I woke up a bit earlier than I had wanted this morning, again, around 6:30 a.m. I messed around the dorms for a little bit, ate a bit of breakfast and took a shower. I then left and made my way to Westminster Abbey. I attended the matins as Westminster Abbey, which was a very beautiful service. I thoroughly enjoyed looking around Westminster. It's a truly amazing church. Once the matins was over I went to St. Margaret's, which is right next to Westminster Abbey and went to their 11:00 a.m. service. St. Margaret's felt more like an actual church, as there were parishioners who you could tell come every Sunday.
The people at St. Margaret's were quite nice and I really enjoyed myself. The pews were very uncomfortable though. I can't imagine having to sit in them more an an hour. I'm quite glad that pew technology has changed enough in the last 500 years to at least provide some sort of support. I was a little thrown off by the order of worship at St. Margaret's since it kept jumping between an order of worship book, the Holy Bible, a hymn book, and the program/bulletin. I tried not to look too disorganized, but I don't think it really mattered. I still enjoyed myself. They took holy communion, which I opted not to take. Their communion service is done in a more Catholic style, with someone handing the bread to you and using a communal cup. Simply for sanitation reasons I refrain from doing that. I get uncomfortable shaking people's hands and hugging people. Having to share the same cup with them would make me quite bothered.
Once the service at St. Margaret's was over with I took the Tube back to the dorms. I've basically been in the dorms ever since. I ate some lunch and then took a quick nap. I did a bit of reading and basically have lounged around all day and done a whole lot of nothing. I gave some consideration to just walking around the streets (like I did last night after I wrote my post; it was quite fun) and taking a look around. Instead, I just hung out inside of my dorm room and have not really done anything special. I did go down the street to a place called Thai Metro for dinner. It was tasty, though I prefer the Thai food back home.
I expect I'll go to sleep rather early tonight and probably get up really early in the morning--not because I want to, but simply because of force of habit. I'm not really at a point where I'm running out of things to do in London (far from it, actually), but I'm trying to take it a bit easier. I still want to see the Tate Exhibits, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of London, and the Natural History Museum as well as Regent's Park before I leave. I also plan to row The Serpentine one day before I leave. But, I'm not in a real big hurry to do that, and if I end up not doing some of it I'm not going to be upset about it. I had planned on rowing The Serpentine today, but the weather has been pretty overcast and quite rainy. I suppose it's just as well. As of right now I have exactly 12 days remaining on my trip. That means my trip is 2/3 of the way over with right now.
If you really think about it though, that last Friday won't count as much of a day. Our flight leaves out of Heathrow Airport to Frankfurt, Germany at around 6:00 in the morning, or something ridiculous like that. Because of that, we'll have to be at Heathrow around 4:00 a.m., which means we'll have to take the bus from the dorms around 3:00 a.m., which actually means we'll have to start loading and whatnot around 2:30 a.m., which of course means I won't be sleeping at all that Thursday night. I think it's probably for the best. I'd much rather stay awake that night, ride all the way to Frankfurt, then sleep on the plane ride from Frankfurt back to America. If our times are correct, we should arrive back in America around 2:30 in the afternoon, or something like that.
I just got off the phone with Ray a few minutes ago. I looked up the train times from London to Taunton and I wanted to call and touch base with him. I expect I'll arrive in Taunton around 11:00 a.m. on Thursday. This coming Thursday through Sunday I will not be making any blog posts. I expect I'll make a post Sunday when I actually get back, but I don't plan on taking my laptop with me to Taunton. I'm looking forward to getting to see my grandmother's side of the family. My Dad e-mailed me just recently and let me know that my grandmother's sister, June, is going to house of her other sister, Val, on the 20th. I know that Ray was planning on taking me to see Val one day, and if he takes me on the 20th, then I could very well end up getting to see June as well. It's been about 10 years or more since I've seen Ray, and the same goes for June. I don't recall ever meeting Val, so it should all be a real experience. I hope to see my grandmother's childhood home as well as the chapel where she and my grandfather got married.
It's rather odd for me to think that in just under two weeks I'll be leaving England. This whole experience has been kind of strange. It's weird for me to wake up every day and realize that I don't have to go to work, don't have to go to school (class doesn't really count because it's so brief), and basically I have no real responsibilities at all. Occasionally I'll have one day like that, but to have five weeks of it is very strange. I expect it'll be a real change when I get back to the states and actually have things that I have to do. Frankly, I like having a bit of structure, it helps me manage my time better. It helps me to avoid days like today where I end up sitting around and doing nothing. If I don't have things planned or things that I have to do, I can very well end up sitting around and not doing anything at all.
The only photos I took today were of Westminster Abbey. I'm not going to bother uploading them right now. I took quite a few more photos last night, but they were of just random areas around London; not really tourist spots. I ended up wandering through some apartment complexes and down some roads in London I usually don't go to. I also went around Leicester Square for a bit before walking back to the dorms last night. I don't think I'll be doing that tonight, though.
