January 11, 2012

Protest outside of St. Paul's Cathedral

We took a field trip to St. Paul's Cathedral. Outside the cathedral was London's version of "Occupy Wallstreet." It basically had tons of dirty tents with creepy dogs and people chilling around outside. Most of the people looked like homeless hippies who decided that they should start their own little hobo colony. And of course they needed an actual reason for setting up their colony of tents together, so they decided it should be for political reasons. I'm not sure they knew exactly what they were protesting, but they all looked pretty cozy and happy together, singing songs, feeding their ratty dogs, and growling at passers-by.

Hobo City, London

Oh, wait, but apparently they're amazing and super smart hobos because they live in "Tent City University"....

Spiraling upward...

We were only allowed to take pictures in one room at St. Paul's cathedral, and that was in this little freezing stairwell. The stairwell was featured in the 3rd Harry Potter film though, so it's kind of a big deal. Ahhh! Something cool about this staircase- it has no supports holding it up! Each stair was connected to the ones surrounding it by only 3 inches. The hand railing was only decoration and didn't support the staircase at all.

Blurry cathedral picture for your enjoyment

Me outside the cathedral...

The cathedral was fantastic and huge, with tons of statues inside and tributes to important London people. We got to visit the crypt under the cathedral and I saw where Turner was burried! It was soooo cool! He's definitely one of my favorite artists :) I also saw William Blake's tomb and some American solder who fought alongside Britain during WWII who our tour guide was really mad we didn't know.