Tremble, little lion man, you'll never settle any of your scores

The past two days have felt like years, and yet, in retrospect, we really did not accomplish as much as it feels.

Yesterday, we had a guest lecturer from Cambridge, our professor's good friend Andrew Preston. Although I'm not big into history, apparently he is an expert in his field. He was an amazing lecturer, I can tell you that. I learned more from him in those two hours than I have ever learned about Wilsonianism in my life (including AP U.S., in which we SHOULD have learned about Wilson, lol). He was very interesting and informative, and I left class feeling very insightful.

After class, we attempted to see the War Rooms (key word: attempted), which ended up being a bust, because you have to book groups in advance, and then they wouldn't let us in individually. Quite dumb, if you ask me. Then we attempted to see a case at Old Bailey, the old criminal courts (same key word), but by the time we got there they were done running cases.

SO...my girls and I decided to start our historic pub tour a bit earlier than planned! We wandered down to our favorite part of London, the Strand, and began our adventure at Blackfriars Pub, where I had some AMAZING fried Brie and a pint.

I'll leave out the details of the rest of the night...but let me just say this: Historic London pubs are pretty awesome. As are my friends. :)

Today, we rose late (well, I did, at least...) and made a wicked English breakfast. Not the REAL "English breakfast," with tomatoes and beans and all that, just a breakfast that seemed very English. Ham, cheese, and egg sandwiches. Yes, I know they are available in the U.S., but when made with English ham...English cheese...and English brown eggs...it feels very English to do so.

We then wandered over to Regent's, where we were informed that we needed to made an emergency detour up a bit north to meet up with our professor.

After said detour, we wandered down to St. Paul's, which actually ended up being closed in their preparation for Evensong (which we could not attend, since we were not dressed for the occasion). However, we got some excellent pictures of the outside of the cathedral, which is absolutely gorgeous!

We then had a wonderful conversation over a snack with our prof--who is always good company!--and proceeded to head to Warwick Avenue to meet Kalen and Alyssa for pasta. We girls found a delicious Italian restaurant (Zizzi) on the canal and got pasta and wine and gelato and it was...amazing. I feel so complete today. Just so, so happy.

I turned in my first paper today too! I hope it's what Prof Bailey is after, because quite frankly, I have no idea what he was after. Here's hoping.

Homework done, pictures done, blog done. Successful day. Two of my best friends (Elli and Caryn) will be here in the morning from Sevenoaks, so I will get to hug them and hear all about their travels to Italy. FINALLY!