Second Star to the Right: Lions, and horses, and mice! (Oh my)

Classes! Despite what many people may think, we actually do study while on these Study Abroad trips. It's a funny concept, I know. I slept incredibly well last night and I was ready to face two classes of awesome. Today we talked about different aspects of theatre, and why people go to theatre. Our professors are great and the classes are quite interesting. For our Shakespeare class we read King Lear, which I actually have never read before. One of the best things about Study Abroad is that it helps you appreciate the things you are learning about in class. We read King Lear, talked about it in our class, and then tomorrow we will be seeing it at the National Theatre! It's amazing!
After classes George took a group of us out to the city to introduce some of the more popular tourist attractions. We stopped by my friend Big Ben and then went over to Trafalgar square. On our way over we passed Whitehall just as they were doing the changing of the horse guards! It's much less popular than it's cousin, the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, but it was still really fun to see. The guards ride on huge horses that are BEAUTIFUL. I kept thinking that Jory and Dad would have been in love with those horses. I snapped a photo and would have taken one with me in it, but right next to the horses was a sign that said, "Caution: Horses may kick or bite you." Not exactly a warm invitation methinks.
A group of us went to the St. Martins theatre to buy tickets to see The Mousetrap. It's a play by Agatha Christie that has been running for 62 years! That's crazy! It's the longest running show in all of ~~London~~ the world! After we purchased our tickets we asked the man working at the box office if he knew where we could get some good fish and chips. We were quite surprised when he jumped out of his chair and followed us out the door so that he could point and give us directions to a place called Rock and Sole Plaice. I'm always frustrated when people say that the British are grumpy, when I have encountered so many nice people here. I've really come to see that you usually get treated the way that you treat people. We made our way over to Rock and Sole Plaice and ordered some delicious food. I'm not a fan of fish myself, but I did order a huge thing of chips that was only £2! I love finding new places like this, especially when they are not expensive!
We ate our food while watching a magic show Covent Garden and then went back to Trafalgar square so we could visit the National Gallery. It's such a beautiful museum that is FULL of amazing artwork. I immediately went to see the Van Gogh's that they had. The most popular piece was definitely Sunflower, but I think my favorite there was A Wheatfield with Cyprus. I love seeing Van Gogh's works in person, because you can actually see all the strokes on the canvas. I can almost imagine the way that he would have created each part of the image. The colors are incredibly vivid in Wheatfield, and it's sad when I look at pictures of it online because I really don't think they do it justice. I also saw some great paintings by Vermeer, Monet, and Da Vinci! They have Da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks, which is amazing, especially when you stop to think, "THIS IS DA VINCI!" I was also surprised by a new discovery, a painting called The Mill by Claude. Unfortunately the gallery had to close, so we left and spent some time in Trafalgar and at Waterstones, the local bookstore.
In the evening we went to see The Mousetrap, and it was such a great performance! We had front row seat of the upper balcony, where the view was quite nice. The cast was great, and I just loved seeing all the usual tropes of a Christie mystery novel on stage. I'd tell you the ending, but the cast made us promise not to tell. True story.

A few things you may not have known about London:

The first floor is referred to as the ground floor, so the second floor is called the first floor.
They actually don't say loo very often. More often you'll hear, "Where's the toilet?"
Chips = French fries Crisps = Chips
Stand on the right side of escalators. Walk on the left. Breaking this rule will make people angry.

The London Eye and a taxi cab! And a motorcycle. And a statue. And some people.