Covent Garden, Regent’s Park, and Windsor

After my trip to Salisbury on Saturday with seven other girls, I was craving some personal space and independence. On Sunday morning, I got up early and went to Covent Garden, which is a large area of shops, markets, theaters and outdoor plazas. There were a bunch of street performers who gathered large crowds, one in particular who walked a tight rope held by four men at each end while eating a bag of crisps. The sun was partially out today (although still not enough to require sunglasses) and I took advantage of the opportunity to just walk around without an agenda. I treated myself to a hot meal - £5 seemed fairly reasonable for a bowl of hot pasta. After picking up some green grapes and milk at Marks & Spencer, I took the tube to Regent’s Park, which my guidebook correctly states is London’s most picturesque park. First of all, it’s HUGE… my two hours of wandering only covered about ¼ of the park’s area. I walked around the outer circle – on this fairly warm Sunday afternoon, there were a lot of people out doing the same. There were all kinds of dogs, too, who were frolicking off of their leashes. The swans, ducks, and pigeons around the boating lake are used to being fed by the visitors so they follow people around with expectations of bread or crisps.

As it began to grow dark, I headed back to Westminster Abbey for the first of their series of free organ recitals – it was packed and I got one of the last chairs. The programme was two Bach pieces performed by Robert Quinney, a 1998 graduate of King’s College and the Sub-Organist at Westminster. I stayed for the 6:30 service following in which we got to sing THREE hymns! Of course, English hymns have at least six verses and it’s definitely a challenge to keep that many people singing and an organ together in such a large space! It was good to be by myself all day today – I think I’m going to need to do that on a regular basis to maintain my sanity with these people.


Monday morning we made the trip en masse (complete with Dr. & Mrs. Sawyers) to Waterloo station to board the train for Windsor-Eton. Every time I get on one of those trains, I fall asleep… I think it has to do with the motion. I seem to have the best 25 minute naps on Brit Rail trains. The reason for the trip was that Windsor is the site for our first “design project” (it’s going to be pretty loose) and we were able to familiarize ourselves with the area and take pictures. The rest of the day was spent exploring the area around Windsor Castle (I’ll have to go back to take the tour, I wasn’t in the mood and didn’t want to part with close to US$20 for it today), the town of Windsor, and the neighboring town of Eton. What struck me the most about both of these places was how quiet it was – perhaps it was just because we were there from 10am-2pm on a Monday but it was so peaceful. The towns are chock full of quaint houses and shops.

Meanwhile, back at the hostel, the saga of not enough hot water and too much radiator heat continues… I'm off to the National Gallery for the day! More soon.