"Silver Rain was Falling Down Upon the Dirty Ground of London Town"

(The title from Paul McCartney's "London Town" seems a little ridiculous right now, because today was the first day it's rained in a couple weeks.  And the streets here are cleaner than anywhere else I've been.  But I needed a title so...) 

It's almost Spring Break!  Basically, everything happening here is dedicated to wrapping up the first half of the semester and packing for spring break trips.  For those of you who don't know where I'm headed this coming week, you'll have to wait until my next entry to find out. :-p

On Friday night Randi and I went to an orchestra concert.  It featured the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Barbican Hall, the largest performing arts venue in Britain.  Why that particular concert?  I actually happened to run into the conductor quite randomly earlier in the week.  He was a guest brought in for the concert, and since I had been looking for an orchestral concert to go to, it seemed like a cool one to go to since I had met the conductor for it!

The Barbican Centre was HUGE and very modern.  It was beautiful on the inside, though, and the acoustics in the hall were wonderful.  The BBC Symphony was fabulous; I realized that I'd only ever seen student orchestras before, not professional ones.  One of the pieces they played was Chopin's Piano Concert No. 2, and the piano soloist was Nelson Freire.  After the concert I got to congratulate both the conductor and Mr. Freire (though with the latter, I was so nervous I kept stuttering my words haha).

On Saturday I made it over to St. Paul's Cathedral on time to get admission inside.  I wasn't able to take too many pictures inside (they restrict where you can take pictures), but take my word for it: it was GORGEOUS. 

It was perhaps the most beautiful interior I'd seen thus far on my trip.  It's quite a bit more modern than all the abbeys we've been seeing.  It was white marble and gold everywhere, and thus the appearance was less dark and gloomy than all the old abbeys.  I was also able to walk up to the inside of the Whispering Gallery, in the dome of the building. 

 

Then I walked up the tiniest, steepest spiral staircase I'd ever seen to the Stone Gallery.  At the time, I'd had no idea what they meant by Stone Gallery.  It turned out that the stairs led to the outside of the great big dome on top, and you can walk around it and see all of London!

That's the London Eye in the distance.  To the left you can see one of the towers of the Palace of Westminster (maybe Big Ben's tower? A little too far away to tell...).

This Thursday a bunch of us are heading to the first night of London Fashion Weekend (basically, a public version of London Fashion Week), since it's only a couple blocks away from the Ithaca College London Centre.  Then it's good night for us since we leave for spring break the next morning!

SEVERAL MORE THINGS I HAVE LEARNED WHILE IN LONDON:

31) Reese's Peanut Butter Cups CAN be found in London...but they're imported from Turkey!

32) Never rely on the Circle Line. 

33) "The In-Betweeners" is the second-best show ever (after "Skins," of course).

34) "Paris Hilton's British Best Friend" is the worst show ever.

35) Bacon here isn't like American bacon.  It's more like Canadian bacon.

36) English dogs are extremely well-behaved.

37) You become very fond of your local pub (ours is The Redan).

38) Hyde Park is the best place ever if you want to escape the city and any stress you may have.

39) #38 applies to everybody.

40) London is so beautiful when the sun's out, which happens more often than you'd think. :-)