Day Four Final Day In London

While currently in route to Paris I am writing about our final day in London where we met and saw some important people and fascinating landmarks. Our day began at 0900 hours with a quick stop at the Café Nero for coffee before making it to the Syracuse abroad building. After getting our few minutes on the computer out of the way we headed up to our classroom to meet with Charlie Forman who was the former Chief Officer of the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the London Borough of Hackney. Charlie was a major part of the design of the Olympic Park and the main focus was legacy. He explained how and why London was successful and how the Olympics changed the dynamic of the landscape of the Borough of Hackney. Hackney prior to 2012, this borough was considered "dirty" and an embarrassment to the city as a whole. This was where factories decades ago, polluted the water and surrounding land to a point where citizens didn't want to go and the land was considered unusable. He was able to head the London Olympic committee in the right direction in cleaning up this area and making it usable to the public long after the Olympics. After visiting the Park I understand that Charlie was very successful in his work and could tell he was very passionate about this project which helped him achieve success.

After the meeting, we hopped on the bus and headed for a market for lunch. We crossed the London Bridge, which by the way has no real significance.The market consisted of multiple individually owned shops, including all types of meats, desserts, drinks, and fruits and vegetables. Jess and I waited in line for one of the best steak sandwiches we've ever had. We walked through, stopping at different stands, hung around the locals and then headed off towards the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

Our final adventure for the day was the visiting and touring the Tower of London. The tower is one of the oldest landmarks in London and sits right next to the Thames River in central London. In the tower we got to see all of the armory on display throughout the different rooms, the chapel, and the weapons used during battle. The tower has served many purposes throughout its history including an armory, a treasury, a menagerie, the royal mint, and the home of the Crown Jewels of England. It was unbelievable to see these Jewels and at some points didn't even seem real. During our time there we walked through the entire White Tower, the Bloody Tower, and Waterloo Block were the Crown Jewels are kept. I also got yelled at for taking a picture inside the Crown Jewels exhibit.





We finished off our last night as a group with professor Ryan eating fish and chips and sharing a few laughs. Looking forward to Paris!!

Michael Gutman