With a full night of sleep, the group felt a little more recharged today and rightfully so because we had a visit to our sister school Regent University here in the heart of London.
After some much-needed coffee and breakfast we made our way though the “tubes” of London and found ourselves outside the school within a matter of minutes. It’s amazing to see the differences in the tube compared to our own public transportation. In Pittsburgh it appears our transportation is dirty, and people tend to try to avoid it. Here everyone uses the tube because its clean and a practical way to cross around the city.
Finally making it to Regent University we found our way to the lecture hall and met Jason Mackenzie. Jason is a media guru. His lecture helped us understand the landscape of media through-out the UK and how the newspapers tend to lean to a more conservative views in the United Kingdom. He was extremely interested in our views on media in the US and how much we knew about the differences in the UK. He was an outstanding speaker that kept me intrigued during the entire lecture.
After the lecture we had the rest of the day to ourselves. A group of friends and I walked from our hotel to the London Eye which is about a 30 minutes hike through some beautiful plazas like Leicester square and then through Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar square stood out the most during the walk. The open plaza was filled with statues and fountains commemorating some of their historical figures.
We made it to the eye we bought tickets and took the enormous Ferris wheel to the top! it was incredible to see London from that altitude and have a clear shots of Westminster and Big Ben. At the top of the wheel we spotted a little festival that was going on next door. The Underbelly festival was going on and they had brought in a bunch of food trucks that were hanging around a little garden.