I Want to Hold Your Hand

Well then. Today was a pretty long day for me. I went for a long walk and I bet you can guess where I went by the title of my post. That's right, Abbey Road! But I also went to Regent's Park which happened to be on the way. Both places were fantastic.

OK, well I woke up pretty late today (10) simply because I could and also because I had not slept that great or for that long for a few nights in a row. It felt realllly good to sleep in. It's always nice to wake up to the sun shining (which I did). So I saw the sun shining which made me think that I had to do something outside today. That lead me to the idea of walking out to Abbey Road. It's on my "list of things that I HAVE to do in London before I leave". So I got showered, ate breakfast (mmm, nutella) and made some PBJ sandwiches for the road. Mom you'll like this, I saw the sun shining and it was pretty warm in our room so I decided to throw on some shorts. Yes, shorts! I was the only person in probably all of London to wear them today but, by gosh, I wore them and it felt great. So there.

My plan was to walk to a neighborhood I have yet to explore, Marylebone (pronounced Marra-le-bun), and a park I have yet to explore, Regent's Park, on my way to my final destination, Abbey Road. My journey took me through Hyde Park and by Marble Arch until I arrived in the neighborhood. Marylebone, like most neighborhoods, used to be a medieval village separated from London, but is now part of the city. It has the highest concentration of real Georgian housing. It also has Regent's Park and the area around it which was designed by John Nash (no relation to Steve as far as I know). You might remember Mr. Nash from when I went to Brighton. He designed the Royal Pavilion (Taj Mahal looking thing) so you know he has something spectacular going on. My first stop off was the only church ever designed by John Nash called All Souls (picture 1). It has a pretty peculiar design (what with the circular thing protruding from the nave) but a very pretty interior. Right next to it is the Broadcasting House which is where radio and tv stations broadcasted from for over 50 years. I walked up Portland Place to Park Crescent. This is one of the grand things Nash had in mind. Two sets of columned, classical facades form to make a giant semi-circle (one half of it picture 2). It was very cool and looked nice with the clouds and blue sky (just like everything does). I walked from there down Harley Street. Harley Street for over 150 years has been the place to have a medical office. It has rows and rows of Georgian houses with their really cool arched entryways (picture 3). It was a really quiet street considering it's in central London. Something to do with doctor's offices I suppose.

I moved on and walked over to Madame Tussard's Wax Museum and Planetarium. £25 for a ticket? Um, no thanks, I'll pass. Madame Tussard was a woman who made wax sculptures of people in the 1800s. Her trade grew to include celebrities. Now, her museum has every single celebrity you could probably think of. Sports, movies, politics, tv, you name it. Not really my cup of tea though. I did take a picture of the outside though (picture 4). Next up was Regent's Park. This whole park was designed by Nash to be like a country estate in the middle of the city. He even included terraced villas! He envisioned having 56 villas and a big palace for George IV (the guy who had the Royal Pavilion built) around the park. Only 8 villas ended up being constructed and no palace. There is a boating lake and an Open Air Theatre where Shakespeare plays are performed in the summer. The crown jewel is Queen Mary's Gardens. They are little pockets of natural looking areas along with flower beds in the center of the park. I (as usual) was too early for all the flowers to be in bloom but it was still nice. But there were still some flowers blooming which were beautiful (picture 5). The tulips in the summer are supposed to be other-worldly. I walked around the Gardens in the natural area for a little bit. There was a spot that seemed kind of off to the side so I walked in and found two people making out quite profusely. Oops! I quickly and quietly made my exit from the area. After that, I went over to the boating lake. My stomach was grumbling so I stopped and ate lunch at yet another postcard worthy lunch spot (picture 6). It felt really to good to sit down and rest for a little bit. I had been walking for a good while. After the nice rest, I walked by the London Central Mosque. A prayer service had just gotten over so I didn't feel all that good about walking in and being touristy.

On the way to my final destination, I stopped by the Lord's Cricket Grounds. I don't know anything about cricket and Phil suggested to us all a while ago about going there and having a tour or seeing a match. I didn't fell like going on a tour so I walked around the outside of it and then made my way around to Abbey Road. It's located in a suburb called St. John's Wood. I liked this area a lot. It really did feel like a suburb (the kind of suburb with nice looking smallish apartment buildings, not big houses with front yards). Abbey Road is just that, a road and a fairly busy one too. I walked to Abbey Road Studios and was surprised at how, I don't know, normal it looked from the outside (picture 7). That ceased when I saw the wall and gate in front of it. All over the wall was writings by people who have visited. I read through quite a few of them and they were all really cool (picture 8). Seeing how people worked in a Beatles reference was fun. The most touching part was all the messages to people back home. It really made me miss everyone so I wrote my own message (picture 9, the blue hand). Make sure you click on the picture to blow it up so you can read what it says. I thought it was kind of clever... I didn't get my picture taken on the pedestrian crossing (picture 10). There was no one around for it and I would have felt completely awkward and lonely doing it alone. It was still nice though. The part that I hope I keep with me about Abbey Road is how the feeling of love for the Beatles but more importantly for all the people who missed people back home was in the air around it.

I walked from Abbey Road, along the Regent's Canal which you might remember from another entry, to Camden Town which I discussed in that same entry. There is a labyrinth of little shops which I perused (I still need a wallet) but ended up not buying anything. No surprise there. I walked from there down the road (picture 11) to Euston Station to catch a bus back. Along the way, I stopped in a couple other shops like "The £1 Store" and Woolworth's (like Target but a smaller selection and without clothes). The bus ride felt really good because I was tired. I came back to the flat and found out that Garrett couldn't get into the Nutrition class. Bummer. So I changed my plans. I was only going to take Nutrition because he was. I changed into a (what looks to be) super easy physics course. My new schedule looks like this:

1-3-5 9:40 Astronomy 212, SJU
2:40 Education 359 (only C Mod), CSB
2-4-6 9:40 Physics 105, SJU
1:00 Math 331, SJU
3:00 Physics 105 Lab, SJU (Day 2 only)
Monday 9:30 am Astronomy 212 Lab, SJU
Tuesday 6:30 pm Education 390, CSB

It's nice only having one full class at CSB (less buses) and now Garrett and I have basically the same type of schedule. I talked to him on Skype which is how I know this. He updated me on all the adventures back at SJU which was nice. Then I made dinner (it was 8:30 at this point) and that was about it for my night. One really important thing before I go. I did an entry for last Saturday which you should all look at here or just scroll down a while. More updates about Spain tomorrow I hope. Um, I guess that's all for now.

Same Bat Time. Same Bat Channel.