London!

On Wednesday of this week the group started out early in the morning to catch the coach to London. While it's not all that far away, traffic in the city in the morning made it around a 2 hour journey. However, we stepped off the bus and started to walk to our first visit. The walk was beautiful and we spent a little time in front of Buckingham Palace. The Union Jack (flag of the UK) was flying high above the Palace indicating that the Queen was there. We took some pictures outside the large gates before moving on.

We then walked along The Mall, the road running from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square. This was a beautiful, tree lined walk with St. James Park along the south side. It took us right to our next destination, Coutts Bank. This was an especially unique visit as Coutts is widely regarded as the premier private bank in the UK. They don't routinely take visitors, rarely accept groups, so we were quite fortunate to have the visit. It involved a visit with the archivist who explained the history of the bank and three executives and private bankers.

The afternoon included a bus and boat tour of London. The group was energetic for such a long day and came back to Oxford that evening.

Thursday was spent mostly in class and the students were fortunate to have Professor Alan Rugman as a guest speaker on Thursday morning. He is a former Kelley School faculty member who is now at Henley College back in the UK. This weekend students will work on group projects, explore Oxford and travel as they choose.