worse.)

So far we have eaten a variety of foods here -- from pizza to Tiramisu to quiche Lorraine. I think I've yet to eat anything truly "British," but I suppose that is the nature of food in a city as big and international as London is. (I think I have heard nearly as much French spoken as English.)

Our first day here we went to the National Gallery, by the way, which felt much the same as any other art gallery I've been to, but with a lot more famous paintings contained -- the most famous I think was Sunflowers by Van Gogh. Very exciting, though I was perhaps too tired to really enjoy it (but I did nonetheless travel nearly the whole place). Anyway, though I haven't been writing long, it's time to go off again. Perhaps I will post more tonight, because I still have an hour's worth of internet to use in the next 24 hours.