Family Trip

It was an incredible gift at the end of the semester to have my family come out and visit me in London. For the most part, I showed them around my favorite city and we saw all the tourist sites, so to be brief, I'll simply talk about the ones I haven't already posted about. My family got in around noon, so we took an easy day and visited my favorite part of London, and home, South Kensington.


The next day, I wore them out by walking them past some of the most well known sights in London. We say the changing of the guards at Buckingham, and as this was the day that Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out, the band played the star wars theme. May the force be with you Queen Elizabeth. Also, this is the day we saw Woman in Black. We sat in the front row and it scared the pants off of me for a second time.




This is the infamous Tower of London, where a lot of executions, torture, and out right murder
took place. It was very cheery place to be. Jokes aside, I really did enjoy visiting this place, because the history was so relevant to what I had learned about the British Monarchy in class. However, I'm not one that enjoys talk about torture, so there were parts of it that were a little harsh for me and there are images that will probably never leave my head.





 To get off of our feet a little, we took a boat right this night and traveled down the Thames River, leaving from right in front of the Tower Bridge. I tried to convince my mom to got to the top of this, but the glass floors that go from each tower were a little to much of deterrent.










It was random luck that the London International Horse Show was in happening while my mom was in town. Of course we went to see it, and it was absolutely amazing. I don't ride English and I don't compete, but growing up around horse means I've seen every horse movie out there and I always tune in for a while when the horse events happen in the Olympics. It was crazy to see all of the Olympic champions compete on incredible horses. What a stroke of luck and an incredible experience.





We almost didn't do this, but in the end we decided it was worth it. We did a short day trip to Paris and saw the brief highlights of what this city had to offer. We saw most of it by bus or by boat, and we only spent a short amount of time seeing the greatest art collection ever, but it was amazing. I'm so excited to return to this city in a few weeks and spend a weekend getting to known the city better.













I had wonderful time with my family in London and Paris, and I had a wonderful semester in what I truly believe to be the greatest city in the world. After spending a few months there, I know I could live there forever and I really hope that I will get to return to London after my abroad experience is over. But for now, the beginning of my second semester in London is a few short days away and I am so excited to continue the adventure. I have some really exciting trips lined up for next semester, and who know what will happen in bewteen those. Maybe I'll see the queen again (unlikely). Maybe I'll see Benedict Cumberbatch again (even more unlikely).  Whatever does happen, I'm ready to be back at my home across the pond. I'm sorry all of this is so late, but no promises that I'll be remotely consistent with these updates and there is every possibility that most of what does happen will appear on this blog long after it happens. If you would like timely updates about my adventures, follow me on Instagram (sarahkiker). Otherwise, thank you for reading and I'll see you next semester!

Cheers,
Sarah