Kensington.

The house where Sir Winston Churchill lived and died.

The side entrance to Kenstington Palace. I will take better pictures when the light is better.

The statue of Queen Victoria, done by her youngest daughter of nine children.

Kenstinton Palace. It's much more massive then it looks.



Lake in Hyde Park. Where nannies bring their charges for a walk. (Think "Mary Poppins")

One of the many swans in Hyde Park.

The AIFS tour group.

One of the ponds in Hyde Park. The name of it escapes me.

A French Bulldog!

Karey- AIFS student, and boy in my English class.

Shar Pei in the park.

Statue of Prince Albert.

Entering into Hyde Park. My apologies for the dark pictures.

Hyde Park, probably my favorite part of London thus far. I would spend every waking minute here.

Statue across the street from Hyde Park entrance.

I just can't get over these little tiny cars.

The old residence of the woman who wrote "National Velvet" and "Black Beauty"

The old residence of the founder of The Boy/Girl Scouts

I thought it funny that there were instructions on how to open a plastic Coke bottle.

Good Evening! (Well, from this part of the world anyway)-

My day was pretty eventful; as are all days here. I feel as if I have seen and experienced so much and I have only been here four or five days! Today I got up and had a very crumbly bagel and blueberry muffin for breakfast. After breakfast, I read a short story for my "Art of Writing Short Stories" class that I am taking. It was an excerpt of a Joseph Conrad story. His writing is fantastic, and I highly recommend anything of his if you all haven't read it. My professor, Dr. Richard Niland (Oxford) did his PhD on Conrad and has a lot of great stuff published about his works online. It's extremely well-written as well as interesting. Anyway, I went to class, had to write a micro fiction (500 or less word essay) parody (affectionate mocking of a piece of work) of Conrad's work as well as a parody of Edgar Allen Poe's work, and a fairytale. All of which I believe I failed miserably on. I was feeling very unoriginal while I was writing today; a bad case of writers block ensued. We will read bits from them out loud tomorrow, of which will be conducive to the doom of my pride and dignity for the remainder of that class. After class (which I have from 12:00-3:00 PM every week day) I took a nap until about 6:07 PM (I set my alarm clock for that time as I always set my alarm clock for odd times. It's one of my many charming quirks. Haha.) and went to dinner. I had a miniature baked potato, a salad, and a very hearty piece of bread. The boys at the table next to me had just bought a bottle of whiskey and were drinking it with their meal, in the cafeteria! Those kinds of things take some getting used to. After dinner this very kind, knowledgeable, well-spoken elderly woman took us on a tour of the Kensington area. It was highly entertaining, as well as freezing cold. We got to see Winston Churchill's house where he lived and died. An interesting fact about this part of London is that there are blue circles on the outsides of some houses, apartments, cottages, etc. with famous people's names on them along with the famous person's profession and dates in which the took up residence in the area containing the circle. (The houses in Kensington cost a small fortune, some reaching up to 1.5 million U.S. dollars!) I also saw the houses of the man who created the Boy/Girl Scout Organization, the woman who wrote "Black Beauty" and "National Velvet", T.S. Elliott's former residence, as well as various artists, sculptors, and musicians. The history enveloping Kensington is just fantastic. We took a tour through Hyde Park, which is absolutely breath-taking. It is filled with royal statues and markings because Kensington is primarily for the royal people of London. We saw the Palace of Kensington where James & Mary as well as Princess Diana lived for a period of time. Royals still live there and keep up the same traditions as hundreds of years ago. There is a statue of Queen Victoria (done by her youngest daughter [out of nine children]) outside of Kensington Palace. We witnessed a game of Cricket and got to go by the French and Israeli (equipped with policemen and machine guns) Embassies. There was no picture taking aloud in that are of town though. We learned the etiquette of British pubs and got to see this gentleman's second-hand store where aristocrats shop. Our guide informed us that aristocrats had no problem wearing already worn-in clothes and that people who weren't aristocrats could be spotted immediately by their brand new, and often flashy clothes. We also saw The Church of St. Mary Abbott and the school for deserving underprivileged children accompanying it. After the guide told me about this wonderful vodka bar ("Wodka") across the street from the Atlantic House the tour ended and I ran down to a local corner shop and bought my 21-year-old girl fix; Cosmopolitan Magazine (which came with a free dark chocolate bar, and my life was complete) and am back in my dorm settling in for the evening to begin reading "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville (author of Moby Dick) for class tomorrow. I didn't get very many exquisite photographs today because it was too dark for pictures on the tour. I plan to take myself back on the tour tomorrow morning/afternoon and get better pictures. I will be updating this every evening (afternoon for you readers) so please be checking back. I love and miss you all.

Cheers.

Mattie