London Field Trip, Wicked, & Cadbury World!

Although technically I was just around the manor, last weekend was jam-packed with activities that kept me out and about until Sunday afternoon.  Friday we had a field trip to London where we toured St. Paul's Cathedral, the National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery.  It was a typical day in England, rainy and sort of miserable but overall it was fun.  The cathedral is magnificant on the inside and we climbed all the way to the top (really intense climb) and saw an awesome view of London.  We ate our sack lunches and then headed out to see portraits and paintings that we have been discussing in class, in real life (which was very neat).  In Trafalgar Square we also got to see the official countdown to the olympics which will be held next year in London.  We had a lovely dinner at a restaurant called Garfunkels before trekking over to the Apollo theater to see a performance of the musical, Wicked.  The walk was lovely because everything was really lit up in the city.  The play was awesome as well, just as cool as when I saw it the first time at the Fox.  Following this, we made our way back to the bus to take us home.  My group did stop by a McDonalds and I bought my only American Fast food purchase while in Europe which was my personal favourite, ice cream cone.  I just had to see if it was as good overseas!  We made it back at 2am and then I went to bed because I had to be back on the bus the next morning by 8am to go to Cadbury World.  I have come to love Cadbury chocolate since being in England because I have been introduced to the wide array of candy they make (besides merely the Easter eggs that they sell in the US).  It was really fun, we got lots of free chocolate too!  The Cadbury brothers who started the company are remembered for the stellar way they treated their employees during the industrial revolution.  They even built a town called Bourneville for their employees to live in.  It was a really neat tour and afterwards we got to go into Birmingham to shop at the Bull Mark shopping center.  The only way I can describe it is INSANE!  Seriously we went into Primark (cool store I shopped at in Nottingham as well) and you would have thought it was Christmas-except it was just a saturday in March!  Finally we came home and ate dinnner before going out to celebrate my friend Christina's birthday.  It was a good couple of days, but I was relieved on Sunday to be able to relax!