Today we had a full day of exploring London!
We started by visiting the Florence Nightingale museum. Florence Nightingale is considered the mother of modern day nursing, and she pioneered practices in clean and evidence based healthcare. We enjoyed exploring the museum, which had several exhibits about her early life, her nursing career during the Crimean war, and interactive exhibits. There was a replica of her adult bedroom which had a record player. The record player played a recording of her voice speaking about the importance of nursing. My favorite area was the dress up section, which had examples of scrubs as they’ve evolved through the decades. Zoe and I even tried on some caps! I was a bit thrown off because the room had English scrubs, which are designed a bit differently. On the way out, I got a pin with her quote, “nursing is an art”. As we call her, “our girl Flo”, is truly an inspiration to all of us nursing students.
After the museum we were able to see Big Ben and the London bridge! It turns out that the London bridge actually isn’t the blue bridge with four towers that people usually picture. That one’s the towers bridge, which we still have a pretty good view of. After that we took the tube to the SoHo district. This area had a lot of shops, and it’s safe to say I bought more souvenirs that I needed! We also had lunch at the cutest shop. We ordered cups of strawberries and chocolate fondue, as well as coffees with foam art. This was such a unique shop! I was especially excited to have fresh fruit, because the Eatery at Pitt usually only serves honeydew.
After another stressful navigation of the tube, we headed to a nice pizza place for dinner. It was nice to have a last meal with all the other students on our trip- I’m going to miss everyone! The restaurant was right next to the theater where we saw Mama Mia! I love this movie, and I was so excited to see it in musical form. This was such a fun show, and all of the actors are hilarious. I loved that during the final number the audience was able to stand up and sing along. They played Waterloo at the end, which isn’t usually in the play, but is my favorite ABBA song.
London is such a beautiful city, and I love the architecture so much more than the modern American style. I hope I have the chance to come back and spend more time in the city in the future. It might take me a bit to get used to driving on the left side of the street; I always look the wrong way when crossing the road. If you’ve been with me since the beginning of this trip, thank you for keeping up with these blogs! Wish us a safe flight home tomorrow! I’m so grateful for this experience, and special thank you Dr. Marks and Lynnea for everything!