Day 1 Jet Lag and Windsor Castle

Alright so this post is about two days late I was experiencing some technical difficulties and major jet lag. For those of you who don’t know the day we left I had a six hour drive from Sioux City, NE where my cousin was getting married to Rapid City, SD. I left about 5:30am to be in Rapid early enough. So needless to say I was already exhausted when we boarded. We flew from Rapid to Chicago on what was the smallest plane I’ve ever been on. The turbulence was horrible! I was pretty nervous and my seatmate Kayla is claustrophobic so we made quite the pair. By the time the flight was over we both wanted to kiss the ground.

We were only in Chicago for a little over an hour before we boarded our international flight. That flight went smoother than I expected and we landed in London about 8 am the next morning. We immediately got on our bus and went to Windsor Castle. We arrived right in time to see the changing of the guards

 

This Castle is where the Queen spends most of her weekends. The castle grounds seem more like a small town. There are hundreds of people living there.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the inside of the castle but I got plenty of pictures of the outside. I decided to take the guided tour of the castle. The state rooms consisted of painting of the queen, the king and queens quarters, dinning halls that are still used to day but my favourite room was St. George’s Hall. This room is designed to honor the  

Order of the Garter, it is decorated with the crests of knights. The crests line the ceiling and walls of this hall.

We left Windsor about 2 pm and headed back to our hotel, The Royal National Hotel in Russell Square. From what I have heard from locals this is where a lot of Americans stay. We dropped off our luggage and did a quick walk around of the area just to get a feel for the area. After the walk around a few of us went to a local pub and had some burgers and cider.

By the time we were done it was about 7pm and I had been up for 26 hours.

I badly needed a shower and some sleep. Fell asleep shortly there after and slept about 12 hours.

Pre departure

We haven’t even left yet and my mind already is racing probably because I have no idea what to expect. This is something I’ve always wanted to do and now that it’s here it hardly feels real. I’m excited for something new and this trip couldn’t have come at a better time.

Dr. Nobiling said it might be a good idea to write a post before we leave just so we can document our thoughts before and after the trip.

As of now my thoughts consist of what I will be doing in my free time while in London. The other day in class we talked about places to go when we aren’t with the class and we seemed to name every place I want to go: Tower of London, Camden Town, The Globe Theater, Covent Garden, Brick Lane(area where Jack the Ripper murders happened) and many others. At this point I just hope I have the time and money to fit everything in.

My second thought is luggage. Only one 50lb suitcase for two weeks! Guess I’ll have to learn to pack conservatively…not really one of my strong suits.

Third, I haven’t been on a plane since I was about ten. I like the idea of traveling but not the idea of a 12 plus hour flight over an ocean…yikes.

All in all I’m ridiculously excited to go on this trip and it will probably be one of the coolest things I’ll ever get to do.

 

Attached is a picture of the group that I’ll be going with.