Two Weeks' Notice--Day 56

Ah, day 56 in London. This means that after today, I have just two short weeks until I return to the United States. These last 14 days will be very interesting and exciting, full of great activities and last-minute sight-seeing before the great flight home. I fully intend to take complete advantage of every remaining hour to cross off some of the must-see items on my list.

The morning was pretty slow because I basically did some apartment research and a few homework tasks. I went to History class in the afternoon, where we finished the student presentations, talked about the Blitz, and went over some of the features of next week's final. Unfortunately, we did not take the field trip to the Inns of Court because of bad weather. It would rain when we had something interesting planned. But, no matter. The presentations were really interesting. The first one was about the Great Exhibition of 1851, which as you probably know was spearheaded by Prince Albert. After the Great Exhibition, the Royal Commission that came out of it bought a lot of the land that is now used for "The Museums"--the V&A, the Science Museum, and the Natural History Museum.

The next presentation was about the London Underground. We learned a particular gruesome detail about the construction of the Tube lines, which was that some of the excavators came across old mass graves from the Plague! I think I would quit the job then and there if I found something as awful as that. I also found out why the District and Circle lines of the Tube follow almost exactly the same route. They used to be owned by separate private companies, but the two companies formed a merger, so now there are basically two sets of trains running on almost the same track system. I've provided a map of the Tube network below so you can see what I'm talking about.

The District Line is in green, and the Circle Line is in yellow.

We also heard a pretty interesting presentation about London in the 1960s, but it was very similar to what I already knew about the US in the 1960s, so I felt like I didn't learn much.

The last presentation was on the 2012 Olympics in London, so it brought us right up to the present, and it was really a cool topic. I was a little jealous. I'm interested to see if the development and regeneration of the East End really brings about some meaningful change in the area or if it's all just the pipe dream of urban planners.

I am so excited because tomorrow I am finally going to the Imperial War Museum! I really hope that I can take pictures because I just know my dad would absolutely love it, even though I haven't been yet. I am eager to learn more about London during The War, and I've heard that there is also a display dedicated to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I hope that the experience is meaningful. I think that war is awful but inevitable, so I think that studying it is very important. I think that the true character of a nation and its people comes to the forefront in times of trouble. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to an enriching experience!