Legal walk and an outside adventure for Laura and I

this morning we woke up and took off on a tour of London from the outside. This meaning we would not be going into any buildings today but rather walking around the "legal" part of London and getting some history on all of the buildings from past to present. the only thing I could have wished for on this day would have been a little sunshine, it was far from warm and it made the walk a little uncomfortable. and unfortunately i didn't take to many pictures of this but I did however learn a lot of interesting facts.

 on our walk to the Inns of Court we learned that there are four Inns of Court, Lincoln, Middle temple, Inner Temple and Gray's. Inns are professional institutions to which every Barrister (lawyer) must belong. they have the option to choose which Inn they would like and have a lifetime "membership" with their Inn. the Inns all have a different status of sorts as well. some are known for their social life some are known for their members and so on. it is required of barristers to visit their inn 12 time in the first year and they have dinners and other events that they can attend. after they have visited 12 times they never have to return if they so choose. the Inns also have churches, libraries, beautiful park areas and so much more to offer. this was all interesting to me because this "Inn" requirement is only for Barristers and not for Solicitors (lawyers). also the wigs that they wear (which i explained how goofy they look) are only required to be worn by Barristers.  but in the more recent times solicitors have started wearing them to court if they are up against a Barrister because there have been some incidents where juries think that a Solicitor is not as good as a Barrister or not as well trained simply because he or she does not have a wig. so in order to have equality solicitors are now starting to wear them as well. we did also pass a shop where you buy the wigs and they are all custom made and made out of horse hair.

as a side note i should point out a couple funny and interesting facts our tour guide Joanne pointed out. in London one of the streets we were on was a street where they used to drive the prisoners down to be executed. on this trip they would stop at a local pub and allow the prisoner to go in and have one drink. this was known as "one for the road" which is a common phrase I hear still today. also the saying of "falling off the wagon" was also explained. this was when they would put the noose around the prisoners neck and then continue driving and leave them to hang. they had then "fallen off the wagon."

after our tour we were able to warm up and go inside to the Royal Courts of Justice and sit in on a case. the group split up and listened to two different cases. the case I sat in on had a prisoner who was brought down from the jail and was sitting to the side of us in this bar like cage. it was interesting to see how different our court rooms look and operate. in our court the man would have been in handcuffs and probably an orange jumpsuit and escorted in to the court room and sat in front of the judge where there they come and just sit in a cage to the side. they time we spent in the court rooms felt very short because there was a bit of a delay in the beginning but it was none the less a good break from the cold weather.

Laura, Chelsea and I decided to visit the Tate Modern Museum after leaving since it was a requirement of the class, and so we set off on our own. we once again got a little lost but asked for directions and were informed to follow the orange light poles which said Tate Modern this way. so off we went in search for the next orange light pole until we finally found our destination. once in the Tate Modern we all got a little confused by what we saw. you see it was my idea to go to this museum and well after going there i forgot why i liked modern art at all. none of it made any sense and we spent the majority of the trip laughing in complete confusion at what we were seeing. they also had a room that said it had graphic details and was not for children. of course we then were intrigued and had to find out what was in the room. lets just say the video we watched completely shocked all 3 of us and we had enough art at that point. ill leave it at that.

after this Laura and I rushed back to the hotel room to gather up our stuff and headed off on our own to go stay the night with her cousin Erin and her family who live in Sevenoaks. we had to get train tickets and the funny part about all of this was we had no idea where to get the tickets or which train or what time. we did a whole lot of running around trying not to miss our train. once Laura finally asked someone if this was the right train we then picked a random seat and sat down. we had no idea if there was assigned seats but we figured we would wait until someone kicked us out. turns out that they also have two trains that were going to Sevenoaks. one that takes around an hour and another that only takes 30 minutes. we then went into panic mode because we were supposed to be on the 30 minute train so that her cousin was there on time to pick us up and we only had 6 minutes to figure out which one it was before they both left. we jumped off the train and ran to the nearest person to try and get some guidance. once we got all our ducks in a row we realized we were on the right train to begin with and we headed off.

once we arrived Erin took us to see the town or "village" of Sevenoaks. it was a very small Town and was a nice break from the big city of London. we went and even got to see the schools where her children attend. this was an awesome experience because i felt like i was back home. people were stopping to say hi and have a conversation and they buildings where they have school are magnificent. all the buildings over there look like mansions or some form of crazy architecture where here a school house looks like a school house. once we arrived at Erins house we were greater by her husband RJ and offered some refreshments. we had an AMAZING home cooked meal (lasagna) and got to spend that night with them. They were all so friendly and welcoming and I had a wonderful time meeting all of them. it was one of the best days we had abroad.