A Fabulously Wicked Day

Today was a marvelous, wonderful day. We had so much fun. We explored Kensington Gardens, which had to be explained to me three times, is one section of Hyde Park. We began in the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground. This is a fantastic playground, but to be allowed in, you must have a child with you. We had to start here, because they were letting us in early, and we ran around like we were children. It is sort of a Peter Pan themed playground, with a pirate ship, a watery section just made for mermaids, and teepees for pretending to be Tiger Lily. The water section wasn't turned on yet, and one woman who worked there kept laughing at us, but we didn't care. We had a grand time. There were all sorts of secret places to explore. I found a treasure chest, and this gorgeous bench with ladybugs, and dragon flies and all sorts of cute insects carved into it. It was weird, because the people working there had to explain to some parents why we got to go in early. We had to leave when the park really opened, since we had no children, except ourselves, and it was sort of pitiful to look at the children and parents waiting outside the fence to get in. We left that part of the park, walking past the children and parents waiting to get in, and made our way through other parts of the park. Our goal was the Peter Pan statue, but we got distracted. Our photography focus today was using water in our shots, so everyplace we saw water, we were experimenting. We stopped at Round Pond, and watched the swans, watched people play with their dogs, watched little kids and their moms or dads or both. It was just a great relaxing, fun day. We walked on to the Peter Pan statue, took a group picture, (our second of the day, after the pirate ship!) and just moseyed on. We watched the fountains, and more swans, and kept practicing our water shots. I learned a lot about my camera today. We walked on around, and ended up at the Hard Rock Café for lunch. We were extremely excited, as the Hard Rock has free refills, which most places in London don't. That was extremely cool. We went back to the Serpentine, which is a manmade lake that has pedal boats and rowboats for rent. Most of our class decided not to do it, but Jessica and Jodi took a rowboat and Dr E and I attempted a pedal boat. Dr. E is a much better "pedal-ar" than I am, and after a few mishaps, including running into the fence around a duck island, and running around, we manage to pedal our way all over one section of the lake. She steered and I just pedaled. When we finally got back ashore, my legs felt like limp noodles. I was afraid I couldn't walk but I managed. After that, we went to the Diana Memorial Fountain, which is not like any fountain I've ever seen before. It looks sort of like a lazy river, with water flowing from top to bottom. People were soaking their feet in it, and wading around. I just took pictures of the people and the flowers. We left there and went to the Royal Albert Hall. Earlier in the day, we had seen this golden colored spire sticking up through the trees and didn't quite know what it was; we just thought it looked pretty. Well, we realized later what is was – it was the monument that Queen Victoria had built for Prince Albert. Someone told me that the people of England weren't too happy with it, that they thought it was a bit too much – after all, he was just the husband of the queen. (That's what I heard – not necessarily what I believe!) According to Wikipedia, it was finished in 1874 and cost 
120,000. Not being even remotely mathematical, I can't even guess what that would be equivalent to today. I think it's beautiful, but it may be a bit much. We went into Royal Albert Hall, and were going to take a tour, but we all were pretty tired and were feeling kind of hot and icky. We would have had to wait for the next tour, so we just headed back. We ended up taking the bus, instead of the tube and it took forever. We got back finally, and we all took showers and got dressed to go see "Wicked." I have wanted to see "Wicked" ever since last October, when we got to go to the AASL conference in Reno. I was reading the book on the plane and a seatmate noticed the book – it's kind of hard to miss with the green pages, and began telling my friend Connie and I how much he loved it. He even pulled out his iPod and played some songs for me from the soundtrack. As soon as I got home I put the soundtrack on my Amazon.com wish list, but I bought one tonight, so I can take it off the wish list. I tried to go see the play in Orlando at home, and just couldn't work my schedule out to get there. I was so excited and I think I must say for the first time ever in my life, I enjoyed the play more than the book. I liked the book, but there was lots of political stuff in the book that kind of confused me. I tremendously enjoyed the play. When she sang "Defying Gravity" I wanted to fly myself! I know this has turned into a really long post, but there is one more thing I want to share. A really strange thing happened today. Of course during the course of the day, I had to find the restroom in the park. One of our last visits, I was still in the stall and I heard this awful noise. Now, I live in Florida, I know what a bug zapper sounds like, I just didn't expect to hear a bug zapper in the bathroom. I yelped, afraid that my professor or one of my class mates had just been electrocuted in the loo! Now, that would have been an awful thing to blog about, wouldn't it? I was afraid to use the hand dryer, I left with wet hands. My other classmates laughed at me for being so worried. I still just think the bug zapper thing is the bathroom is just weird. So, I am pretty tired now, and need a little something to eat. Tomorrow, we're going to Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. I'll probably take another hundred pictures tomorrow. That seems to be about average for me – 100 pictures a day. My family is going to have a GREAT time looking at all of those when I get home. I'll post some here to save them at least an hour of pictures!