Sunday, June 5, 2011

3rd Trip to London

This past Friday, we went on our third and final History of London class field trip. The tour focused on the western parts of London. 


This is the inside of a church built by Nicholas Hawksmoor in the early eighteenth century. You can see a move away from the strictly Gothic architecture of earlier churches. There are a lot of Roman columns and circular arches. The layout of the church also features a very open central area. The church is fairly conducive to giving sermons, which become important parts of church services around that time.



We went from the church to the area round Brick Lane, an immigrants neighborhood. It was full of Eastern European Jews for several decades after the 1880s. The Jews have mostly moved away to nicer places and have been replaced with a large Bangladeshi community. This is Nina posing with some graffiti on a side street.


This is the area near some old docks. There are cool bridges connecting buildings.


Tower Bridge!


Tower Bridge and me!


A modern cityscape across the Thames.


Houses of Parliament!


Big Ben!


Westminster Hall, inside the Houses of Parliament. After the field trip ended, a bunch of us went on a tour of the Houses of Parliament, but we weren't allowed to take photos anywhere except in the Hall. The hall was most recently used for Obama's address to the Queen, Parliament, and Britain. He is one of very few people to give their speeches in this hall. Usually heads of state speak in a smaller, adjoining room. Our tour guide, this excitable older guy, couldn't stop talking about how he shook Obama's hand. He was very impressed with Obama, and called shaking his hand one of the best things to have happen to him (or something like that).

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