so on saturday the parentals arrived here in england and i met them at their hotel in knightsbridge (a very nice area in central london, its the area where harrods is). so yes, we went to lunch at the fifth floor restaurant at harvey nichols (which is a very nice department store, somewhat like neiman marcus (needless markup) in the states). we had champagne with lunch which was quite nice. we then went on a double decker bus tour of the city, checking out the major sites and all.

on sunday we ventured up to oxford for a day trip outside of the city. oxford is such a cool town with about 40 different small colleges that make up the university. the only problem though is that the rainy season has fully set in now so it was pouring a lot of the day. but still, its a beautiful old city with amazing architecture.

on monday my mom and i hung out while my dad did business stuff at lloyds of london (the home of insurance.....oh how exciting). we went to kensington palace which used to be the royal residence until buckingham palace was taken up. its fairly recent residents include princess margaret and princess diana. we then went shopping (well we looked around different shops seeing where the good places are) in kensington and knightsbridge.

yesterday my dad went to germany for the final leg of his business trip and he will be back in london within a few hours (so around noon today, wednesday) and my mom and i slept in, unintentionally. so instead of going to the globe theatre for a tour and all yesterday morning, we went to leicesters square to check out the cheap theatre tickets. we got tickets for mary poppins and phantom of the opera (for wednesday night) (and we're going to see wicked(!) on thursday). we then went to covent gardens andd cruised around there until i went on the backstage tour of the royal ballet and opera house (it was the actual tour unlike when i tried to go last week...). some fun facts of the opera house: its on about 2.5 acres of land (its huge), the entire time we were there the orchestra was practicing for 'sleeping beauty' which was fun to listen to, the building has burned down three times, and it was a dance hall during WWII. the only thing was that we didnt actually go 'backstage' which is huge (we looked at it through windows) and we didnt check out the costume department, but oh well. after that my mom and i stayed around covent gardens, went back to the hotel, had dinner, then went to see mary poppins which just opened here and its the first time its ever been done on stage. since my mom is here and paying for the seats, we had really really good ones, like orchestra seats. and the show was really great too!

on a side note: every kid in england has this week off so there are children all over this city, which is weird. until this week london was made up of people in business suits and tourists, but now there are kids *everywhere*

after i go to class in a few minutes for two hours (the only class im going to this whole week) i am meeting up with the parentals to go on the london eye (the worlds largest ferris wheel, true story) then we are going to see phantom of the opera tonight

peace out girl scout