Whew so a lot has happened since I last posted and I meant to do this sooner but I woke up an hour early by accident (rare I know...) so I have all this free time and I thought I'd fill you all in!
Round 2 of Visitors:
So two Mondays ago my roommate Nina, my friend Vanessa and their friend Karissa (who also goes to Muhlenberg) arrived from Italy to visit for a few days. It was really nice to see all of them and catch up, it was kind of weird because I definitely didn't realize how much I've missed seeing them every day. I don't really think I'm the type of person who is consciously aware of missing people until I have a reminder like that, which may or may not be a good thing... not really sure. That Tuesday I took them around London for a little and Vanessa's friend from high school who is also in London came and also showed the around. We went to St. Paul's (I have now been there twice this trip... three times in my life and I don't think it will ever get old) which was really fun. Then we went to Trafalgar square and walked from there towards Parliament and Westminster Abbey. We did a little look at Parliament and Big Ben which are two pretty incredible buildings and then crossed the street to go to Westminster Abbey.
Before we got there though, we crossed to Parliament Square where there is this older man who has been living in a tent since the start of the Iraq war in protest. He lives directly across from the gates to get into Parliament and claims he wont leave until the war ends. There are a few people who have joined him and live in neighboring tents, but I thought he was pretty cool.
I absolutely LOVED Westminster Abbey, I wish I had spent more time there because there is so much there and so much to see that it just becomes so overwhelming. It's such a bizarre building in so many ways, its just a huge graveyard built on top of itself and each of the little shrines and chapels are really different and beautiful. The ceiling in the main chapel was absolutely incredible. They had a mirror in the middle of the room so you could look at the reflection of the ceiling in it without having to strain your neck and I think I could have easily spent the entire time just looking at that ceiling and been perfectly happy. Poet's corner was another really cool place, it was interesting to see who was buried there and who was memorialized because it ran the gamut from Jane Austen to Noel Coward (they included the Actors in with the writers. Convenient, eh?) I wish we had gone out to the gardens but it was pretty cold and we were all pretty tired by that point, so we went back.
Wednesday I had class but I went to meet them at Buckingham Palace, so we looked at that and then walked to the Wellington Arch on the way to Hyde Park and Harrods. We went to Harrods to look at things (I recently found out they have a pet shop...so I may have to make another trip there to visit puppies) and I got probably the best cupcake of my life, the cake part was mint chocolate with butter cream icing... so good. Afterwards we walked back to Hyde Park and then went through to Kensington Park and headed back home.
Thursday was pretty much the first day I had had entirely to myself for a long time...and I don't really remember it so I probably slept through a lot of it.
On Friday Justin came to visit! We kind of got off to a rough start, for a combination of reasons. His train got in at 5 and I had booked us tickets to go on the London Eye (the huge ferris wheel) at 6:30...not enough time to start. But then we went to get McDonald's because they don't have that at St. Andrews and he had been craving it and then the tube was REALLY delayed so we finally ended up making it there by 7, at which point I was flipping out that they wouldn't take our tickets. This was one of the major things I wanted to do in London... and I didn't really want to pay for it twice because I was stupid and didn't leave enough time! But the guys were really nice and just let us through. It was a pretty cool experience, I wish I had been able to take pictures but the glass/plastic created a huge glare. The view was absolutely incredible, though. You can really see all of London, and it was after dark so the entire city was lit up so it was really beautiful. Afterwards we went to the north of London and had tapas for dinner and then went to this really cool Indie Club that has bands play every Friday and Saturday night. Saturday Justin and I attempted to get our travel plans together for the next trip (which starts today!) and got half of it done but the ticket office for international trains was randomly closed that day for "updates" so we were a little frustrated. But afterwards we went to the British Museum. I had a better reaction to it the second time I went, I was more resigned to the fact that what I was seeing was not supposed to be there, but I kind of got over it. Whereas, Justin had the same reaction I did...through the whole museum. We pretty much went through the whole thing, but I still feel like I need to go back to actually appreciate it because it's just so huge and you get so tired out by it. I love museums but there's always that point where you want to keep going but your attention has totally wandered far, far away from anything you're looking at. So we went through, pretty much the whole thing or at least 2/3 and then went back and made macaroni and cheese.
Sunday I had wanted to go to Speakers Corner, this place in Hyde Park where people have been gathering since the Commonwealth to kind of rant their idea's at people. But when we got off the tube it was raining. We still went.. but it was kind of soggy and I was kind of bummed because Hyde Park is so pretty, and even though it was still really pretty in the rain it would have been nice if it was sunny for the last day. Even still we stuck around and listened to this guy yell about "Global Citizenship" for about 20 minutes and then walked through Hyde Park for a little. He also wanted to see Buckingham Palace, so we walked over to that before hopping on the tube and coming back.
This week was pretty much spent in recovery from last week and doing work for two weeks from now so I can enjoy this next week that's coming up...if that made any sense. The one kind of cool thing I did do was a semi-guided walk for one of my classes. I'm taking a course called "Representing London: 18th Century Literature" which is really much more of a history class than an English class, but as it took me on a great walk yesterday I'm not going to complain to much about it right now. But it took me through all different parts of the city and to see things that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
We started at Holborn Station and went to Lincoln's Inn Fields which was a fashionable address and there were executions in the park they surround... a bit of a disconnect, I know. Then we headed past St. Georges at Bloomsbury, the church the rich requested be built so they wouldn't have to go through the Seven Dials area to get to church. Afterwards we headed to the Seven Dials, by way of Monmouth Street which used to be be incredibly poor and sell second hand clothes. Today it is pretty hip and sells vintage clothes... so I guess not much of a stretch. The Seven Dials themselves were pretty cool though. The Seven Dials are a seven faced sundial on top of a pillar at a point where seven roads used to meet at a roundabout. Now there are only 5 roads, but the effect is still the same. Fairly confusing and chaotic, but it was a pretty cool thing to see. From there we walked to Covent Garden Opera house and the Bow Street Magistrates. Next to Covent Garden and St. Pauls, which was really fun for me because all I was thinking about in this general area was My Fair Lady. After that our walk took us to St. Martins-in-the-fields church next to Trafalgar square, through St. James, by Parliament and into St. James Park. At that point I opted to stop and go back to do research (we had to write a walking journal on it, which I finished last night, which included additional research), but there were two more legs including Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus... so essentially we covered a HUGE amount of land in a very short time. But our walking hand out provided us with all kinds of historical background so it was really cool to see what these places once were and what they've transformed into.
This next trip I've been alluding to should be pretty fun as well. The first half Julie, Hanna and I are heading to Rome to meet up with Nina, Vanessa (her boyfriend Jessie), Natalie, Liza and Amber. We're staying until Sunday and then Julie, Hanna, Amber and I are taking a train to Paris and staying in Paris until Wednesday. Justin will get into London around the same time I get back from Paris on Wednesday so we're hanging out for the night and then flying to Venice the next morning, spending Friday and Saturday there and then taking the train to Munich, spending Sunday there and then taking a train to Copenhagen and spending Monday and Tuesday there. So its two pretty big trips, but I'm really excited! I'll try to be better about updates, especially with this next big thing!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A busy weekend!
So I have a lot here!
Thursday night my friends and I went to a premiere screening of Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna as a part of the London BFI Film Festival, which I was pretty excited about because I'd wanted to see it since mid-August. So, when we got to the theater we couldn't actually get in because there was a huge crowd outside looking at these limos. We didn't really know what was going on but we kind of figured that maybe there was another movie on before ours and that someone had come to see it and were now leaving the theater. So we decided to get Ben & Jerry's before the movie rather than stare at some poor actors. When we finally got into the theater we were a little bummed out because our seats were in the second row of the theater and the movie was getting close to 15 minutes late starting. Then all of a sudden this woman came on stage and started talking about the movie and how excited they were to have it in the festival and then welcomed the director... Spike Lee.... to come on stage to talk about his movie... about 10 feet away from where we were sitting. So that was incredibly cool, first of all to see Spike Lee, but also to hear him speak about his own work before we saw it. It was just a very cool and jarring experience. The movie itself is absolutely phenomenal and I totally recommend it, its probably the best war movie I've ever seen.
Then Friday morning was the tip off to an incredibly busy week. My friends and I are playing hostesses to 5 different people over the next week. So Friday morning our friend Amber arrived from Paris, where she is studying. Friday we all just hung around the East End and caught up. Saturday Hanna, Amber and I went to the Tower of London for the day, which was pretty cool. I wish we had had more time to spend there, we woke up pretty late so we arrived around 1:30 and it's such a huge place. I think you could easily spend a full day there, there was just so much crammed into that one space! Today we went to the Tate Modern which was pretty cool as well. I'm not the biggest fan of modern art but I really enjoyed myself and really liked a lot of the art that we saw. The museum itself I think may be one of the ugliest and scariest buildings I've ever seen. It just looks like this huge, looming ominous building. I felt like I was going into a prison. The inside isn't as horrible, but it isn't particularly welcoming either. You could really tell that they do a lot of moving things around because the building is set up almost like a giant loading dock.. so I was a little disappointed with that. I feel like art should be in a more welcoming setting, seeing as how it tends to intimidate people on its own without the help of brutalist architecture.
I'm not entirely sure what are plans are for tomorrow, but Amber leaves in the evening around the same time that my roommate from school Nina and my friend Vanessa are arriving with another girl from Muhlenberg to stay till Thursday. They'll leave on Thursday night and then Justin is coming to visit on Friday for the weekend! Luckily I've finished all my school work for the week so I can just enjoy everyone's company but its going to be pretty crazy if not really fun!
Thursday night my friends and I went to a premiere screening of Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna as a part of the London BFI Film Festival, which I was pretty excited about because I'd wanted to see it since mid-August. So, when we got to the theater we couldn't actually get in because there was a huge crowd outside looking at these limos. We didn't really know what was going on but we kind of figured that maybe there was another movie on before ours and that someone had come to see it and were now leaving the theater. So we decided to get Ben & Jerry's before the movie rather than stare at some poor actors. When we finally got into the theater we were a little bummed out because our seats were in the second row of the theater and the movie was getting close to 15 minutes late starting. Then all of a sudden this woman came on stage and started talking about the movie and how excited they were to have it in the festival and then welcomed the director... Spike Lee.... to come on stage to talk about his movie... about 10 feet away from where we were sitting. So that was incredibly cool, first of all to see Spike Lee, but also to hear him speak about his own work before we saw it. It was just a very cool and jarring experience. The movie itself is absolutely phenomenal and I totally recommend it, its probably the best war movie I've ever seen.
Then Friday morning was the tip off to an incredibly busy week. My friends and I are playing hostesses to 5 different people over the next week. So Friday morning our friend Amber arrived from Paris, where she is studying. Friday we all just hung around the East End and caught up. Saturday Hanna, Amber and I went to the Tower of London for the day, which was pretty cool. I wish we had had more time to spend there, we woke up pretty late so we arrived around 1:30 and it's such a huge place. I think you could easily spend a full day there, there was just so much crammed into that one space! Today we went to the Tate Modern which was pretty cool as well. I'm not the biggest fan of modern art but I really enjoyed myself and really liked a lot of the art that we saw. The museum itself I think may be one of the ugliest and scariest buildings I've ever seen. It just looks like this huge, looming ominous building. I felt like I was going into a prison. The inside isn't as horrible, but it isn't particularly welcoming either. You could really tell that they do a lot of moving things around because the building is set up almost like a giant loading dock.. so I was a little disappointed with that. I feel like art should be in a more welcoming setting, seeing as how it tends to intimidate people on its own without the help of brutalist architecture.
I'm not entirely sure what are plans are for tomorrow, but Amber leaves in the evening around the same time that my roommate from school Nina and my friend Vanessa are arriving with another girl from Muhlenberg to stay till Thursday. They'll leave on Thursday night and then Justin is coming to visit on Friday for the weekend! Luckily I've finished all my school work for the week so I can just enjoy everyone's company but its going to be pretty crazy if not really fun!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Edinburgh and Highland's Bus Tour
This past weekend was probably one of the busiest weekends I've ever had, but also a really good one! After class on Friday Julie, Hanna and I got on a train to Edinburgh. We only had about 45 minutes from when our class was over to get to the station, so it was kind of an adventure but we made it there ok! The ride took a while and I slept most of it, but the latter part of it we were riding by the ocean so it was really pretty. When we got to Edinburgh we met Justin and then walked through the rain to our hostel which was REALLY nice. We were all starving so we walked up the road and found this really random Italian restaurant. We were the only people there and they were playing like 3 year old weird American pop music... so it was a pretty surreal experience.
The next day Justin and I had to be checked out by 10 so we all woke up really early and went to Edinburgh castle. I had really wanted to go because when I was here for the Fringe I never got to go, so I was pretty excited. It was cool but I wish it had been cooler. It's a pretty functioning facility because it's been in use up till the 50's/60's as a prison during various wars... and other things. So a lot of the castley aspects of it are no longer in existence. The parts that did still exist they had filled with these creepy mannequins that seemed like they were going to come alive. So it was a cool place, but they sort of tried too hard with it. There were two parts of it that I did really enjoy though. The Scottish National War Monument was really beautiful. It's a WWI memorial placed in an old Cathedral with really beautiful carvings, stained glass and sculptures. There were also books full of all the peoples names who served and where and what years. It was just really pretty and peaceful and felt really appropriate, somehow. The other place I really liked was St. Margaret's Chapel, which was this TINY little chapel dedicated to Queen Margaret (...no clue who she is) when she was dying, and it had a really pretty little altar and stained glass. We couldn't actually get in the first time we were there because there was a baptism, so it's kind of cool that its actually a functioning place as opposed to a tourist attraction. (Double standard-- I like that it's still used but I didn't like how they sort of disneyfied things)
Afterwards we went and had a really long lunch. First we went to the Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and then next door to this Italian restaurant that had really good deserts. Afterwards we started down the Royal Mile and stopped in at St. Giles Cathedral. I wish I could have taken pictures inside because it's such a cool old church, I've never seen one quite like it. It had all these segments of vaulted ceilings and niches with different things in them. My favorite part was Thistle Chapel which is a little chapel off to the side with all of these incredibly intricate and ornate woodcarvings on the seats of mythical creatures and animals. Afterwards we walked all the way down to the other end of the Royal Mile to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It's a really beautiful place, but I got annoyed with the audio tour pretty quickly because I didn't really care too much about the Queen's place settings. But Mary Queen of Scott's apartments were really cool and the stories the audio tour told about those were quite interesting. I also really loved walking through the ruins of the Abbey outside and the grounds. It's just a really beautiful and scenic place.
After that we walked back up the Royal Mile and tried to kill some time before we went on our ghost tour/walk thing. We went on a "ghosts and ghouls" tour of the city's underground vaults where the poor lived and people with the plague were placed. First we walked around above ground for a while and heard ghost stories and then we went underground and heard a few stories and then accounts of peoples experiences in the vaults with "ghosts". I was actually terrified down there, each room had its own feel and the last one we were in was supposed to be haunted by this ghost called Mr. Boots who wears knee length leather boots, has no eyes and smells like whiskey. The room was just really cold and in the middle of the guide's story there was this scary rattling from the corner, which looked like it scared her too. So all in all it was just a really unsettling experience. Of course me being the nerd that I am, I want to go back some day and do a more historical tour of the vaults because I think they're really interesting and want to learn more about how they were used.
After the tour Justin and I ran back to the hostel and then ran to the train station to take the train back to St. Andrews to go on the Highlands Bus tour the next day. The next morning we got on the bus at 8:30 and drove through some really pretty scenery before getting to the Wallace Monument... conveniently located at the top of a really steep hill. So we climbed the hill and our tour guide told us the "True Story of William Wallace" vs. The Braveheart version, which was pretty cool. There was a really beautiful view of the Stirling region as well as Stirling Castle, and the monument itself was pretty impressive. Next we went to Doune Castle where all of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. Which was, again, in a beautiful area and we walked around there for a bit. Next we stopped off at this weird place onthe side of the road who's only claim to fame was having a Highland Bull named Hamish that they've turned into a franchise and sell t-shirts and stuff for. So we stopped there for a while and took pictures of Hamish. Then we went to Lock Katrine which was really beautiful, drove to the village of Aberfoyle and ate. We drove through Trossachs National Park and heard the story of Rob Roy and then stopped at Loch Lomond-- again very pretty, and then headed back to St. Andrews.
So a very full weekend, but totally worth it. I slept until 2 today to recover! Hopefully I'll have more to tell you soon, until then I've just updated pictures!
The next day Justin and I had to be checked out by 10 so we all woke up really early and went to Edinburgh castle. I had really wanted to go because when I was here for the Fringe I never got to go, so I was pretty excited. It was cool but I wish it had been cooler. It's a pretty functioning facility because it's been in use up till the 50's/60's as a prison during various wars... and other things. So a lot of the castley aspects of it are no longer in existence. The parts that did still exist they had filled with these creepy mannequins that seemed like they were going to come alive. So it was a cool place, but they sort of tried too hard with it. There were two parts of it that I did really enjoy though. The Scottish National War Monument was really beautiful. It's a WWI memorial placed in an old Cathedral with really beautiful carvings, stained glass and sculptures. There were also books full of all the peoples names who served and where and what years. It was just really pretty and peaceful and felt really appropriate, somehow. The other place I really liked was St. Margaret's Chapel, which was this TINY little chapel dedicated to Queen Margaret (...no clue who she is) when she was dying, and it had a really pretty little altar and stained glass. We couldn't actually get in the first time we were there because there was a baptism, so it's kind of cool that its actually a functioning place as opposed to a tourist attraction. (Double standard-- I like that it's still used but I didn't like how they sort of disneyfied things)
Afterwards we went and had a really long lunch. First we went to the Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and then next door to this Italian restaurant that had really good deserts. Afterwards we started down the Royal Mile and stopped in at St. Giles Cathedral. I wish I could have taken pictures inside because it's such a cool old church, I've never seen one quite like it. It had all these segments of vaulted ceilings and niches with different things in them. My favorite part was Thistle Chapel which is a little chapel off to the side with all of these incredibly intricate and ornate woodcarvings on the seats of mythical creatures and animals. Afterwards we walked all the way down to the other end of the Royal Mile to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It's a really beautiful place, but I got annoyed with the audio tour pretty quickly because I didn't really care too much about the Queen's place settings. But Mary Queen of Scott's apartments were really cool and the stories the audio tour told about those were quite interesting. I also really loved walking through the ruins of the Abbey outside and the grounds. It's just a really beautiful and scenic place.
After that we walked back up the Royal Mile and tried to kill some time before we went on our ghost tour/walk thing. We went on a "ghosts and ghouls" tour of the city's underground vaults where the poor lived and people with the plague were placed. First we walked around above ground for a while and heard ghost stories and then we went underground and heard a few stories and then accounts of peoples experiences in the vaults with "ghosts". I was actually terrified down there, each room had its own feel and the last one we were in was supposed to be haunted by this ghost called Mr. Boots who wears knee length leather boots, has no eyes and smells like whiskey. The room was just really cold and in the middle of the guide's story there was this scary rattling from the corner, which looked like it scared her too. So all in all it was just a really unsettling experience. Of course me being the nerd that I am, I want to go back some day and do a more historical tour of the vaults because I think they're really interesting and want to learn more about how they were used.
After the tour Justin and I ran back to the hostel and then ran to the train station to take the train back to St. Andrews to go on the Highlands Bus tour the next day. The next morning we got on the bus at 8:30 and drove through some really pretty scenery before getting to the Wallace Monument... conveniently located at the top of a really steep hill. So we climbed the hill and our tour guide told us the "True Story of William Wallace" vs. The Braveheart version, which was pretty cool. There was a really beautiful view of the Stirling region as well as Stirling Castle, and the monument itself was pretty impressive. Next we went to Doune Castle where all of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. Which was, again, in a beautiful area and we walked around there for a bit. Next we stopped off at this weird place onthe side of the road who's only claim to fame was having a Highland Bull named Hamish that they've turned into a franchise and sell t-shirts and stuff for. So we stopped there for a while and took pictures of Hamish. Then we went to Lock Katrine which was really beautiful, drove to the village of Aberfoyle and ate. We drove through Trossachs National Park and heard the story of Rob Roy and then stopped at Loch Lomond-- again very pretty, and then headed back to St. Andrews.
So a very full weekend, but totally worth it. I slept until 2 today to recover! Hopefully I'll have more to tell you soon, until then I've just updated pictures!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Playing Catch-up
Sorry I've taken so long to get back to this, things have been a bit of a blur recently, with classes and traveling! I've been a bit more consistent with updating my pictures so hopefully you've seen some of those (I think I've invited you.. if not please let me know).
Time has been going by so quickly! It seems like 2 weeks ago was last week. Classes are still good, very different in format and the expectations are also very different. But its good to be exposed to new things every now and then :)
Before I left for St. Andrews, Hanna and I went to Trafalgar Square and did a quick run through the National Gallery. Both were pretty cool. I feel as though Trafalgar Square is sort of one of those things that gets written off as a HUGE tourist attraction (which it is) and not that cool, but it actually was a really nice place to visit. The fountains around the monument were really pretty, and Hanna and I had fun attempting to climb on it to get to the lions... a nice lady even decided that I needed help on the way up and decided to push on my shoe.. I thought she was attacking me. Oh well! The National Gallery is also somewhere I'd love to go back to and spend more time on, London is totally full of rainy day places (conveniently because it is a rainy city) that you can pop in and out of and do in small chunks, so I really want to head back. While we were there we saw a little bit of Monet and van Gogh and a special exhibit about Love which was pretty interesting.
That weekend I went to visit Justin at St. Andrews in Scotland. First off, I'm so jealous that he gets to spend so much time there. Scotland is probably one of the most beautiful places I will ever see and St. Andrews is absolutely no exception. The town is really cute and small, very collegey so its a really nice set up. We went to the ruins of the St. Andrews Castle one day, and went into the Mine and Countermine... apparently during one of the attacks on the castle the opposing forces thought it would be best to actually dig under the castle to attack it, so the inhabitants of the castle created a countermine to fight back... so basically there was a battle fought in these three foot high under ground mines... which we then went into. So that was pretty adventurous, it took a little convincing to get me down there, but while we were down there I saw a section that was barred off and thought to myself "If I was a little kid, that is absolutely the first place I would want to go.. and would have started running into it right about... now" So I guess I wanted to go down there more than I thought I did! The next day we went to the ruins of the Cathedral, which was absolutely incredible. Its just this huge crumbling structure that's been converted into a graveyard for the town. So it's a bit of a strange tourist attraction. I was unsure of how to behave and what the proper etiquette for it was because it is literally filled with graves. But it was also quite cool seeing how far the graves went back, and reading the headstones. After the Cathedral we went down to the pier that sticks out into the North Sea, and that was really beautiful as well. So to summarize. St. Andrews = Beautiful.
Last week I really just kinda went to class and did my thing. Friday night I ran into an old camp councilor at a live music club, so it was nice to see him and catch up for a bit.
Yesterday I ventured out and went to the British Museum for a while, which was an interesting experience. I looked at the Egyptian and Greek sculptures (specifically the sculpture taken from the Parthenon) and really enjoyed what I was seeing, but at the same time felt kind of distanced from it. It felt really strange to be seeing an enormous Egyptian sculpture in the middle of a museum and even stranger to see the Parthenon in so far away from where it should be. I feel like I didn't get to appreciate it as much as I would have otherwise.
Today I wandered around Green Park, did a circle of Buckingham Palace and wrote for a bit in Wellington square. Later I wandered around Harrods, and wished I could pay for everything!
More later:)
Time has been going by so quickly! It seems like 2 weeks ago was last week. Classes are still good, very different in format and the expectations are also very different. But its good to be exposed to new things every now and then :)
Before I left for St. Andrews, Hanna and I went to Trafalgar Square and did a quick run through the National Gallery. Both were pretty cool. I feel as though Trafalgar Square is sort of one of those things that gets written off as a HUGE tourist attraction (which it is) and not that cool, but it actually was a really nice place to visit. The fountains around the monument were really pretty, and Hanna and I had fun attempting to climb on it to get to the lions... a nice lady even decided that I needed help on the way up and decided to push on my shoe.. I thought she was attacking me. Oh well! The National Gallery is also somewhere I'd love to go back to and spend more time on, London is totally full of rainy day places (conveniently because it is a rainy city) that you can pop in and out of and do in small chunks, so I really want to head back. While we were there we saw a little bit of Monet and van Gogh and a special exhibit about Love which was pretty interesting.
That weekend I went to visit Justin at St. Andrews in Scotland. First off, I'm so jealous that he gets to spend so much time there. Scotland is probably one of the most beautiful places I will ever see and St. Andrews is absolutely no exception. The town is really cute and small, very collegey so its a really nice set up. We went to the ruins of the St. Andrews Castle one day, and went into the Mine and Countermine... apparently during one of the attacks on the castle the opposing forces thought it would be best to actually dig under the castle to attack it, so the inhabitants of the castle created a countermine to fight back... so basically there was a battle fought in these three foot high under ground mines... which we then went into. So that was pretty adventurous, it took a little convincing to get me down there, but while we were down there I saw a section that was barred off and thought to myself "If I was a little kid, that is absolutely the first place I would want to go.. and would have started running into it right about... now" So I guess I wanted to go down there more than I thought I did! The next day we went to the ruins of the Cathedral, which was absolutely incredible. Its just this huge crumbling structure that's been converted into a graveyard for the town. So it's a bit of a strange tourist attraction. I was unsure of how to behave and what the proper etiquette for it was because it is literally filled with graves. But it was also quite cool seeing how far the graves went back, and reading the headstones. After the Cathedral we went down to the pier that sticks out into the North Sea, and that was really beautiful as well. So to summarize. St. Andrews = Beautiful.
Last week I really just kinda went to class and did my thing. Friday night I ran into an old camp councilor at a live music club, so it was nice to see him and catch up for a bit.
Yesterday I ventured out and went to the British Museum for a while, which was an interesting experience. I looked at the Egyptian and Greek sculptures (specifically the sculpture taken from the Parthenon) and really enjoyed what I was seeing, but at the same time felt kind of distanced from it. It felt really strange to be seeing an enormous Egyptian sculpture in the middle of a museum and even stranger to see the Parthenon in so far away from where it should be. I feel like I didn't get to appreciate it as much as I would have otherwise.
Today I wandered around Green Park, did a circle of Buckingham Palace and wrote for a bit in Wellington square. Later I wandered around Harrods, and wished I could pay for everything!
More later:)
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Tourism!
So I've managed to survive the first week! It feels like I've been here for much longer and I'm really enjoying myself :) Yesterday was the first day that we really ventured out to look around the center of London, my friend Hanna hurt her foot so she was out of commission for a bit so we really stuck around campus getting set up last week. But yesterday we ventured out to St. Paul's Cathedral. I'd been there before but it was great to go again. On the way to the Cathedral we came through this little square called Paternoster Square that I really loved. Hopefully before it gets too cold I'll be able to go back there and write or do work.
Me in front of the Paternoster Column, in Paternoster Square
Me in front of the Paternoster Column, in Paternoster SquareWe climbed all the way to the top, which is somewhere over a thousand stairs so it was a bit of a hike. But it was completely worth it, the view from both the stone and golden galleries are absolutely incredible. We also went down to the Crypt and looked around and we could hear the choir practicing through some of the doors so that was pretty neat. Also right before we went into the Cathedral we saw a wedding party on the stairs on one of the sides, so they must've been married about 30 minutes before we arrived. So the three of us then spent a little bit of time thinking about how cool/ expensive that would be.
After St. Paul's we went across the street to this place called Yo! Sushi, it's a little sushi chain where they make little bowls that go on a conveyor belt and you sit at the bar and pick what you want as it passes, and it is priced by the color of the bowl.
Today we wandered around Kensington Park, which was really wonderful. We walked around Kensington Palace and saw the Sunken Garden. We hunted down Peter Pan and then went to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. It was probably the most incredible and wonderful park I've ever been to, there were people and families everywhere. Everyone had their dog and they were running around chasing squirrels. We even saw one little teeny Chihuahua near the Peter Pan statue named "Marmite" who looked like a little squirrel who kept stopping to try and eat cigarette butts.. for some reason his parents didn't have him on a leash and he kept trailing behind because he was so small, so they had to keep doubling back to get him. Needless to say Marmite got a good talking to, but he was very cute.
Everything is going well! I've sent you all emails to see more of my pictures at snapfish.com, if there is a problem let me know and I'll invite you again! I'm struggling with formatting this with pictures in a way I like so that's probably the best bet to see pictures of what I'm doing!
After St. Paul's we went across the street to this place called Yo! Sushi, it's a little sushi chain where they make little bowls that go on a conveyor belt and you sit at the bar and pick what you want as it passes, and it is priced by the color of the bowl.
Today we wandered around Kensington Park, which was really wonderful. We walked around Kensington Palace and saw the Sunken Garden. We hunted down Peter Pan and then went to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. It was probably the most incredible and wonderful park I've ever been to, there were people and families everywhere. Everyone had their dog and they were running around chasing squirrels. We even saw one little teeny Chihuahua near the Peter Pan statue named "Marmite" who looked like a little squirrel who kept stopping to try and eat cigarette butts.. for some reason his parents didn't have him on a leash and he kept trailing behind because he was so small, so they had to keep doubling back to get him. Needless to say Marmite got a good talking to, but he was very cute.
Everything is going well! I've sent you all emails to see more of my pictures at snapfish.com, if there is a problem let me know and I'll invite you again! I'm struggling with formatting this with pictures in a way I like so that's probably the best bet to see pictures of what I'm doing!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Jack The Ripper--Days Two and Three
First Night Together!
Julie and Hanna after we found Sainsburys
Me after arriving!
Sunday we tried to do some basic shopping for our rooms (fitted sheets, toilet paper, food) pretty essential stuff, and that pretty much took all day. The school gave us directions to this store called "Sainsbury's" which is sort of like a Walmart equivalent... only they don't sell quite as many things, its primarily a grocery store and drug store. However, the directions they gave us pretty much took us on an hour long trip down Mile End Road to nowhere. So finally we stopped at a Starbucks to regroup and then turned around. We then asked a man for directions, first he gave us wrong directions (apparently it's fun to direct American's int he wrong direction) and then gave us the right directions...which looked wrong. He told us to turn down this street that just looked like bad news so we decided it was the wrong street and kept looking... aimlessly. Finally we went back to the bad street and found the store! Only to find that they were completely out of hangers and that our clothes had to remain on the floor until the new shipment arrived.
After that we tracked back to our flat and took a little nap and then we made dinner with our roommates. We cooked pasta and salad in our kitchen and one of our other roommates "made himself a curry"... which I'm still trying to figure out what it means, but it smelled nice. Then we all played poker or the boys played and the girls learned. My flat mates are wonderful, they're all very nice and very funny so living with them should definitely be a really wonderful experience.
After dinner the three of us and our roommate Anita decided to go to this bar event on campus, which was pretty fun if not a very bad idea because we had orientation the next morning...as I do in about 4 hours right now but I cant sleep.
Orientation this morning was somewhat ridiculous. There was really no useful information, because all of the healthcare benefits and student discounts on public transportation only apply to students who are studying for longer than study abroad students...so it was a lot of information that didn't apply to anyone in the room. It was also pretty entertaining because the man in charge of Study Abroad was describing the area, which is fairly interesting and desperately trying to show it in a good light. We are on the East end of London (a mile outside the city) and about 5 blocks away from the "Jack the Ripper" area in Whitechapel. The area is incredibly diverse, in fact I don't think I've ever been anywhere quite like it. It's mostly Bangladeshi and Somalian...and other names I don't remember. We're in Tower Hamlets which is the poorest area of London, and as such it's generally where people come to live first when they move to London to kind of start out and then they move on to nicer neighborhoods. Having said all that... the area looks pretty cool to me, maybe a little grungy but nothing to get upset about. But you could kind of tell that the poor guy was trying to put us on our guard about crime without scaring us, and he just did a really bad job. It's the kind of thing where the bigger the deal you make about it being fairly safe, but still dangerous ... you can tell that things are pretty bad, or at least pretty bad for the standards of the country. Having said that again, I still feel pretty safe and I like the area so yay.
Afterwards we ordered Dominos and went to bed...or at least I attempted to go to bed for like the last 6 hours and now here I am awake, with 3 hours before my alarm goes off. Oh well, I have to work on my sleeping patterns!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Day One, But Definately More Than One Day
Well I made it! Even if it was kind of messy getting to that point. I ended up going through security alone because my friends missed the plane (which has sort of been my mantra for the past 48 hours) so I was feeling kind of alone and sad but then I got to the terminal and two other people from my school-- Dan and Sarah-- were there so that made the trip much easier.
The flight wasn't really bad at all. I watched Zohan again, tried to sleep and wrote something that is probably completely delusional in my travel diary. We made it through customs/ immigration pretty quickly and got our bags pretty quickly. But then we had this HUGE journey through Heathrow which was two train rides and then finally a bus ride (1 1/2 hours) to Queen Mary... all of which I did in heels, because I am a very silly person.
My room is very nice and the people I'm living with also seem very nice. They are all 1st years.. I am an old lady and based on my age I would be a 3rd year or graduating, so theres an interesting age gap situation going on.
I attempted to do a little shopping and took a huge nap which was really nice, and now I'm supposed to go to some event at a bar on campus which I think I'm going to go to for a little and then come back because I'm just kind of dead, but we'll see how it goes. It may be fun, who knows?! Actually I'm sure it will be fun, I'm just going alone so its kind of weird. No one I traveled over with had a cell phone really figured out so I cant really get in touch with anyone, but I'm weirdly not that bothered by it. I'm strangely relaxed with my relative isolation at the moment. Or at least as isolated as you can be on a college campus. Anyhow, tomorrow is another day and the important thing is that I made it here in one piece with all of my things and no confusion :)
The flight wasn't really bad at all. I watched Zohan again, tried to sleep and wrote something that is probably completely delusional in my travel diary. We made it through customs/ immigration pretty quickly and got our bags pretty quickly. But then we had this HUGE journey through Heathrow which was two train rides and then finally a bus ride (1 1/2 hours) to Queen Mary... all of which I did in heels, because I am a very silly person.
My room is very nice and the people I'm living with also seem very nice. They are all 1st years.. I am an old lady and based on my age I would be a 3rd year or graduating, so theres an interesting age gap situation going on.
I attempted to do a little shopping and took a huge nap which was really nice, and now I'm supposed to go to some event at a bar on campus which I think I'm going to go to for a little and then come back because I'm just kind of dead, but we'll see how it goes. It may be fun, who knows?! Actually I'm sure it will be fun, I'm just going alone so its kind of weird. No one I traveled over with had a cell phone really figured out so I cant really get in touch with anyone, but I'm weirdly not that bothered by it. I'm strangely relaxed with my relative isolation at the moment. Or at least as isolated as you can be on a college campus. Anyhow, tomorrow is another day and the important thing is that I made it here in one piece with all of my things and no confusion :)
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