And let's be honest, they're summer classes. Yes, now I know what Incoterms 2000 is, but when one of the questions is "What is a sight draft?", I'm glad I didn't worry too much about the exams.
Instead, I took full advantage of my weekend. Friday was the Tate Modern, which ranges from "interesting" to "I'd put that in my living room - definitely a conversation piece" to "oh GOD, what IS that?... Do I... do I... no, I don't want to know!" (Seriously, there were pieces made with blood - the artist was German. Go figure.) I did get to walk across the Millenium Bridge to get to it though, which was nice, if a bit warmish (that's the Tate in the background):
That night was our last(?) pub crawl, during which I took many a fuzzy photo of Big Ben and the London Eye at night, which I won't subject you to. We did walk (and drink) along the Thames though, which was rather nice:
(I guess that's kind of fuzzy and in the dark too... oh well. Hey look! St. Paul's!)
Saturday was full of British-ness. We went to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham, which was probably one of the most aggravating experiences of my life. And I once dealt with the US Border Patrol when my taxi driver was an Iraqi - and that still comes in below this one. We got a fortunate place against the fence but were so crushed and abused by people around us, that I had to repeatedly (and quite seriously) tell myself that both the cops and guards had mega-bad-ass weapons and were not afraid to use them. Some people don't understand the concept of personal space. Or deodorant. Or making sure your kids don't step on and kick random strangers. They understand a surprising amount of English swear words though, no matter where they're from. Yeah, a few choice words definitely get their attention and their butts out of your face. (I'm being quite literal about that - they were hoisting themselves up on the fence and I was just the right height to get a disturbing and up-close view.)
Anyway... it was actually kind of boring. I mean, the band was good and I'm glad I did it in order to check it off my list, but I don't need to see it again. Ever. Most of the pictures are pretty dull too. This is the closest we got:
Yeah, those guys just kept walking back and forth. I don't understand the English and their odd traditions.
But after that, we went over to Regent's Park and saw "Twelfth Night" in the open air theater. It's my favorite and it was really quite good. I even recognized a few of the actors from BBC shows and the like.
Yesterday, my procrastination continued as I took a boat down the Thames to Greenwich. It was lovely - the hike up to the Royal Observatory is quite steep, but the Old Royal Naval College is gorgeous. We just sat for quite awhile enjoying the beautiful weather. We even went to the Trafalgar Tavern, which Dickens apparently frequented (and wrote about, I believe). In continuing the "Brits are morbid", I went through the National Maritime Museum to see the coat Lord Nelson died in. He was much littler than you would think...
Here's the Royal Observatory:
And me standing on the Prime Meridian, looking like a dork. I also have a picture of me on the equator in Ecuador... looking like a dork...:
The loveliness that was the Old Royal Naval College (just one side of it):
And the inside of the Painted Hall at the ORNC:
So, I feel like I accomplished more in my weekend than just studying. :) Two more days though! And then I'm off, back to home on Thursday. So I'll probably post once more Wednesday night - we'll see if I'm in frantic packing mode.
Oh, and just a note to STA - when you say "non-stop flight", most people don't count when you land in Chicago, make everyone get off the plane and then reload us into different seats 2 hours later... Do you think I'm going to have to go through customs and recheck my bag??? *dies*
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