Horsing Around

Fei and I tried Horseback Riding today. UCL was offering a beginners lesson for the equestrian team so we decided to try it. First of all, it took us longer to get there than we actually were there for which is crazy but this team loves riding so much that they make the commute every single week just for an hour on the horses. They were all obviously great riders so we felt a little silly when we told them we were just hoping to try something new. At the end of the lessons, they gave a speech about joining the team, and while Fei and I won't be doing that we would absolutely love to go back.

As surprising as it may seem I had the best time! I know I'm a huge chicken when it comes to dogs but I really loved the horses. My horse's name was Oliver and Fei was riding Topper (I forget what hers looked like but mine was just regular brown and so adorable). The taught us a sitting and standing trot and how to turn which is pretty impressive for how short of a lesson it was. My horse was a champ, you usually have to give a horse a little kick to get it moving by mine must have been really excited to start moving because he sorta just started up on his own.

Afterward, Fei and I just realized how mad we were at our parents for not signing us up for riding lessons sooner. It was so sweet. Too bad we couldn't take pictures when we were riding so I didn't get one of us with our horses but I did take some pictures on the sidesteps.

If you ever have the chance to try horse riding I'd absolutely encourage you to go for it.



Barbicana & The Museum of London

Ok, and you've probably figured out that I'm posting madly out of order, it's just really hard to keep up with this blog. So I'm adjusting the date of post to the date of the thing I'm talking about but anyway the day AFTER horseback riding I decided to play a little game with my short day of classes. I got out at 11am and closed my eyes and picked a spot on the Underground to explore. I landed on Barbicana which was a weird little place but after walking a mile in APPARENTLY the wrong direction I noticed on the map that if I headed back to the tube and walked a mile the OTHER way I would have ended up at the Museum of London.

So of course I walked right over.
And stayed there forever. They had an exhibit on London 4000 years ago and took you through the history up to today which was really interesting but way too much to do in just a day, so I'll have to go back there. But there was also an exhibit on the Great Fire of 1666 which most people wouldn't care about, seeing as how you are all Americans. Though, going through the exhibit was really eye opening because it proved the severity of the fire and depicted how much it effected the city. From landscaping to politics, the fire had a massive role in the way that London has changed since the 17th century. So while I'd love to tell you all about what happened during the fire I also have another 15 days to catch you up on, but trust me when I say that I definitely know all about the fire now. Feel free to ask :) In the meantime, I took the liberty of taking pictures of FAQs about the Great Fire just for you!