From Londoner to Tourist in 10 Minutes

Queen Mary is situated here at Mile End in the East end of London. I absolutely love the location for several reasons. One of them is that we can be Londoners on campus, get on the Tube for about 10 minutes, and suddenly be in central London to join the tourists. Laura and I decided to explore London today and first we went to St. Pauls Cathedral and walked around the area there, and across Millennium Bridge towards the Globe Theatre. One of my favorite things about London is how you can stand on any bridge across the Thames in central London and see everything along the river. When you're close to St. Pauls and the Globe, you can see Big Ben, Parliament, and the Eye to your right, and to your left is the Shard, the Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. So cool! We thought about doing a tour of the Globe, but due to the GIANT group of schoolchildren there, it was closed for the afternoon. No big deal, we went to Green Park instead. We walked through Green Park towards Buckingham Palace, walked around the palace a little bit, and then headed through St. James Park. I had forgotten how absolutely BEAUTIFUL St. James Park is! And most of the flowers weren't even in bloom yet! Walking through St. James Park, you can see Buckingham Palace behind you and Big Ben, the Eye, and Westminster ahead of you. After getting through the park, we got back on the Tube and headed back to Queen Mary and became students all over again. As much as London feels like home now, its so fun to take days off as a tourist sometimes :-)

St. James Park