When I got to the Buckingham I had to stand in line to get my ticket at the box office, then I had to stand in another line to wait to get into the line to go into the palace, then about 10 minutes until our time we made it to the last line. When you get tickets you have to pick the time of when you want to go because you go in large groups so there are not millions of people everywhere and you can actually view everything. And I heard them say they were sold out for the day so if you didn’t pre book the tickets, you weren’t getting in. So when it was our groups turn they let us in, and first we had to go through security, similar to the airport. Then we picked up our audio guides and away we went. We got to go through 19 state rooms and they were all magnificent and very different from one another. It took about an hour and a half to make it all the way through. Following the tour I stopped at the café in the garden and had a Frasier (strawberry type cake) and some hot chocolate. I was going to have tea but changed my mine. Either way it was still great.
After leaving Buckingham I was headed towards the tube station and ended up walking through Hyde Park Corner and I stopped and took some pictures. Then I realized I was by Hyde Park, the largest park, and I ended up wondering around it for a while. I saw the July 7th memorial dedicated to the people who lost their lives on July 7th to the tube bombings. After that I looked at the map to see if there was anywhere else interesting to find and I found the 9/11 memorial dedicated to the UK people who died. Oddly enough on the James Bond walk we went through the park where its located by the US embassy. But we didn’t get to go up to so I went and took pictures. Then I realized I was actually just two blocks away from Oxford Street. And after wondering around for two hours I realized that I had went quite a ways. Luckily it was nice out so I didn’t mind. I ended up then walking down Oxford Street and I stopped and got a cookie at Ben’s Cookies, tastiest cookies, and went down to the Oxford Circus tube station. Then I headed back to my room.
I ended up doing a bit more packing and rested a bit. Then about 5:20 I got ready and 5:50 I headed out. We had our API farewell event. We met up at the tube station and ended up going to an Indian restaurant on Brick Lane. It was an experience. A large part of the street was Indian food. And the people who worked in them would stand outside and try to get you to come in. It could get a little heated between them when they are trying to get customers. The Indian food wasn’t too bad. At this point I really just miss the way food tastes back home. But it was fun to get to have dinner and reminisce about the trip and our director was wanting feedback on what we thought to help for the future students. All of us are glad we came and we all gained friends along the way. I’m going to miss them. And our director, Rachel, and assistant director, Karen, were a great help and made our experience even better. API was a great pick. And I definitely gained a lot of real world experience that will help me in the future.
After dinner we headed back and a couple of us planned on getting ice cream, but it ended up closing and we missed it so we just walked back. It was only about a 15 minute walk so it wasn’t too bad and we got to see London at night. When we returned we all hung out for a bit before having to say good-bye because we all left at different times in the morning. Then I went back to my room and finished up packing and headed to bed.
Last day in London
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