Special Thanks

Now time to suck up for a better grade.


Thank you Dr. Nobiling for leading our group and arranging all of the cool things we got to exuberance. We defiantly wouldn't have had such a great trip without her hard work and connections.

Thanks to Constable Richard Watson for escorting us and giving us a behind the scenes tour that not a lot of people get to see.

Thanks to my roommates Allyson and Alesha the trip wouldn't have been the same without you guys!

Day 12 The Last Day

I was sad all day. I didn't want to leave. I loved everything about London and could see myself staying there permanently.

It was raining pretty hard all day which made us not want to do anything...

Spent the day packing and then I realized I still had still had to visit an art museum to complete my requirements for this class. So I went to the Tate Modern and really didn't get a lot if the art so I decided to go the National Portrait Gallery but you weren't allowed to take pictures at all. I liked the NPG more because I can appreciate the history behind it versus two pieces of metal welded together that looks like something I could do in shop class in high school.

Later in the day a few of us decided to do the London Eye. This was another thing I really wanted to do. It was good because we could still get out and see everything without walking around in the rain

 

Day 11 Legal walk and Police Musem

This morning we went on a legal walk and got a better understanding of becoming a lawyer in England. Once you graduate you try to become a member of an Inn, this group that you belong to and receive more training and experience. The 4 Inns are  Lincoln's Inn, Middle Temple, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple.

 

 

 

Later that say we went to the heritage center and found a cool little exhibit on the London Metro Police. It had a full history of the police, along with full uniforms and equipment.

 

 

 



Day 10 Jack the Ripper Tour

Today was our free day and we decided to catch up on some sleep. Slept in till about 11 got up and went to ISA to work on some stuff.

On the way back Danielle and I stopped by Green Park. I just seemed like a nice place to stop and relax.

 

When I got back to the hotel Alesha and I decided to do the Jack the Ripper Walk that night. This was one of the main things I wanted to do while in London. We took the tube all the way to Tower Hill, which we learned the hard way of getting there when we went to the medieval dinner.

We met up with our tour guide Andrew who was very captivating. He started off by painting us a picture of what the East End use to be like. He took us to the travelers church where the prostitutes use to pick up customers, 3 of the 5 murder sites and finally to the Ten Bells Pub which is where the prostitutes/victims frequented. I wish we would have been able to go to all 5 but it was still pretty awesome. I don't want to say too much incase anyone wants to go someday...I would highly recommend it :)



The remains of the wall that separated London and the East End

Andrew at the end of the tour telling us about the suspects in the Jack the Ripper Case

Where murder #3 took place. There is now a flower bed in its place

Where the 5th and final murder took place

When we went to the heritage center they had a picture of the 5th victim Mary Jane Kelly



Day 9. Viva La Paris

 

Going to be honest this was my least favorite part of the trip. I think if I would have went another time or spent a long amount of time there it might have been different. It was pretty cold and raining the whole time we were there. We started off at Notre Dame(someone committed suicide while we were there) and then got on a tour bus that took us around to all the main sites: Arch De Triumph, Eiffel Tower(too cloudy to see the top and was too cold and no one wanted to go up), The Louvre (which was closed). We got some cool pictures and saw some interesting stuff but it wasn't all I thought it would be. Paris is really dirty, I had heard from people that London was dirty but I think Paris is just ridiculous. Just walking through the streets there was dog crap everywhere, apparently they don't pick up after their dogs in Paris...weird. Also, there were way more pigeons in Paris then I London and I hate pigeons. While eating lunch in the rain I sat in bird crap, so that was great. Also while we were sitting this creepy probably homeless guy walked up to me and he looked like the creepy Italian guy off of Euro Trip.

 

He walked up to me with that exact look on his face and he had 1 Euro in his hand and he pointed to my half eaten cheeseburger. I told him to take it because I felt bad and he was uncomfortably close to my face. He shoved what was left of my burger in his face and looked at Alesha's tray took her McChicken and took off. I thought it was pretty funny but I felt bad because Alesha was still hungry.

 

 

To add to our weird day....

 

 

We arrived back at the hotel about 10:30. Alesha and I decided to go to the north lobby of the hotel to try to get some blogging done. Of course our attempt at being productive was thwarted by the internet not working and this odd Australian fellow who made his way over to us. I never caught his name but he pulled his chair up as close as it would go and started to full body hug Alesha. As I'm dying kaughing this guys friend took Alesha's phone and started to go threw it. I manage to take a few pictures of him before things got very weird.

 

You can just see the joy on her face

 

Before we left he ended up breaking Allyson's adaptor and I took a video to capture her reaction and to document our story. but apparently blogger is having a hard time uploading my video...

 

 



Day 8 Old Bailey Crown Court and King's College Lecture

In the morning we went to the Old Bailey Crown Court. This is where appeals happen in England. We were able to sit in on a case, unlike some of the courts in the US all court hearings are open for public viewing. The case we sat in on was delayed because they apparently couldn't find one of the defendants? We waited for about 20 minutes and then the defendants entered. The judges must have had their minds made up at this point because one of the barristers(lawyer with a wig) stood up to present his argument but the judge said that they had reviewed the case, knew the facts and made their decision. So the barrister sat down and the judge read the facts of the case which turns out that it was an assault. There were three defendants and the judge said that they reviewed the case and would reduce their sentence from 3 years to 2. Some  of the defendant's family was there and I thought they were going jump for joy when they heard that. The case took place back in 2012 so they will probably get time served and be out soon.

After we left the court my roommates and I headed over to ISA to work on our blogs and upload pictures. The internet at the hotel took forever to load anything. Hence why I did my blog in 3 day chunks and I'm still playing catch up now that I'm home.

While we were at ISA we attended a lecture from a Professor of Comparative Criminal Justice from Kings College. I really enjoyed the lecture and Dr. MacManus answered a lot of the questions we accumulated while in London. He also did a great job of explaining how the legal system works in England. Some things that I found interesting: plea bargaining is used less, they use joint enterprise (no matter what your involvement in the crime was your all get the same charges and be tried together) and there are no set statutes only case law.

This lecture was great because it answered so many questions and gave me good info for the final paper.

Day 7 Stonehenge and Roman Baths

Today we made a quick stop at Stonehenge which was pretty cool. It was a beautiful day but my roomies and I were still riding the struggle bus from the night before.

We walked around and took some pictures. Then I listened to several discussions on how Stonehenge was obviously built by aliens. Haven't really formed my opinion on that yet.

We had a VERY informative tour guide who made sure that we didn't miss a thing, including the pigs on the side of the road which she referred to them as piggy porkers and discussed why pigs should be free range.

After the drive from Stonehenge we arrived in Bath which was my favorite city we have visited so far. If I ever moved anywhere in England this would be the place. The buildings are amazing, there are street performers and musicians performing everywhere and they are all awesome! My camera, video camera and cell phone were all dead so I wasn't able to get any pictures of videos of them. :(

The Roman Baths were incredible. I didn't know that there were ruins underneath the baths that are there now. It was very interesting to do the tour and find out how the Romans thought that the heated spring was a gift from the gods. They used the baths as a place of healing a relaxation. they believed that the baths had healing powers, the myth that surrounds the founding of Bath says that a man was banished by his family because he had leprosy and was sent to live in the country. When he arrived in what is now Bath he saw pigs with blisters and all sorts of gross disease infested things all over them but when the entered the heated water they would come out clean and healed.