Coach Tour

Today I got a crash course in London's History and saw nearly all the city's famous landmarks (as featured in the London calendar hanging on my wall) firsthand. A coach tour had been scheduled for the NYU London students, and I was absolutely wild about the idea. For a very brief moment when I had first heard about the "coach tour" an image of a horse and carriage floated through my mind. However I was very quick to realize that this would be a highly improbable means of travel. I then discovered that coach is another word for bus in Britain.
We loaded into the buses at around 1:30 in the afternoon (or 13:30 by European standards). Our tour guide was a charming gentleman by the name of Peter who was born in Wales and didn't speak English until he was 12, lived in England during World War 2, and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. During the tour he talked a lot about London's history, from its foundations as a city occupied by the Romans, to it's Medieval and Renaissance highlights, to its destruction during the Great Fire and World War 2 respectively, to the newest buildings being set up and remodeled for the 2012 Olympic Games.
The tour was absolutely surreal. We drove past nearly every major icon in London! I could hardly believe my eyes and take it all in I was so enraptured. It was as though I were watching a movie. We would drive for a little while, then stop and take pictures at the particularly famous sites like the Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace. Below are some of the more impressive things we saw:

The Royal Courts of Justice

The Shard of Glass (still under construction, soon to be the tallest building in Europe)

Tower Bridge

The Tower of London

The London Eye

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace

Piccadilly Circus

Trafalgar Square

Even after seeing all of these awe-inspiring locations that have told a story of London through the ages and captured my imagination for so long, I can hardly believe that I am here. As we drove past a part of the original roman wall thought to have been built in the year 200 AD my mouth dropped open. This city is so old, so grounded in a millennium of inhabiting cultures and empires, and yet so fluid and modern. It is always changing, and yet committed to preserving it's history. You could spend a lifetime exploring it and still never experience the entirety of what it has to offer. I don't have a lifetime, but hopefully before the end of 4 months it will have finally sunk in that I have arrived in the city I've dreamed about all my life. I am so beyond grateful to be here.