When starting today’s day, it went off a little differently than usual. We all were gathered into the conference room that the hotel and were able to gain a conference call with one of the people that work with the Hackathon that we will doing for the next two days. After this meeting, I have become even more excited about this event and can’t wait to see what will come of it. After getting the details about what the Hackathon will bring us, it was time to relax a little bit before our journey for the day. Once we got our things together, it was time to head to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew Gardens. I wasn’t sure on what to expect from this trip because I had never heard of this place before, but once I had arrived I could understand why this place is very popular. We were able to get to the gardens from the Underground, which had a stop that was a short walk from the gardens. Once scanning our tickets, we started to walk toward the beginning of the garden and found a giant greenhouse that was the home to many plants. It was really hot in the greenhouse where it fogged up my camera lens. There were two floors to this greenhouse, which I thought was amazing since I have never seen a two floor greenhouse before. Actually, the size of this greenhouse was the size of a two story house. Once leaving the greenhouse, is when I saw the craziest view I have ever seen in my life. I saw wide open grass that stretched for miles and seemed like it would never end. A large rose garden on either end of this never ending field. It was a beautiful view and a view that I probably will not be able to see again for a long time. After seeing this amazing view of the land, we went onto find a gallery inside the garden. I wasn’t expecting to see a gallery, but I was happy that I would be able to see what was inside.

When going into the gallery, I could see that there was nothing but botanical art. This was very fascinating to me because I haven’t seen too much of this type of art and it fascinates me on how detailed all of the paintings had come out. When looking at all of these botanical art pieces, all I could think about was my professor’s pieces of botanical art that she had brought on this trip. Before this trip, I had no idea on how talented she was on painting life-like images of plants. Once I was done walking through the gallery, it was time to get a lesson on how to draw botanical art from non other than my professor Regina Milan, who is a fantastic botanical artist. She taught us the key things about how to draw plant life. She told us things such as how in a gallery show, there are 4 judges, where two are artists and two botanists. This allows for a judgment on the artistic evaluation of the pieces as well as a judgment on the accuracy of the piece. This all new information that I believe I wouldn’t have learned in the classroom. So far, this trip has exceeded my expectation. With the trip not over yet, I was excited for what else was to come. After ending our little lesson, our professors told us we were free to roam the rest of the garden. After hearing this, I was exited to see what else was on this large block of land. When roaming the garden, I was able to see things such as roses, bamboo, fallen trees, and a bridge over a river that was within the garden. This river had lots of geese and ducks in it, which allowed for many picture opportunities. After being able to walk through most of the exhibit, it was time to head over to the store and get some lunch before heading over to the next stop on the agenda; the Transportation Museum. Once finishing lunch, myself and two other classmates within our group headed over to the Transportation Museum.

It was an enjoyable trip over to the Transportation Museum because we were able to visit some small shops around the museum before heading inside. Once we finished looking around the shops, we went to the gift shop of the James Bond museum that was right next to the Transportation Museum. Once we got to the James Bond exhibit, we left our friend to visit the exhibit while me and my other friend went onto the Transportation Museum. After we all made it to the Museum, It was time to see what they had to offer. Once we all were ready to head into the museum, we noticed that there was a fee to enter (£15 per student). We didn’t know that there was a fee for museum, as we thought it would be free. We all decided to save our money and not go into the museum, even though it probably would of been enjoyable. But its crunch time to save the rest of our pounds for the remainder of the trip. Even though we didn’t go into the museum, we did get some cool merchandise that would allow us to show our London Underground Pride. After collecting our newly bought gifts, it was time to head back to the hotel and call it a day. When looking back at how this day had went, I would say that this was a very successful day. Since I was able to experience many wonderful views, I will be able to look back on this day and say how great this trip has been. It’s something that I believe I probably will never be able to experience again (unless I come back to London of course). Being able to not only see all of the sights today, also being able to learn a new art form and how it is created is just the icing on the cake. I would say that being able to learn about botanical art while being at this fabulous garden made my experience a lot better and more memorable. I would give this day a 10/10 with a total score of 62/60 so far.