Lauren Goes to London: Having an EYE on the World.

Sorry I haven't updated at all about my life since Sunday, but to be honest- nothing really exciting has happened to me since then and I think I'm finally starting to settle in a routine here which is uninteresting and hardly worth blogging about so only expect long-winded picture filled updates when I actually do something fun and exciting.

EDIT: this was written but never published on 7/19/12

Wednesday 7/18/12:
Unlike most other weekdays, I didn't have to go to class in the morning. Instead, I got to sleep in for an extra hour (Rather, I was supposed to sleep in for an extra hour but our cleaning service woke me up by busting in my room). I met up with my class around 11am at Samuel Johnson's house. For those of you who don't know who he is (don't feel bad I didn't know who he was either until 11am yesterday) he wrote one of the first standardized English dictionaries-- it was used in the writing of our Constitution! Anyway, his house was actually pretty interesting- our tour guide had tons of fun little anecdotes about Johnson's life. After the tour, our group went to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for lunch which is this little pub that many writers (such as Charles Dickens) spent time at. I got Macaroni and Cheese which was really good except I think it expanded in my stomach because I was disgustingly full afterwards. From lunch, my friend and I walked along the Thames toward the eye and decided that we were finally going to ride the famous London attraction. The London Eye experience started with a 4D movie where they simulate what it would be like to be a bird flying past the eye and they spray with a little bit of water and fill the room with scented air as you travel around the south bank of the river. Afterwards we "queued" to get on the eye and got into a pod almost instantly. We were with about 10 other people in our pod, a lot of little kids which was slightly annoying but I got over it once we found a spot to sit with an excellent view. The Eye never actually stops moving unless someone requires assistance getting on, so when we had to get into the pod, we had to run into it while it was still moving, it was a little scary but still awesome. As we began to ascend into the sky, the view was magnificent! They also had these little computer screens that you could click on and see what everything you were looking at was and important historical events that happened there. After the eye, we called it a day, both of us were feeling a little under the weather but it was still a lot of fun and I'm glad I can say that I did it.