Rock of Aged Courts

                Today started off by a visit to the Magistrate’s Court. To get there, we got to experience the Tube for the first time, which is cool. It is pretty simple so far so I haven’t gotten lost yet. The Magistrate’s Court is the lowest level of court in England and every trial starts here, whether it is begging or murder. Any case can be moved up to higher courts, but the most serious cases are the main ones that are moved up. We were actually able to sit in on some proceedings which were very interesting. There are two types of “judges” in this level of the court; lay magistrates and district judges or DJs. If lay magistrates are overseeing a case, there are three people who are volunteers. District Judges must have served as a lawyer for seven years. The cases I saw involved lay magistrates and the defendants were not actually present but at the police station and took part in the case through a video call. I thought this was very interesting and a good way to have defendants’ present if the jail and courthouses are not in the same building. Another interesting thing from these proceedings was how informal and relaxed things seemed to be compared to American Courts. It felt as though the lay magistrates were rude to the defendant’s and scolded them for their actions. The begging case I saw included the lay magistrate telling the defendant that his actions are inexcusable and he clearly does not follow the rules he is given, as if he were talking to a child. I don’t think I have ever heard of a judge talking down this way in America so I was intrigued.

                After the court, we had the rest of the day free. I went to lunch at a place called Nandos, with my roommates, Morgan and Alesha, where we sat for a while before continuing our day. We decided to try and find the place that sells discounted tickets to plays and musicals and ended up getting tickets to Rock of Ages for 35 Pounds each which equates to about $50 so that really wasn’t too bad. We had plenty of time to kill before the show so we wandered around West End for a bit. We ended up finding a couple of souvenir shops.  The first one was kind of sketchy. There were some guys trying to sell us cannabis suckers and cookies and stuff like that, but it also had some cool mugs and purses and other souvenir stuff. Don’t worry mom or Dr. Nobiling, we didn’t buy the cannabis stuff! The next shop was a little less sketchy and I found a grey and purple London hoodie!! Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love purple so that was pretty exciting.

                We then found M&M World which was pretty cool as well. It has a ton of different shades of colors, as well as different types. There was a place to test what color you were at that particular moment. The funny thing about that was that my “color” was like mega-mix or something like that, so not even really a color. It said I don’t believe there can be too much of a good thing, so I thought that was actually kind of fitting for my feelings towards London and this trip. I really liked M&M World, but at the same time, I felt like I was too old to be there. There were children EVERYWHERE!! That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was kind of a hassle.  We then headed to a pub called Waxy’s Little Sister, which was one of my favorite places so far. Not because I can drink in the pubs here, I actually didn’t even have anything to drink. However, the bartender was Irish!!! I could have died then and there. The pub itself was also a neat little place. It had an upstairs part to it where we ended up sitting. Upstairs, there was an open area directly above the bar. There was a little mini-elevator type thing with the rules written on the wall. You send down your order and money and the bartender will send up your drink. I thought it was really cool. After that we got some sandwiches from Pret and headed to the show.

                Rock of Ages was fantastic! We got there and the guy who took our tickets, moved us up closer to the stage so we ended up in the middle of the theatre, right below where the first balcony started. These seats were great! I don’t think I would have enjoyed any other seat more, except for maybe one with someone less obnoxious next to me. The show was great and it was really interesting to see because it is American-based so the actors were supposed to be talking with American accents. It made me realize how terrible we must sound when trying to do a fake accent. The accents were not bad, but there were some spots where the clearly sounded British, and others where they clearly sounded American so it was kind of funny to watch. Either way, the show was brilliant. I am going to have 80s music stuck in my head for days now.

                After the show, we got back on the tube and headed home. Throughout the day we had been discussing the need to find somewhere that sells converters, because I am the only one who had one, and I blew the fuse on it. So we ended up going on an adventure, at 11 o’clock at night. Someone had suggested Holborn Station so we decided to walk there since it was only one tube stop away from us. We found the station but nowhere to buy a converter so we rode the tube back to Russell Square and wandered for a bit looking to see if anywhere was open. Nothing was but we saw a few places to check out tomorrow. When we got back to the hotel, we decided to ask the hotel concierge, who told us we don’t need converters for laptops, just adapters  which we all have. Turns out, this is true so we spent a lot of time looking for something we didn’t actually need. On the plus side, now we now and we didn’t spend any money on it either. Overall, today was pretty fun. Tomorrow we go to the Supreme Court, which has only existed for a few years, so that should be interesting to see. 

Flying and Castles and Drinking

                My first flying adventure was definitely an adventure. The plane we took from rapid to Chicago had 3 seats per row so I ended up with a window seat. I didn’t have too much of a problem with take-off, but I could tell from that that I was not going to like landing and I was right about that. I hate descending. It makes me nauseous so that was a fun time but we landed just fine and were actually a few minutes earlier than we were supposed to be. We made our way through Chicago’s airport and waited for our next flight. This plane was much bigger and had seven seats in each row. Lucky me, I ended up dead center. This sucked. I really wanted to be able to watch out the window especially since we flew into a sunrise and flew over Ireland, but oh well. I spent most of this flight watching movies. I thought I would be able to sleep a lot easier than I actually did so that made for a long day. I think I slept for less than an hour total. We got into London at about 8 a.m. We got to make our own special line for customs and everything from there on went smoothly.

                We then met with our ISA leaders. Maria, Thomas, and I’m not 100% sure of the other girl’s name but I think it was also Maria. We then traveled to Windsor to see the castle. It worked out well and we actually ended up being there during the changing of the guards which is only a big event once a day so that was pretty cool. We then had the option of touring the castle which I chose to do. It was pretty cool and is where many royal families have lived. There was a room with swords and guns and such decorating the walls, but it was not just one gun here or there, it was many of the same weapon in a cool pattern. There were also rooms that have been rebuilt since there was a fire at the castle on November 20, 1992. That is the day I was born so it interested me that something so significant happened here.

                After the castle, I had some free time to kill so I wandered the streets of Windsor and looked for a place to enjoy my first foreign meal. I ended up getting a delicious Spanish Chicken and Vegetable dish at a Tapas restaurant I found. We were also given an option of going to see Eton School. This is a highly prestigious school for boys ages 12-18. Both current princes attended school there, as well as the Prime Minister, and several famous celebrities, including Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie.  Unfortunately, we were not able to go inside the school because they are not on break, but that meant we were able to see the boys walking around in their suits and dress robes. I swear some of them could have come straight out of a Harry Potter movie.

                We finally then made it to our hotel, the Royal National Hotel. There are 3 people in my room and we each have our own bed, which I am greatly looking forward to climbing into later. I wanted to sleep as soon as we got there, but the teachers wanted to show us around Russell Square, which did prove to be useful. I ate a local pub with some friends, and had my first legal drink!! It was a strawberry and lime cider and was okay, but I’m not a huge fan of beers or ciders and it had that beer-y taste, if you know what I mean. But it was probably one of the best ciders I have ever had, so that was a plus. We then went to the store to get some basic stuff we didn’t pack with us, such as shampoo and conditioner. Overall, it has been quite an exciting day. Tomorrow, we are off to the Magistrate’s Criminal Court but that will be over by about 1 in the afternoon so who knows what else the day could hold!