Final

It's hard  to choose my favorite three walks. It would be much easier to choose my least favorite walks because I felt like with the exception of a few, most of them were really cool and really enjoyable. But because I have to pick a top three, I would say that the Central Parks walk, the Bankside and Southwark walk and the Westminster and St. James walk were my favorite. I liked these three the best because each one offered a different aspect of London and all three kind of come together to create a generalization of why I love London.

I really enjoyed the Central Parks walk because it was a really peaceful walk. I love London's parks and I liked going through a bunch of them all at once. It was interesting because I felt like each park was really unique, which is different from the parks I've experienced in America. The parks I've been to in America are pretty typical, general parks with some grass and a play set. Parks here in London are so varied. Some have a lot of trees, some have a pond, some have various monuments. I also just really like the atmosphere of all the parks. Though they are pretty social places sometimes, I also feel like they are someplace quite in the middle of the big city.

I like the Bankside and Southwark walk because I thought it had some absolutely gorgeous architecture along the way. That is another part of London that I really enjoy seeing. There is such a mix of different kinds of architecture all in one tiny area and I think it's really interesting to look at.  I loved the Southwark Cathedral; I think it was one of my favorite cathedrals I've seen here. I also loved the Tower Bridge. It's kind of a magical place in an inexplicable way. But those are just a few of the amazing places to see along the walk.

The Westminster and St. James walk was one of the more crowded walks so I didn't necessarily enjoy that aspect. But when I did that walk, that was when I started to realize how small London really is and how close together everything is. Riding the tube everywhere makes things seem so far away, when really its not far at all. The walk took us through some great places, and some touristy places I didn't even realize existed, so that was interesting. I also liked this walk because I thought that it kind of embodied the typical London that people think about when they think London. Even though we've been here for so long and I don't always consider myself a tourist, there really are some fabulous tourist places and this walk included some of my more favorite sites such as Westminster Abbey, which is a breathtaking building no matter how many times I've seen it.

Lambeth and the South Bank

Hannah, Tara and I went on this walk together and I led the walk. This was a really pretty walk I thought. Unfortunately there were a lot of things that I had wanted to see that were closed because we went later in the day. We didn't get to go inside the Florence Nightingale Museum, nor did we get to see the Roman Bath. We just had to look at the outside of it, but maybe we'll find some time to go back later. I think my favorite part of the walk was the second half, once we started walking along the Thames. Although the Thames is a pretty gross river, there are some amazing views from the both sides and from all of the bridges that cross the river. I love seeing the London skyline from so many different areas along the Thames. We took a little detour and went up on the Westminster Bridge to get some pictures, which was beautiful. Walking past the London Eye was pretty crazy. I hadn't been up that close to it yet because I'm absolutely terrified of heights and have no desire to get on it. Seeing how huge it is was incredible. I also thought it was interesting that the book said the London Eye was originally a temporary thing, put up to celebrate the millennium. So it hasn't even been in London that long, only 11 years, but it is such an iconic part of London. I also thought it was really interesting when I was reading about the footbridge that's connected to the Hungerford Bridge that England just seems to put up all of these new building projects as a way of celebration. For example, the London Eye and then the footbridge that was put there in celebration of the Queens golden jubilee. It is an interesting cultural thing. I liked crossing the Waterloo Bridge as well. It had some great views. Right before we went up onto the bridge, there was this giant living room set covered in fake grass stuff. It was so weird! But way cool at the same time. It was a great little walk overall.

London Eye

Crazy duck statue. Hannah must not like it very much...

Central Parks

I went on the Central Parks walk with Tara and Amy. We also brought along the Miller's cousin Jared. We decided it would be fun to go on a bike ride for this walk and that was one of the best decisions we've ever made. I was a little nervous at first because I hadn't ridden a bike in over 10 years so I was pretty sure I was going to fall flat on my face. Luckily for me it really is true when they say you never forget how to ride a bike. We hopped on and started biking through the parks. I really like how the walk was laid out because I felt like each park we went through got more and more beautiful and peaceful. I especially loved St. James park. It was the prettiest park I have ever been in. I've liked the parks in London since the very first day we got here and walked around Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, but this walk made me love them even more. I really feel like they add so much to the city and I wish we had great parks like that in Provo. It was also fun to go along with Jared and hear some of his life story, especially since they live in Lincoln.

On our bikes!

Westminster and St. James

I went on this walk with Tara, Kaylee, Scott and Hannah. Kaylee was our leader and she did a wonderful job. This was one of my more favorite walks because we got to walk past some of the most beautiful sights in London. Parliament never ceases to amaze me, especially walking out of the tube station and it's just right there in front of you. I appreciated that this walk took me to pretty famous places that I probably wouldn't have found on my own. It was cool to walk past what's left of Whitehall palace and I especially liked walking through Horse Guard Parade and seeing where the Trooping of the Colours would be held later in June. It was kind of funny to me to walk through some of the streets we walked through because there were all these super high end men's stores. I feel like normally the high end stores are for women, but there was literally an entire street full of super expensive shops for men. I feel like this is one of the cultural differences between America and England. Men dress up more often and nicer in England than they do in the states. I loved walking past Buckingham as well. Even though I was there for the Royal Wedding, it was nice to see it when there weren't a million people outside it. Westminster Abbey was gorgeous as usual but I liked walking around the back of it and by the Jewel Tower. That was a really pretty area that I hadn't seen before.

Horse Guard Parade

Buckingham Palace

Inns of Court

I went on this walk with Tara, Hannah and Amy, with Amy as our leader. It was at the bottom of my favorites list. I just didn't enjoy this walk very much at all. This very well could be my own fault because we were running short on time so we didn't have as much time to stop and enjoy things as much as we usually do but mainly I just felt like there wasn't anything super significant or interesting to see. There were a lot of really pretty buildings. London has such a variety of architecture and that's one of my favorite things about London and I thought this walk had some great architecture to see so that was cool. We also found this great little rose garden, which was beautiful and really added to the sights of the walk. I was pretty disappointed in myself though because somehow I was being completely oblivious when we went through the Knights Templar area. I don't know how I didn't realize where we were but I wasn't so happy with myself after the fact. Maybe that added to my dislike of this walk...So all in all, though it wasn't a favorite walk, it did have some really pretty buildings along the way, which I appreciated.

Stopping to smell the roses

Bloomsbury

Tara, Catherine and I did this walk together. Tara and I shared leadership responsibilities, which always seems to go pretty well because we rarely get lost when we lead together. When I was first looking at where we would be going during this walk, I wasn't super excited about it because it didn't look like we would be seeing anything too cool. But it actually ended up being a pretty nice walk. It was a way nice day to do a walk and it was a nice area to walk through. I liked seeing the British Museum, which I hadn't been to before. It was pretty funny because when we were on the back side of the Museum, we asked a lady walking by to take our picture and she laughed and said "Sure, I take pictures for lots of people when I pass by here." It was kind of a reminder that although we've been here in London for a while, we still are the typical tourists sometimes. I thought that Russell Square was pretty interesting because it was kind of a half park and half cemetery thing. I love all the parks that are all over London though. They add a lot to my London experience. I felt like we walked through a lot of residential areas on this walk, which I liked because the only residential area I'm ever in is here on Palace Court. I also thought the Hospital for Sick Children was one of the funniest things. That's probably really rude sounding, but it just made be laugh that they would give their hospital such an obvious name. I'm not sure if that's a cultural thing though because there were some other hospital type things right around the Hospital for Sick Children, and they were pretty bluntly title as well. All of us enjoyed Dickens house. It was closed when we walked by, but it was still cool to see where he lived when he wrote some of his novels. Once we got back around to the front side of the British Museum, I was pretty excited and then quickly disappointed. I hadn't realized how late it was getting and the Museum had just closed, so we couldn't even get inside the gates, but it looked like an amazing building and I'm excited to go back and go inside and see all the amazing things it has inside.

The lion behind the British Museum

Knocking on Dicken's door

Bankside and Southwark Part 2

Finishing this walk was just as fabulous as starting it. Hannah and I started from where we had left off and the whole thing was gorgeous. We saw the London Bridge from afar, which was cool because I hadn't seen it up close yet. But even still, the walk didn't take us super close to it, so I made a mental note to go back and visit later. Then we were walking along the Thames again, which is always beautiful. Even though the water is absolutely disgusting looking, I love looking at the skyline from either side and seeing all of the great buildings that I can actually name now. I also thought it was cool to walk past the HMS Belfast. I didn't even know it was going to be there, nor did I know anything about it. When I got home I was able to find out that it was used in World War II and is now a museum. It would be interesting to go back and check it out, especially because it's World War II information from an English perspective. I've always been interested in World War II and I think it would be so cool to see the battleships in Hawaii and now I could go see the Belfast as well. My favorite part of this walk was walking across the Tower Bridge. It made me feel like I was in Disneyland, which is one of my favorite places on the whole planet. It was a gorgeous bridge with an amazing view and I loved it! I also thought that the Tower of London was awesome and I can't wait to go back to that.

HMS Belfast and the Tower Bridge

Hannah and I on Tower Bridge