SO yesterday I went to Charles Dickens' house with my British Literature class. It's really interesting to see all these authors' houses and be able to stand in the same places Dickens did when he was writing some of his best-known novels. I'm not a huge Dickens fan, but still it's pretty cool.
After dinner my friends and I took the obscenely crowded Bakerloo Line to a blues bar called Nothing But The..., where there was a live band playing. It was one of the smallest bars I've seen in London, which made for a really cozy feeling. Until everyone else got there. By the time the band started playing, there must have been about 100 people in that little room. We had luckily gotten a table early, but the majority of people stood by the bar. You had to literally push people to get through. So that was an adventure.
Windsor Castle
TODAY we went on a field trip to Windsor Castle. It was about a half-hour train ride north of London, and it was nice to get out of the city for a little bit. The air was so clean! The castle was beautiful, too - I couldn't believe how old it was. We had a perfect day to go. Although cold, it was beautiful and the sky was clear blue. Inside the castle, we took an audio tour that lasted what seemed like forever. Nevertheless, the castle was beautiful, with lots of paintings and really ornately decorated rooms. It was incredibly regal... which is fitting, since the Queen lives there most weekends.
The town around Windsor Castle was clearly aimed at tourists - there were hundreds of shops and restaurants in the small town. It was cute, but clearly not the classic English town I'd like to see.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
on an unrelated note, the big news is
I AM GOING TO BE THE PAGE DESIGN INTERN AT THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE THIS SUMMER.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
maybe i should just wear dirty clothes...
We did laundry for the first time today. After hearing horror stories about how expensive and terrible the laundry here is, I tried to put off doing laundry for as long as I could. Luckily I had enough clothes that I didn't have to wear a lot of clothes over and over. Everyone was right about how awful the laundry was – we paid £3 per load and £1 for 15 minutes of drying time. I couldn't believe how expensive it was. And my clothes weren't even close to dry, so now they're all hanging up in my flat.
This morning we went to Hyde Park. On Sundays, local artists display their artwork all along the gate to the park. It was a beautiful morning, so we spent some time walking around there.
That's about all we did today.
Cheers!
This morning we went to Hyde Park. On Sundays, local artists display their artwork all along the gate to the park. It was a beautiful morning, so we spent some time walking around there.
That's about all we did today.
Cheers!
just pretend like this is wales
Kyle posing as Sherlock Holmes in the museumYesterday... what an adventure. We though we would tag along with some other girls who were going to Wales. Their bus was leaving at 8 a.m., so we were going to leave around 7 to be able to get to the station and buy tickets. We ended up leaving at 7:30, ran to the underground station and got to on train, nervously looking at our watches as the departure time crept closer and closer. We made it to the bus station with ten minutes to spare, ran through the terminal to the ticket counter... and there was a huge line. Dang. And the next bus didn't leave till 9:30, and it was a three hour bus ride, and it gets dark so early here...
So we let the other girls go without us.
Maybe next week.
Instead, Kyle and I went to 221b Baker Street, where Sherlock Homes was supposed to have lived, if he had been real. We got off at the Baker Street tube stop, and wandered around the neighborhood for a while until we decided to ask a shopkeeper where the museum was. He kinda laughed at us and said, 'Why would you want to go there?' A bad sign. He gave us directions anyway, so we went.
The house is not very big, and the cost of a 'museum tour' was £6. I'm not sure it was worth it; it was just a couple of rooms with period furnishings. One room had life-size wax figures of crime scenes from the books, so it was kind of funny to pose with them, but other than that I was pretty disappointed.
For dinner yesterday Kyle and I had kind of a date at a sushi bar on the South Bank. I really enjoyed it: there was a conveyor belt with all kinds of sushi on different colored plates on it. Each color was a different price, ranging from £1.70 to about £5. You could pick off whatever you wanted, and at the end they counted the number of plates and gave you the bill based on that. I thought it was delicious.
Cheers!
Friday, January 25, 2008
not much happened today, except...
Today I woke up and I didn't feel good. I had some kind of 24-hour sickness, so I spent most of the day in bed lying on the couch feeling bad.
I got over it though as soon as I got an email from the Colorado Springs Gazette that said they wanted to talk to me again after my first interview on Wednesday. So I called them back and they said
THEY WANT ME TO BE THEIR ONE SUMMER DESIGN INTERN!!
Oh My Gosh
That totally, totally made my day. I have until Monday to tell them that I accept... It's hard because it's so early that I might get another offer closer to home later on, and if I already have accepted this one I might be stuck. What a quandary. I'm emailing other places today, to let them know that I have this offer. Wow!
So I guess I'm going to Wales tomorrow with my friends Tabitha and Heather and Kyle. It was kind of sudden, they just kind of mentioned it and we invited ourselves along. We're leaving tomorrow at 7:15 a.m., so I guess I should go to bed.
Cheers!
I got over it though as soon as I got an email from the Colorado Springs Gazette that said they wanted to talk to me again after my first interview on Wednesday. So I called them back and they said
THEY WANT ME TO BE THEIR ONE SUMMER DESIGN INTERN!!
Oh My Gosh
That totally, totally made my day. I have until Monday to tell them that I accept... It's hard because it's so early that I might get another offer closer to home later on, and if I already have accepted this one I might be stuck. What a quandary. I'm emailing other places today, to let them know that I have this offer. Wow!
So I guess I'm going to Wales tomorrow with my friends Tabitha and Heather and Kyle. It was kind of sudden, they just kind of mentioned it and we invited ourselves along. We're leaving tomorrow at 7:15 a.m., so I guess I should go to bed.
Cheers!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
sir soane and the loose women
Today was fun. Instead of having art history in the classroom, we went to Sir Soane's Museum. Our professor called it a "cabinet of curiosity," which he said was something that was popular in the late 1700s as a way of entertaining guests. It's basically a collection of random things that can range from a physical cabinet to – like in Sir Soane's case – the entire house. The highlight for me was the sarcophagus from Seti I. It's probably the closest I've been to an actual Egyptian artifact – we were close enough that I could see the hieroglyphics coving the inside and outside of the marble tomb. It's amazing how much work must have gone into creating the piece. I'd really like to know how it came to be in central London in the 1700s. Soane was an architect (he originally designed the Bank of England) so he had tons of Greek and Roman samples of architecture. All this stuff was packed into a tiny little house, about the size of a small townhouse in the United States. Despite its size, it was a really fascinating place to wander around.
Then as a entire group we went to the taping of this talk show called Loose Women. It's a lot like the View – four women discuss "current topics" like obesity and how they would date older men. I felt like my brain was going to fall out through my ears, but it was kind of cool to be on the set of an actual television show. And I might be on iTV Lifestyle tomorrow! So that's exciting. It was definitely aimed at a very specific audience: middle-aged women who need something to do in the afternoons. That's fine, but I felt bad for the nine men in the audience, including three from our group. Speaking of our group, others made sure everyone knew we were from AMERICA, and that we were AMERICANS and so we were LOUD. While the rest of the audience politely applauded, we yelled and clapped like, well, Americans. I think the only people who rivaled our obnoxiousness were the four drunk women in the front, who had apparently got tired of queuing and popped into the pub across the street before joining the rest of the audience. So at least we weren't the only ones making fools of ourselves.
Then I made pasta (they say paasta) and then here we are hanging out.
Cheers!
Then as a entire group we went to the taping of this talk show called Loose Women. It's a lot like the View – four women discuss "current topics" like obesity and how they would date older men. I felt like my brain was going to fall out through my ears, but it was kind of cool to be on the set of an actual television show. And I might be on iTV Lifestyle tomorrow! So that's exciting. It was definitely aimed at a very specific audience: middle-aged women who need something to do in the afternoons. That's fine, but I felt bad for the nine men in the audience, including three from our group. Speaking of our group, others made sure everyone knew we were from AMERICA, and that we were AMERICANS and so we were LOUD. While the rest of the audience politely applauded, we yelled and clapped like, well, Americans. I think the only people who rivaled our obnoxiousness were the four drunk women in the front, who had apparently got tired of queuing and popped into the pub across the street before joining the rest of the audience. So at least we weren't the only ones making fools of ourselves.
Then I made pasta (they say paasta) and then here we are hanging out.
Cheers!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
cooking, yay!
Yup, it's been a pretty good day today, and yesterday. Yesterday the Internet broke, so I wasn't able to post. Sorry!
Yesterday was a shopping day... Kyle, Amanda and I went to this place called Primark, which is like England's Target, but with even cooler clothes. And everything's ridiculously cheap, especially after London prices. I bought a pair of boots for £4. That's $8 - a steal even in the States. Boots are the big thing in London. Boots and scarves. Literally everyone has one or the other, or both. So I conformed.
Then we were famished so we went to a Tex-Mex restaurant. I've been craving Mexican food since I got here two weeks ago, so I was pretty excited to get some. This was not real Mexican food though. Not even close. Kyle got a burrito or something, and it came with baked beans. Not refried beans. Baked beans. Hmm. The decor left something to be desired, too: there were African masks and weird American Indian blankets on the walls. And they played polka music. So that was a disappointment.
But the day was not all a loss, though...
Yesterday we also went to something called the London Ice Bar. It was, as the name suggests, a bar made of ice. It was basically awesome. The walls were ice. The bar was ice. Even the glasses were ice. It was definitely an experience. The bar is owned by the same company who made the Ice Hotel in Sweeden. There, even the beds are ice. I'm not sure how much I would like that. They keep the bar at -4º F, so they make people leave after 45 minutes. Apparently you get hypothermia if you stay at that temperature for too long. I'm kind of glad they made us leave; my drink was gone and my fingers and toes were starting to go numb. Anyway, I'm glad I went.
That's basically all we did yesterday. Classes were pretty boring; I had J325 and Brit Lit, which are both not that interesting. Whoever made the schedule wasn't very bright; they scheduled the first class to end at 11, and the second one to start at 11. They didn't figure that we'd have to walk 20 minutes to get to the next class. So when the first prof (Popo) lets us out at 11:10, we get to Brit Lit half an hour late. It's really frustrating, and there's not really anything we can do about it; there's only about five out of the 25 kids in the class that have this problem.
Other than that, classes are fine.
Today was Wednesday, so we didn't have classes. Instead, we did a cooking exercise, where they made each flat go to different markets or grocery stores and try to make the same dish. My flat had to go to Tesco, one of the major grocery stores here. There's one right around the corner, but we had to go to one in Islington Greens. We were sort of upset about it at first, since we had to take two trains to get there, but once we got to the neighborhood we were glad we came. It's a beautiful neighborhood, with all kinds of shops and antique stores. I really enjoyed just walking around, and I look forward to going back when we don't have to carry bags of groceries.
We had to make something called Toad in the Hole. It sounds disgusting, but really it's not a bad dish. Lyndon says it's a working class dish aiming to use the least expensive food possible but still making it taste OK. It's sausages in a batter made of just milk and flour and eggs. Ours would have been delicious, but we kind of burned it. The oven in our flat is kind of weird. The door opens sideways, instead of down like in America, and then there's a glass panel after you open the door. I'm assuming it's because there isn't a window in the oven door, but it still makes regulating temperature sort of hard. In our competition, we got third out of 11, so I guess it didn't turn out that badly.
That's about all I did today. Yawn.
Cheers!
Yesterday was a shopping day... Kyle, Amanda and I went to this place called Primark, which is like England's Target, but with even cooler clothes. And everything's ridiculously cheap, especially after London prices. I bought a pair of boots for £4. That's $8 - a steal even in the States. Boots are the big thing in London. Boots and scarves. Literally everyone has one or the other, or both. So I conformed.
Then we were famished so we went to a Tex-Mex restaurant. I've been craving Mexican food since I got here two weeks ago, so I was pretty excited to get some. This was not real Mexican food though. Not even close. Kyle got a burrito or something, and it came with baked beans. Not refried beans. Baked beans. Hmm. The decor left something to be desired, too: there were African masks and weird American Indian blankets on the walls. And they played polka music. So that was a disappointment.
But the day was not all a loss, though...
Yesterday we also went to something called the London Ice Bar. It was, as the name suggests, a bar made of ice. It was basically awesome. The walls were ice. The bar was ice. Even the glasses were ice. It was definitely an experience. The bar is owned by the same company who made the Ice Hotel in Sweeden. There, even the beds are ice. I'm not sure how much I would like that. They keep the bar at -4º F, so they make people leave after 45 minutes. Apparently you get hypothermia if you stay at that temperature for too long. I'm kind of glad they made us leave; my drink was gone and my fingers and toes were starting to go numb. Anyway, I'm glad I went.
That's basically all we did yesterday. Classes were pretty boring; I had J325 and Brit Lit, which are both not that interesting. Whoever made the schedule wasn't very bright; they scheduled the first class to end at 11, and the second one to start at 11. They didn't figure that we'd have to walk 20 minutes to get to the next class. So when the first prof (Popo) lets us out at 11:10, we get to Brit Lit half an hour late. It's really frustrating, and there's not really anything we can do about it; there's only about five out of the 25 kids in the class that have this problem.
Other than that, classes are fine.
Today was Wednesday, so we didn't have classes. Instead, we did a cooking exercise, where they made each flat go to different markets or grocery stores and try to make the same dish. My flat had to go to Tesco, one of the major grocery stores here. There's one right around the corner, but we had to go to one in Islington Greens. We were sort of upset about it at first, since we had to take two trains to get there, but once we got to the neighborhood we were glad we came. It's a beautiful neighborhood, with all kinds of shops and antique stores. I really enjoyed just walking around, and I look forward to going back when we don't have to carry bags of groceries.
We had to make something called Toad in the Hole. It sounds disgusting, but really it's not a bad dish. Lyndon says it's a working class dish aiming to use the least expensive food possible but still making it taste OK. It's sausages in a batter made of just milk and flour and eggs. Ours would have been delicious, but we kind of burned it. The oven in our flat is kind of weird. The door opens sideways, instead of down like in America, and then there's a glass panel after you open the door. I'm assuming it's because there isn't a window in the oven door, but it still makes regulating temperature sort of hard. In our competition, we got third out of 11, so I guess it didn't turn out that badly.
That's about all I did today. Yawn.
Cheers!
Monday, January 21, 2008
NO DAY BUT TODAY
Today was a good day, despite the early morning class. It was our British Life and Culture class, and today we talked about food. We had a different professor, which made for a nice change of pace from Lyndon's composed-ness. You know what I mean. She brought a bunch of samples of British food, like black pudding (gross, gross, gross), Indian food (yum!), real Cheddar cheese (sharp!), pork pie (tasted like dog food) and a couple of sauces that weren't that great. We also got to see a demonstration of British tea from middle and working classes. We've been talking about class separations a lot. Apparently it's a lot more pronounced than in America, to the point that different classes have different terminology and ways to make tea. The presentation was a really cool way to present British culture; I really enjoyed it.
After class we hung out at the flat for a while, and then we went to...
RENT!
it was neat. I saw the movie, but didn't like it very much, so I went into the musical with a little apprehension. It really exceeded my expectations, though, so I had a really good time and thought it was really, really good. The theatre was small, so we had really good seats. Yay!
So overall a good day!!
Cheers
After class we hung out at the flat for a while, and then we went to...
RENT!
it was neat. I saw the movie, but didn't like it very much, so I went into the musical with a little apprehension. It really exceeded my expectations, though, so I had a really good time and thought it was really, really good. The theatre was small, so we had really good seats. Yay!
So overall a good day!!
Cheers
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Da zoo!
Today I went with a giant group to the London Zoo. We took the underground to Regent's Park, and then took a bus closer to the zoo. It was kind of cool; I hadn't used the buses very often.
The zoo was really nice! It was a bit smaller than I expected, but it had enough animals to keep us busy for two hours. There were a lot of really interesting exhibits, like a "dragon" exhibit with komodo dragons. My roommate Andrea was really excited to go to the reptile house because it's where they filmed part of the first Harry Potter movie. She's a huge fan, so I'm sure she was excited.
I really enjoyed the penguin exhibit; there were about 20 penguins, and the staff fed them while we watched. So cute!
That's about all we did...
Cheers!
Saturday, January 19, 2008
things i did these past two days
So yesterday, I didn't do much. Hung out. Walked around. Blah blah.
Today I went with a group to Portabello Road, which has a really nice, huge street market. We saw all kinds of stuff, and were there for about an hour but only saw about a third of the market... it was so neat. It's definitely somewhere I'd like to go back to.
After that, we went to Coven Gardens, which is a really really cool place with a lot of street performers. We saw a couple guys in weird costumes, which was cool, but the best part of the day was a guy who balanced on a 10-foot ladder and juggled knives while wearing a kilt. He was a great performer, and did a really good job of controlling the crowd. By the end of his performance, there was a crowd of at least 100 people around him. I was enthralled. I took a lot of pictures; I'll put them up tomorrow when the internet is working better. It definitely made my day.
That's about all that happened to me today. I saw that dog named Bear again. Overall a good day.
Cheers!
Today I went with a group to Portabello Road, which has a really nice, huge street market. We saw all kinds of stuff, and were there for about an hour but only saw about a third of the market... it was so neat. It's definitely somewhere I'd like to go back to.
After that, we went to Coven Gardens, which is a really really cool place with a lot of street performers. We saw a couple guys in weird costumes, which was cool, but the best part of the day was a guy who balanced on a 10-foot ladder and juggled knives while wearing a kilt. He was a great performer, and did a really good job of controlling the crowd. By the end of his performance, there was a crowd of at least 100 people around him. I was enthralled. I took a lot of pictures; I'll put them up tomorrow when the internet is working better. It definitely made my day.
That's about all that happened to me today. I saw that dog named Bear again. Overall a good day.
Cheers!
Friday, January 18, 2008
here's some photos... finally
This was a skate park on the south bank of the Thames. It's the only skate park in London, and right now people want to tear it down for more retail space.
St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge.
Tower Bridge
Thursday, January 17, 2008
SUPERBLOG
I'm just going to combine the previous two days' blogs into one giant one... so brace yourself.
YESTERDAY
Wednesdays we don't have actual classes; they're reserved for day trips around London. So yesterday we took a river tour with our British Life and Culture prof Lyndon. It was lucky - yesterday was the only day it didn't rain at all. So we started at Big Ben and the houses of Parliament, and walked east down the Thames River to Tower Bridge, which is that giant bridge some people might call London Bridge. It was a good two hour walk, but we saw a lot and it went quickly. I was actually surprised when he told us the tour was over. Lyndon was an excellent guide; he knew all kinds of interesting things about the city, and was able to point out all the major tourist attractions around the Thames. We walked across Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul's cathedral, which was gorgeous. Millennium Bridge, Lyndon told us, didn't originally have as many supports, but when it was first built it swayed a lot, and no one wanted to walk on it, so they added extra support. Interesting! We also went to Tate Modern, an art museum on the south bank of the Thames. It is a converted power station, and is really industrial inside. In the giant gallery from the main entrance, there is a giant crack in the floor that they say is a piece of art, but really it's just a huge rift in the concrete. Interesting, but also a hazard for the large numbers of school and tourist groups that tour the museum each year. I think that was about the highlight of our tour, though; it was definitely a place to go back to, since we only got about half an hour there.
That's about all we did yesterday. A group of my friends has been on a huge euchre kick this week, so we've been playing that pretty much every night. Last night was no different.
TODAY
Today I had a class at 11, art history. Our professor is an Italian guy called Giovanni. How perfect to have an Italian art history prof. Plus, he's adorable, and interesting, so I think class will be a lot of fun. He told us we're going to be going to a lot of museums over the course of the semester, so I'm really looking forward to going to class on Thursdays. We're actually going to a museum next week... a small one I can't quite remember the name of it. I'll let you know when we go there.
Class got out at 1 p.m. and we had the rest of the day to ourselves. I love this schedule. So Kyle, Janet (my roommate) and I found a little restaurant and got something to eat before Kyle had to go to another class at 2. The college is in a kind of middle eastern neighborhood; Lyndon told us there are a lot of refugees from Iraq and other warring countries near the college, so a lot of the restaurants are middle eastern cuisine, or have signs in Arabic. It's a completely different culture from the neighborhood we live in (quite posh and has a lot of really wealthy residents, if the BMWs and Jaguars parked on the road are any indication). I'm glad we're exposed to different ways of life, but at the same time I'm glad we live where we do. Apparently the London Centre a few years ago made kids stay in a hostel in the same neighborhood of the school, but a parent complained and they changed to Paddington. Thank goodness.
So anyway, Giovanni had told us about an art store we should visit to get some art supplies, so after lunch Janet and I went to find it. We wandered around the Trafalgar Square area for about half an hour before we stumbled upon a tube station and gave up. All was not lost, though; we found an ice skating rink and saw the Strand Theatre.
That's about it for today... overall, a very good day. Really, an overall good two days.
Cheers!
YESTERDAY
Wednesdays we don't have actual classes; they're reserved for day trips around London. So yesterday we took a river tour with our British Life and Culture prof Lyndon. It was lucky - yesterday was the only day it didn't rain at all. So we started at Big Ben and the houses of Parliament, and walked east down the Thames River to Tower Bridge, which is that giant bridge some people might call London Bridge. It was a good two hour walk, but we saw a lot and it went quickly. I was actually surprised when he told us the tour was over. Lyndon was an excellent guide; he knew all kinds of interesting things about the city, and was able to point out all the major tourist attractions around the Thames. We walked across Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul's cathedral, which was gorgeous. Millennium Bridge, Lyndon told us, didn't originally have as many supports, but when it was first built it swayed a lot, and no one wanted to walk on it, so they added extra support. Interesting! We also went to Tate Modern, an art museum on the south bank of the Thames. It is a converted power station, and is really industrial inside. In the giant gallery from the main entrance, there is a giant crack in the floor that they say is a piece of art, but really it's just a huge rift in the concrete. Interesting, but also a hazard for the large numbers of school and tourist groups that tour the museum each year. I think that was about the highlight of our tour, though; it was definitely a place to go back to, since we only got about half an hour there.
That's about all we did yesterday. A group of my friends has been on a huge euchre kick this week, so we've been playing that pretty much every night. Last night was no different.
TODAY
Today I had a class at 11, art history. Our professor is an Italian guy called Giovanni. How perfect to have an Italian art history prof. Plus, he's adorable, and interesting, so I think class will be a lot of fun. He told us we're going to be going to a lot of museums over the course of the semester, so I'm really looking forward to going to class on Thursdays. We're actually going to a museum next week... a small one I can't quite remember the name of it. I'll let you know when we go there.
Class got out at 1 p.m. and we had the rest of the day to ourselves. I love this schedule. So Kyle, Janet (my roommate) and I found a little restaurant and got something to eat before Kyle had to go to another class at 2. The college is in a kind of middle eastern neighborhood; Lyndon told us there are a lot of refugees from Iraq and other warring countries near the college, so a lot of the restaurants are middle eastern cuisine, or have signs in Arabic. It's a completely different culture from the neighborhood we live in (quite posh and has a lot of really wealthy residents, if the BMWs and Jaguars parked on the road are any indication). I'm glad we're exposed to different ways of life, but at the same time I'm glad we live where we do. Apparently the London Centre a few years ago made kids stay in a hostel in the same neighborhood of the school, but a parent complained and they changed to Paddington. Thank goodness.
So anyway, Giovanni had told us about an art store we should visit to get some art supplies, so after lunch Janet and I went to find it. We wandered around the Trafalgar Square area for about half an hour before we stumbled upon a tube station and gave up. All was not lost, though; we found an ice skating rink and saw the Strand Theatre.
That's about it for today... overall, a very good day. Really, an overall good two days.
Cheers!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
adventures in london
Today was quite an adventure! I had two classes - journalism 325, media law; and English literature. They were back-to-back, one at 9 and one at 11. The English class is in a completely different building about a half-hour away, and my professor let us out of our journalism class ten minutes late, so I ended up getting to class about 45 minutes late. The English prof (who's actually Irish, ha) said it was okay, but of course we don't want to get there that late anymore. Unfortunately, there's not much chance of getting out of class much earlier. I guess we'll see what happens.
After class my friend Amanda and I met Kyle and we took the tube to Notting Hill, where we had lunch and went to a really neat vintage store. I got a shirt. Then we went to Oxford Circus, where we went on an adventure to find a department store called John Lewis. We walked all over the area, took a bus and then found out the store was only a couple blocks from where we started. So, basically, we have done a lot of walking today.
We got back to the flat around 6:30 p.m., making it 10 hours away from home today. After we got back, Amanda, Kyle and I made dinner - tortelloni (pretty much the only thing I can make), garlic bread and a delicious strawberry pudding desert. Yum!
We've been planning our spring break and everything; it's so exciting to say that we're going to all these places. I'll keep you updated about my plans. I can't wait!
After class my friend Amanda and I met Kyle and we took the tube to Notting Hill, where we had lunch and went to a really neat vintage store. I got a shirt. Then we went to Oxford Circus, where we went on an adventure to find a department store called John Lewis. We walked all over the area, took a bus and then found out the store was only a couple blocks from where we started. So, basically, we have done a lot of walking today.
We got back to the flat around 6:30 p.m., making it 10 hours away from home today. After we got back, Amanda, Kyle and I made dinner - tortelloni (pretty much the only thing I can make), garlic bread and a delicious strawberry pudding desert. Yum!
We've been planning our spring break and everything; it's so exciting to say that we're going to all these places. I'll keep you updated about my plans. I can't wait!
Monday, January 14, 2008
first day of classes!
my word! a picture! this is Paddington Station from above ground, where trains depart. We use Paddington underground most of the time - it's about a 10 minute walk from our flat and will take us pretty much anywhere we want to go. The line we most use is called Bakerloo, for anyone with a map.
Well today we had our first classes. I had British Life and Culture and British Film (everyone does) with a British prof, Lyndon Sly. I think it's going to be a good class - we talked about all kinds of stuff, like geography (Sly pronounced it "jography") and soccer ("football") and British life. We watched a movie called "Mrs Minerva" from WWII. It was good - it was about British life before the War.
After dinner we went to a musical called "Blood Brothers." It was the first professional musical I've seen, and I thought it was really good. I really enjoyed it.
Sorry this is so short, it's almost 1 a.m. here and we had to get up at 7 for classes. I'll write more tomorrow, I promise.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Russian Festival
Today we went to Trafalgar Square again, this time to go to a Russian Winter Festival. It was neat: there were Russian bands, folk dancing and food. I thought it was really interesting... I really don't know much about the Russian culture, so getting to go to this festival was a good way to learn about the culture. I especially liked hearing the music and seeing the dancing; it was so different than any kind of Western music. There were also a lot of actual Russian people there, so it was neat to actually hear the language. For lunch we had blini, which were sort of like Russian burritos with pork inside - delicious. And only £3! (haha).
That's about all we did today, actually. Tomorrow we start classes at 9 a.m. I'm looking forward to getting into a schedule; right now it still feels like vacation. I hope once classes start things will even out.
Guess we'll see!
That's about all we did today, actually. Tomorrow we start classes at 9 a.m. I'm looking forward to getting into a schedule; right now it still feels like vacation. I hope once classes start things will even out.
Guess we'll see!
p.s. check out the picasa web album i made!
So blogger won't let me upload any pictures... but be sure to look at my web album at
http://picasaweb.google.com/com.artist.21/AdventuresInEngland
for some pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/com.artist.21/AdventuresInEngland
for some pictures.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
so THAT'S why they call it 'circus'
Today Janet (my roommate) and Kyle (my boyfriend) and I went shopping in Oxford Circus. It's the London equivalent of New York's Fifth Avenue or Chicago's Magnificent Mile, and today it definitely lived up to its name. In January, all the stores in London have enormous sales, so I expect it was even more busy today than usual. Even on sale, though, things were still pretty expensive. (see previous post)
We had lunch at a place called Pret a Manger. It's a chain that's all around London with really good sandwiches and pastries for a reasonable price, about 3.50 pounds for a sandwich. Yum! Apparently you have to pay more if you want to eat inside English restaurants like that, though, so we took ours outside and walked a couple blocks to Soho Square. We rounded a corner and all of a sudden it was like we were in a different city: everything was so peaceful and quiet. It was a very good lunch, especially since it was sunny and fairly warm today.
Tonight we're probably going to make pasta for dinner. I can't wait.
À demain!
We had lunch at a place called Pret a Manger. It's a chain that's all around London with really good sandwiches and pastries for a reasonable price, about 3.50 pounds for a sandwich. Yum! Apparently you have to pay more if you want to eat inside English restaurants like that, though, so we took ours outside and walked a couple blocks to Soho Square. We rounded a corner and all of a sudden it was like we were in a different city: everything was so peaceful and quiet. It was a very good lunch, especially since it was sunny and fairly warm today.
Tonight we're probably going to make pasta for dinner. I can't wait.
À demain!
oh, that's not too expensive! wait....
Sometimes it's hard to remind myself that the prices are in pounds, not dollars. It's really disappointing to find that the $20 sweater you were thinking is actually a 20 pound sweater, which is completely out of my price range. Dang it.
The dollar is currently at around 1.93 to a pound, which makes it really difficult for us Americans to stay within our budget.
YESTERDAY
So this post is to make up for the one I didn't do last night. Hope you understand.
Yesterday was an adventure! We took the tube down to Trafalgar Square, where we acted like tourists and took pictures of everything. For good reason, really... it's a beautiful, beautiful place. After looking round the square for a few minutes, we went in groups of 15 to Benjamin Franklin's house. It's the only one left standing that he actually lived in, and it's almost been knocked down four times since it was built in the 1700s. Once it was almost hit by a German bomb in World War II... but the bomb didn't detonate. Lucky! It's an amazing house - you can feel the history when you walk in, and it's amazing to think that such an influential man walked on the same stairs and touched the same railings I did.
After we left Ben Franklin's house, we walked down the street a little ways to Big Ben, the houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. By this time the sun (yes, the sun! it had been cloudy since we got here) was going down, and it cast an amazing light on the buildings. They were absolutely beautiful. Really.
Well we touristed around for a while there, and then took the tube back to our flat. Had some dinner (we had bought groceries yesterday), and then I went with a group of about six for our first night ever! The club we went to was a really swanky one, where everyone was wearing black (like that's a surprise, everyone always wears black) and drinking wine. There were older people there, too, not just the young kids we had expected. We got some weird looks with our American accents and everything, but it was fun for the most part.
And that was my day. Stay tuned for more adventures!
The dollar is currently at around 1.93 to a pound, which makes it really difficult for us Americans to stay within our budget.
YESTERDAY
So this post is to make up for the one I didn't do last night. Hope you understand.
Yesterday was an adventure! We took the tube down to Trafalgar Square, where we acted like tourists and took pictures of everything. For good reason, really... it's a beautiful, beautiful place. After looking round the square for a few minutes, we went in groups of 15 to Benjamin Franklin's house. It's the only one left standing that he actually lived in, and it's almost been knocked down four times since it was built in the 1700s. Once it was almost hit by a German bomb in World War II... but the bomb didn't detonate. Lucky! It's an amazing house - you can feel the history when you walk in, and it's amazing to think that such an influential man walked on the same stairs and touched the same railings I did.
After we left Ben Franklin's house, we walked down the street a little ways to Big Ben, the houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. By this time the sun (yes, the sun! it had been cloudy since we got here) was going down, and it cast an amazing light on the buildings. They were absolutely beautiful. Really.
Well we touristed around for a while there, and then took the tube back to our flat. Had some dinner (we had bought groceries yesterday), and then I went with a group of about six for our first night ever! The club we went to was a really swanky one, where everyone was wearing black (like that's a surprise, everyone always wears black) and drinking wine. There were older people there, too, not just the young kids we had expected. We got some weird looks with our American accents and everything, but it was fun for the most part.
And that was my day. Stay tuned for more adventures!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
up is down and left is right
In the shower this morning, I couldn't figure out why the water wouldn't get warm... then I realized that, like everything else here, the right knob is the hot water. That was an adventure. After I figured everything out, though, the shower was nice.
And crossing the street is hard: I have to keep reminding myself to look right first, not left. It's strange to look down the street and see cars coming from the right not the left. I keep thinking it's a one-way street, until cars come from the other way. It's quite a shock. Even walking is a challenge sometimes. It's hard to remember to move to the left, not the right.
The light switches are down for off. Strange.
Today we went to the City of Manchester College for our first day of orientation. We met Lyndon Sly, the program director at the college. He was a really cool guy, and told us a lot of useful things about London. I learned that a geezer means a streetwise guy, and that shrapnel is pocket change.
We went grocery shopping, too. We went to a Marks & Spencers, which is a big chain of grocery stores around England. I spent 18 pounds for a week's worth of food, which is about $40 American. Ouch.
That's about it, I guess. I would put up some pictures, but the internet is slow here. Sorry! I'm planning to go to an internet cafe soon, so hopefully you'll get some pictures soon.
And crossing the street is hard: I have to keep reminding myself to look right first, not left. It's strange to look down the street and see cars coming from the right not the left. I keep thinking it's a one-way street, until cars come from the other way. It's quite a shock. Even walking is a challenge sometimes. It's hard to remember to move to the left, not the right.
The light switches are down for off. Strange.
Today we went to the City of Manchester College for our first day of orientation. We met Lyndon Sly, the program director at the college. He was a really cool guy, and told us a lot of useful things about London. I learned that a geezer means a streetwise guy, and that shrapnel is pocket change.
We went grocery shopping, too. We went to a Marks & Spencers, which is a big chain of grocery stores around England. I spent 18 pounds for a week's worth of food, which is about $40 American. Ouch.
That's about it, I guess. I would put up some pictures, but the internet is slow here. Sorry! I'm planning to go to an internet cafe soon, so hopefully you'll get some pictures soon.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
it begins...
Finally!! I made it to London.
It took a five-hour layover in Chicago O'Haire airport, and a six-and-a-half hour flight from Chicago to Heathrow, but we're finally here.
What a day! We arrived in London at 5:45 this morning, and things took off immediately. The guy sitting next to me thought he lost his passport, so I stayed on board after the rest of the passengers had gotten off to help him find it. We found out the seat couching really do come off, thinking he had lost it between the seats. No luck. Finally after 3 flight attendants and a security guy helped us, the kid found it in his bag. Thank goodness! But by that time, the rest of our group was already gone. Luckily we were able to follow the signs to find customs and immigration, and get our baggage. It ended up being about 8 by the time we left the airport.
Then, London!
Our flats are adorable... I live with four other girls on the sixth floor of an older building in Leinster Gardens. So it was an adventure trying to get my huge luggage up the stairs. Uugh.
{here i would upload a photo, but the internet is really slow at night}
Right after we unpacked a little, Popo (the director- "not Dr. Popovitch, not pop-pop") gave us a walking tour of the area we'd be living in. By this time, everyone in the group was exhausted. It's 11:30.
We got back from Popo's tour, and the grad assistant, Chris, said he wanted to show us around some more. So about 15 of us (there's 45 total) went on another tour, this time farther away, to Buckingham Palace. We didn't actually make it there, though: everyone was so tired that we turned around. We took the Underground back, which was interesting. It's a very clean subway system, compared to some in the United States. You can tell they care about it.
And now it's 5:51 p.m., and I've had about three hours of sleep in two full days of travel. I think it's time for sleep.
Cheers!
It took a five-hour layover in Chicago O'Haire airport, and a six-and-a-half hour flight from Chicago to Heathrow, but we're finally here.
What a day! We arrived in London at 5:45 this morning, and things took off immediately. The guy sitting next to me thought he lost his passport, so I stayed on board after the rest of the passengers had gotten off to help him find it. We found out the seat couching really do come off, thinking he had lost it between the seats. No luck. Finally after 3 flight attendants and a security guy helped us, the kid found it in his bag. Thank goodness! But by that time, the rest of our group was already gone. Luckily we were able to follow the signs to find customs and immigration, and get our baggage. It ended up being about 8 by the time we left the airport.
Then, London!
Our flats are adorable... I live with four other girls on the sixth floor of an older building in Leinster Gardens. So it was an adventure trying to get my huge luggage up the stairs. Uugh.
{here i would upload a photo, but the internet is really slow at night}
Right after we unpacked a little, Popo (the director- "not Dr. Popovitch, not pop-pop") gave us a walking tour of the area we'd be living in. By this time, everyone in the group was exhausted. It's 11:30.
We got back from Popo's tour, and the grad assistant, Chris, said he wanted to show us around some more. So about 15 of us (there's 45 total) went on another tour, this time farther away, to Buckingham Palace. We didn't actually make it there, though: everyone was so tired that we turned around. We took the Underground back, which was interesting. It's a very clean subway system, compared to some in the United States. You can tell they care about it.
And now it's 5:51 p.m., and I've had about three hours of sleep in two full days of travel. I think it's time for sleep.
Cheers!
Saturday, January 5, 2008
exciting news!
As the day i leave draws near (two days!), I'm making final preparations: laundry, packing, etc. I'm also looking for good ways to put up lots of pictures. I think I found a good solution. It's called picasa web albums and it's another google application.During break my family and I went duckpin bowling in Indianapolis, so I created an album with some pictures I took. Bowling is really hard: you use a smaller ball with no holes, and aim at smaller pins. The only thing that's the same is the length of the lane. You can imagine how challenging it was. I think I got a 28.
You should be able to look at the album here.
Enjoy!
And the next time I post it will be in ENGLAND!
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