College Study Abroad Trip
Hello and welcome to my first ever published blog!
My name is Sydney, and this blog is a part of my homework for my London study abroad trip.
Enjoy!
This study abroad trip to London was administered through North Carolina Central University and I got the amazing privilege to be able to go and participate.
During this trip, there were a
total of 6 sites that were mandatory to attend and those will be the events I’ll
be discussing about.
On Tuesday 18, 2024,
My study abroad group and I took
the tube to South Kensington Station.
From there we met up with a guide
that talked to us about the making of the museums within Kensington. We also
walked around and saw different site like the Victoria and Albert Museum and
Science Museum. While walking around, it was evident how beautiful the area
was. It was cool to me how a lot of the old building within the area were still
up and nicely preserved.
And the details exhibited on the
older buildings was quite stunning!
Below I will insert a picture of
the Victoria and Albert Museum from the outside.
Here's a photo that shows the detail in the building a bit more closely.
The next required event was on June 20th, 2024.
We went to Middle Temple Library. This is a huge library that hold tons of documents and texts. We were kindly given a tour of the whole library and got to see some of their book collection. It was such a beautiful library that I was pretty much in awe the whole time! While we were walking around with our guide, there was some education on the building itself! Within the building they also had a little fancy elevator for those who couldn't take the stairs. Sadly, I did not think to take a picture of that, but this is how beautiful the inside of the Middle Temple Library looked!
The designs and choice of color within the building was a sight to see! Super gorgeous.
Within this same day, we also had another place that we visited called the Royal Geographic Society. This place is known for their extensive collection of documents, books, artifacts, etc. While we were there, a man working at the Royal Geographic Society showed us upstairs and we walked into a big room with chairs surrounding a long table. On that table were different artifacts and clothing items from individuals from the past. We all sat and listened as he went in order of explorers who ventured to, I believe it was either one of the North or South poles or the Arctic. One of them I believe from the story that was told had a determination to fully cross the area!
After that we were given a bit of a sneak peek to go back within their storage are where they kept even older documents and texts. The storage when went into was super cold!
After that there was another storage area, we got to walk within and see other artifacts that were kept back in storage. I'm not sure whether or not I can show photos I took while we went back there so I won't put them here for safety measures.
The next event was on Friday June 21, 2024. This event was my personal favorite! (I'll explain why soon)
So, this library was really nice inside and they also had a mini cafe where you could get pastries and coffee! I definitely went over there before out official tour started. The library we attended was called The British Library we were told is the largest library in the world!
While there, we all were taken back into a private enclosed room where we met a man. This man basically talked briefly about his position at the library and about how long the library had been around. He also showed us a few artifacts from the library too. There was even some sort of book article that had Nepoleon's name written it in! After we had finished listening to the man speak, our group was split to do different things. I was with a small group of about 5 and we were accompanied by two guides. One of them was the main speaker and I loved his delivery of going through the history of the library and showing us around. He made the experience very fun and enjoyable! We even got to see an enigma machine and learned a bit of history surrounding it.
The next event was on June 24, 2024.
This is library in the Barbican Centre called the Barbican Library. The outside before we went in was absolutely gorgeous! Even the inside felt so fancy and nice.
This place was super big and really cool. They had so many shelves for different sections of book collection that you could be in there for years. While we were there we had a guide that basically showed us around, talked to us a bit about the background of the library itself and talked a bit about her background.
Look how massive!
The library also had a restaurant and cafeteria where you could eat food! Anyways, they had so much within this huge library! They even had a section for a piano where you could plug in your own headphones so that it wouldn't disturb readers!
Oh and there was also a section for kids! Even the selection of books for the young kids was quite a lot and I was really impressed!
The last event was on June 26, 2024.
(This one wasn't a library but was a discussion about Beatrix Potter organized by Andrew P. Wiltshire who is a member of the Beatrix Potter Society!)
For this event we were all in a classroom and listened to the speaker Andrew Wiltshire who did a great job talking about the children's book author Beatrix potter. He went through talking about her life, struggles and basically how she had come to be and how she had gotten really popular. One of her most popular books was Peter Rabbit! I did not know she was the author of that book, so I thought that was really cool to learn about.
Overall, I had a great time on this trip and I am very fortunate to have been able to go and experience all that I did!
Lastly, if you would like to look at any information regarding the places visited, I will give a list of their websites:
1. Insider London - https://www.insiderlondon.com/
2. Middle Temple Library - https://www.middletemple.org.uk/library
3. Royal Geographical Society - https://www.rgs.org/about/our-collections/
4. British Library - https://www.bluk/
5. Barbican Centre - https://www.barbican.org.uk/hire/