Friday 23 March 2012

Day Eight: Seeing the Sights

By Esra'a Shahin and Nadia Abu Raida



In the morning we came to the CADFA offices for 9am to work on our presentations until 12.30, when we took a bus to go to central London in order to start our tourist day. We got off the bus at Westminster, where we saw the houses of Parliament and Big Ben. It was amazing because there were a lot of cool things to look at and take pictures of. It was the first time that I saw where British Parliament is, and I had no idea that it was in the same building as Big Ben. After Big Ben we walked across Westminster Bridge and ate lunch, while we waited to get tickets to go to the London Eye. Then we went up in it and took pictures of places far away across London. From the London Eye we could see the Thames river, there were a lot of big tall buildings, including really old buildings like St Pauls.

We walked along South Bank and looked at all of the street performers. There were people painted different colours pretending to be statues, there were a group of men doing African dance and gymnastics and even some contortionism. There was a man and his daughter blowing giant soap bubbles and some bands playing music. After that we crossed the Thames again on a footbridge, and we went to see Trafalgar square. At the square there were a lot of people sitting around the big fountain and feeding the pigeons, and taking pictures of the statues. There were lots of statues in Trafalgar Square, including a really famous one of Nelson and old kings of England.

Then we went to Covent Garden, where there were more street performers, including a man swallowing a sword, and lots of antique stalls. We walked around the streets, got souvenirs to take home for our family and friends, and then headed to Southwark to meet Nandita to go to the Ambassadorial dinner. At the dinner, which was at a Turkish restaurant called Eve, we met a woman from the Palestinian Embassy called Haya and talked to her about our experiences in Palestine and in London. It was interesting to talk to her, because we talked about education and what we are studying, and I spoke to her about studying International Law and got some advice from her. We ate a lot and had a good time, and then Nandita and Ayesha took us back to our host homes.

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