Continuing with descriptions of this week's marathon days of seeing the huge amount of London it appears we haven't gotten to in the past five weeks...
Wednesday
Our second-to-last class excursion was to the Tate Modern, a museum on the south bank of the Thames that is in a building that used to be a power station. I went there once before, with John, but only to see one exhibit, on urban development. This time we had a tour, as usual, but this one was quite short...only a little more than an hour long...and a little strange. Our guide was entertaining but a little bit scattered; he seemed to fit well in amongst all of the crazy modern art in the Tate. He was very enthusiastic but spent a really long time at a few select pieces throughout the museum, going into depth trying to get us to discuss their meanings. Then, at the end of about an hour, he suddenly was like "Oh well I've got somewhere to be (looks at his watch hurriedly" so I suppose I'll see you later, hope you enjoy your day," and hurried off. Our professor was on the tour with us and was like "Did he seriously just leave? Really? Was that a joke? How postmodern..." So strange. My friend Colleen and I spent a very long time walking around the rest of the museum (or at least a good chunk of it), before going to eat our lunches (I try to always bring most of my lunch, if not all of it, to save money) outside. It was so, so cold and windy that we got hot chocolate as well.
After lunch we walked across the Millenium Bridge toward St. Paul's, and it started raining and being really windy again...not a fabulous day for a walk. Colleen took pictures of St. Paul's from the outside and then we headed toward the Monument. The Monument commemorates the Great Fire of London in 1666...so people remember it, but also because it gave the city a chance to rebuild, and some of the most gorgeous buildings in London were built during that time right after the fire (including the current St. Paul's). We were stopped on the way by a torrential downpour. While waiting for the rain to calm down a little bit, a British couple asked us if we knew the area. We told them we knew it all right, and that we had a map if they wanted to check something, and pointed them in the direction of the tube station they wanted. The man pointed at a small church and said "But that's St. Paul's, so isn't it the other way?" Um, no, we just came from St. Paul's, we told him, and it was really the other direction that they wanted. "Oh no, that one is St. Paul's" pointing to a slightly bigger church. No, still not, look at the map? See it's that way. "Well, I think it's that way so we'll try it. Goodbye" It was really incredible; like as soon as we opened our mouths and were Americans there is no way we could A. Know our way around London better than they did or B. Read a map. We were pretty amazed. We walked to the Monument and climbed the whole thing (all 311 steps up and down). The view was beautiful although it was incredibly cold and windy at the top.
I don't remember what I did for the rest of Wednesday night so that probably means I did homework, or at least attempted it. I may have also gone grocery shopping. Hmm. Anyway, it was a quiet evening.
Thursday
Thursday we had literature class as usual, but history was cancelled because instead we all had appointments with our professor for 10 minutes during the usual class time. I went to the student café with Colleen to do some work while waiting for mine, and actually got quite a bit done. Then I went to my appointment with my professor, who was grading exams for a VICTORIAN history class that she finished teaching right before ours started. I was so frustrated to discover that she knows so much about the time period I will be largely studying this upcoming year for my thesis, and would have rather taught in that area because it is what she knows best. It seems like such a waste to have missed the opportunity to study that with her, and now I will be super behind on my thesis because of this program, when I could have been so far ahead! Oh well; at least now when novelists talk about the history and geography of London I will better understand the context--that's something.
After that I went home quickly to drop off some things before meeting Charlotte at the British Library (it poured rain on the way there, so I was a bit late). The British Library was very interesting, particularly because they had an exhibit on sacred texts of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism which had on display manuscripts from thousands of years ago, including a tiny segment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The beautifully illuminated texts were absolutely stunning, some with the color and gold remaining after hundreds and hundreds of years. There is also a large display of the writings of various authors, including Jane Austen’s letters, the manuscript of Jane Eyre in Bronte’s own hand, Lewis Carroll’s diary open to the page where he details telling the Alice stories to the children of a friend of his, the only verified signature of Shakespeare in existence, and Beatles lyrics with things crossed out and changed, etc. It was fascinating and we spent a good two hours there before coming back to my dorm to make dinner after a quick stop at the grocery store. We made eggs, potatoes, toast, and some veggies, and it was delicious. Then Charlotte headed home and I did homework. Booo. It is really difficult to describe how much I hate spending any of my time here in London doing work that I don’t think is benefiting me very much at all. I haven’t learned nearly as much as I would like, and there is still so much to see!
...
Ah well, now it is quite late (I have been very good tonight about doing work and only writing a paragraph as breaks between working on real things). I should finish up my literature paper and go to sleep, so the weekend (which was incredibly eventful) will have to wait until tomorrow. Char flew in with some girls from her Ghana program today, since they are in London for a few days on their way back to the US, so Woopy and I will meet up with them tomorrow evening for dinner, so that is exciting...then there will be three members of South Quad's ResStaff in London, all together! How adorable. We're hoping to convince their group that we should go out for Indian food. Yum.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Last Day in Wales, Last-Minute Sightseeing (...and papers)
'm going to be good and only allow myself to write a paragraph of this blog in between paragraphs of my literature paper, so that I'll finally finish that stupid thing tonight and feel a little bit better about not doing work tomorrow.
Sunday-Last day in Wales, back to England
Sunday we woke up early, around 7am, and went to have our fully cooked breakfast in another building of the farmhouse complex. It was a traditional English (umm Welsh too?) breakfast, with eggs, sausage, back bacon, toast, tea, baked beans and a fried tomato (I skipped the last two, but the rest of it was good) and it also included hash browns, which is not usual. The breakfast was good although I'm pretty sure not all of it was that fresh (the hash browns were definitely frozen) so perhaps not as authentic as I had hoped. Still, it was very good to have a big meal to start the day, so we could spend less on lunch.
We left the farmhouse at 8:15 am after making sandwhiches from leftovers from the night before and hurriedly cleaning the kitchen. Our last stop in Wales was at the town of Llangollen, site of the ruins of the castle of Dinas Bran. We were again given a tantalizing choice...do the hike to Dinas Bran (quickly, so we could make it back to the bus in time) or sightsee around the town. I was incredibly tired from barely getting any sleep the night before due to the rude people, and wanted to see some of yet another adorable town, so Charlotte and I did half the hike up to where we could get a better view of Dinas Bran and the surrounding countryside before going back down to walk around the town. The castle was actually burnt down in 1277 and never rebuilt. It was a Welsh castle that was later taken over by the English, and the website I found said that it has some connection to the Holy Grail but our guide defintiely didn't say anything about that so who knows. At any rate, it is basically ruins now and it was satisfactory to gaze at them from afar, although again it would have been nice if we had more time to do both the hike and walking around the town.
Back in the town, Charlotte and I walked around looking into various shops, all of which were quite tempting as usual, in particular a really cute chocolate shop which I resisted buying anything from, although I kind of regret that. They had a bigger selection of Lindt and Green and Blacks chocolate bars than I have ever seen anywhere else (there were Lindt bars I didn't know existed! That is saying a lot for someone who was once a 'chocolate advisor' for the company). I ended up buying a clear plastic umbrella with red welsh dragons around the perimeter. It is super cheesy but my other umbrella is dying out from overuse and too much wind, so it was well worth it for only 4 pounds. I also picked up some more postcards, which you should all be getting soon since I finally mailed all of the ones I have accumulated since being here today. Woopy and I also got some "Welsh Cakes" which are like raisin scones made on a griddle over the stove and dusted with sugar, and hot chocolate for the bus ride. Tasty.
And then it was time to bid farewell to the beautiful country of Wales. Sigh…I really want to go back, for longer. And to go to Ireland. Any takers? I know Melanie is coming with me. We’re going to open a bookstore, because I’m sure that town needs a 31st store.
Anyway, enough daydreaming. We drove back into England toward Stratford-upon-Avon, after confirming that we could, in fact, get into the town. There has been terrible, dangerous flooding in England this past week and a half, and parts of Stratford (mostly the park from what we could see) are underwater. London, in case you’re wondering, is fine. Just lots of puddles. Stratford was lovely although we only had an hour to try to run around and see the important things. The bathroom was first on our list, followed by Shakespeare’s grave at the church he frequented when he was alive. We didn’t think we would have time to see Shakespeare’s birthplace because it looked too far away on our map, but a few of us ran into our guide and told her we were sad and she told us it was much closer by than we had thought and ran with us to take a peek. It would have been nice to stay longer and go inside his house but it was still neat to see the town. There are lots of very pretty Tudor buildings as well.
And then we drove back to London, arriving at approximately 5pm. We took the tube back to the dorm, and Charlotte came with me to spend the night since we narrowly missed the time she had to check in for her program at the London School of Economics. We bummed around and made some dinner (pasta and vegetables), while comparing and swapping pictures from the trip. I think I did a little bit of work but we went to bed early, exhausted. She left early the next morning to get to her program and I went back to bed. And so the week began…
This Week
Monday I had class as usual, and we stayed longer because the International Program Directors were visiting from U of M to check out the facilities (hopefully they saw how absurdly small our classroom is) and to get our opinions on the program. What resulted was a highly tense session of about an hour and a half, since we were so relieved to finally have someone to tell about all of the things we think are wrong with the program. It probably sounded like we hate London, which is not the case at all…they just have a lot to think about in terms of academics and communication. Who knows if anything will change though…case in point, they wanted to buy us tea, but had not set up anything, so when class was over the directors were like “where should we go for tea?” 30 people? Are you serious? You can’t fit 30 people in a café in the US. Anyway. It was at least a much-needed venting system, and hopefully they got to see some of the issues for themselves. That night we saw our final play, In Celebration, with a cast that included the gorgeous Orlando Bloom. I thoroughly enjoyed the play, although much of our program didn’t share that opinion. Orlando himself played a relatively minor part, since apparently he looked too young to play the main brother. His character was silent and cried a lot, but he was still pretty to look at from my far-away seat. Some of my friends have gone after other performances to see him, and he even kissed one of their cheeks.
Tuesday was class and then Maureen, a girl from my program, and I decided to wander over to the Soho area of London. It is a more youthful district with a hip nightlife, and used to be considered a not-so-good area of London due to the proliferation of sex shops and other shady doings there. It is much safer now and a fun area to walk around. After a few hours of wandering and shopping through Soho and down the ritzy Regent Street, we decided we had enough of people and crowds and went home. I went grocery shopping (for maybe the last full time…sniff…I really love Sainsburys) and spent the night doing homework…I think. I don’t think I got very much done though.
Which is why I need to go finish my literature paper now. I’ll have to finish catching up later, but for now I’ll leave you with some pictures of Wales and Stratford. I won't bother titling them...and the only two of Stratford are one of the flooded park and Shakespeare's grave, so they are kind of obvious.
Sunday-Last day in Wales, back to England
Sunday we woke up early, around 7am, and went to have our fully cooked breakfast in another building of the farmhouse complex. It was a traditional English (umm Welsh too?) breakfast, with eggs, sausage, back bacon, toast, tea, baked beans and a fried tomato (I skipped the last two, but the rest of it was good) and it also included hash browns, which is not usual. The breakfast was good although I'm pretty sure not all of it was that fresh (the hash browns were definitely frozen) so perhaps not as authentic as I had hoped. Still, it was very good to have a big meal to start the day, so we could spend less on lunch.
We left the farmhouse at 8:15 am after making sandwhiches from leftovers from the night before and hurriedly cleaning the kitchen. Our last stop in Wales was at the town of Llangollen, site of the ruins of the castle of Dinas Bran. We were again given a tantalizing choice...do the hike to Dinas Bran (quickly, so we could make it back to the bus in time) or sightsee around the town. I was incredibly tired from barely getting any sleep the night before due to the rude people, and wanted to see some of yet another adorable town, so Charlotte and I did half the hike up to where we could get a better view of Dinas Bran and the surrounding countryside before going back down to walk around the town. The castle was actually burnt down in 1277 and never rebuilt. It was a Welsh castle that was later taken over by the English, and the website I found said that it has some connection to the Holy Grail but our guide defintiely didn't say anything about that so who knows. At any rate, it is basically ruins now and it was satisfactory to gaze at them from afar, although again it would have been nice if we had more time to do both the hike and walking around the town.
Back in the town, Charlotte and I walked around looking into various shops, all of which were quite tempting as usual, in particular a really cute chocolate shop which I resisted buying anything from, although I kind of regret that. They had a bigger selection of Lindt and Green and Blacks chocolate bars than I have ever seen anywhere else (there were Lindt bars I didn't know existed! That is saying a lot for someone who was once a 'chocolate advisor' for the company). I ended up buying a clear plastic umbrella with red welsh dragons around the perimeter. It is super cheesy but my other umbrella is dying out from overuse and too much wind, so it was well worth it for only 4 pounds. I also picked up some more postcards, which you should all be getting soon since I finally mailed all of the ones I have accumulated since being here today. Woopy and I also got some "Welsh Cakes" which are like raisin scones made on a griddle over the stove and dusted with sugar, and hot chocolate for the bus ride. Tasty.
And then it was time to bid farewell to the beautiful country of Wales. Sigh…I really want to go back, for longer. And to go to Ireland. Any takers? I know Melanie is coming with me. We’re going to open a bookstore, because I’m sure that town needs a 31st store.
Anyway, enough daydreaming. We drove back into England toward Stratford-upon-Avon, after confirming that we could, in fact, get into the town. There has been terrible, dangerous flooding in England this past week and a half, and parts of Stratford (mostly the park from what we could see) are underwater. London, in case you’re wondering, is fine. Just lots of puddles. Stratford was lovely although we only had an hour to try to run around and see the important things. The bathroom was first on our list, followed by Shakespeare’s grave at the church he frequented when he was alive. We didn’t think we would have time to see Shakespeare’s birthplace because it looked too far away on our map, but a few of us ran into our guide and told her we were sad and she told us it was much closer by than we had thought and ran with us to take a peek. It would have been nice to stay longer and go inside his house but it was still neat to see the town. There are lots of very pretty Tudor buildings as well.
And then we drove back to London, arriving at approximately 5pm. We took the tube back to the dorm, and Charlotte came with me to spend the night since we narrowly missed the time she had to check in for her program at the London School of Economics. We bummed around and made some dinner (pasta and vegetables), while comparing and swapping pictures from the trip. I think I did a little bit of work but we went to bed early, exhausted. She left early the next morning to get to her program and I went back to bed. And so the week began…
This Week
Monday I had class as usual, and we stayed longer because the International Program Directors were visiting from U of M to check out the facilities (hopefully they saw how absurdly small our classroom is) and to get our opinions on the program. What resulted was a highly tense session of about an hour and a half, since we were so relieved to finally have someone to tell about all of the things we think are wrong with the program. It probably sounded like we hate London, which is not the case at all…they just have a lot to think about in terms of academics and communication. Who knows if anything will change though…case in point, they wanted to buy us tea, but had not set up anything, so when class was over the directors were like “where should we go for tea?” 30 people? Are you serious? You can’t fit 30 people in a café in the US. Anyway. It was at least a much-needed venting system, and hopefully they got to see some of the issues for themselves. That night we saw our final play, In Celebration, with a cast that included the gorgeous Orlando Bloom. I thoroughly enjoyed the play, although much of our program didn’t share that opinion. Orlando himself played a relatively minor part, since apparently he looked too young to play the main brother. His character was silent and cried a lot, but he was still pretty to look at from my far-away seat. Some of my friends have gone after other performances to see him, and he even kissed one of their cheeks.
Tuesday was class and then Maureen, a girl from my program, and I decided to wander over to the Soho area of London. It is a more youthful district with a hip nightlife, and used to be considered a not-so-good area of London due to the proliferation of sex shops and other shady doings there. It is much safer now and a fun area to walk around. After a few hours of wandering and shopping through Soho and down the ritzy Regent Street, we decided we had enough of people and crowds and went home. I went grocery shopping (for maybe the last full time…sniff…I really love Sainsburys) and spent the night doing homework…I think. I don’t think I got very much done though.
Which is why I need to go finish my literature paper now. I’ll have to finish catching up later, but for now I’ll leave you with some pictures of Wales and Stratford. I won't bother titling them...and the only two of Stratford are one of the flooded park and Shakespeare's grave, so they are kind of obvious.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Wales Part Two
OK so Wales day 2, Saturday. I apologize in advance, once more, for what will have to be an incredibly long posting, but I am almost a week behind in posts and I want to remember everything I do, and typing is soooo much faster than writing! Please, please don't feel like you need to read the whole thing. I tried to abbreviate but you can only abbreviate 12 stops so much.
We woke up at around 7am on Saturday to pack our things and grab a complimentary breakfast of tea and buttered toast in the hostel basement. One of the things I really do love about the UK is the proliferation of tea drinking…I fit right in and have definitely upped my consumption since being here (partially because it is much cheaper to buy out than coffee). We left on our trusty bus at 8:15 for what was promised to be one of the longest days that the tour group runs. We headed north from Abergavenny to the small town of Hay-on-Wye, by far one of my favorite stops on the entire trip, even though we only got about an hour there. It was one of the most adorable towns we stopped in, with immaculately clean streets and quaint buildings, an old-fashioned chocolate shop selling “the best fudge in Wales” according to our guide, lots of fresh bakeries and food shops, and…wait for it…over 30 book stores. In a town with a population of between 1 and 3 thousand, there are 30 bookshops. How could you go wrong? We stopped in two particularly good ones, the first of which was stocked with random books for only a pound each (I bought two, one by Margaret Atwood I haven’t read and another by Anne Perry) and the second of which is the largest secondhand bookstore in the world. The second one was truly incredible, multi-level and everything (why it is in this little tiny town is beyond me) but sadly I did not get to spend much time perusing, although I did buy a book of Thomas Hardy’s short stories for 2 pounds. I’m shocked I made it out of that town with only 3 books. Charlotte and I shopped around some more, and I purchased a slice of brie and caramelized onion quiche and two kinds of fudge, one of which was Bailey’s flavored. The town holds a huge book festival every year and I would love to go back for that. Anyone want to join me?
After that we made a brief stop at Climery, where Llewelyn the Great (or the Last) true Welsh Prince was killed by the English (the name is pronounced something like Clue-Ellen…Welsh is a damn hard language to pronounce but it looks and sounds really neat). Apparently the English scooped out his brains and put a candle in his head to parade it to London where it was put on the spikes of the London Bridge to intimidate insurgents. That’s where we get jack-o-lanterns from, according to our guide. Pretty gruesome, yes? After this we drove for awhile and had lunch on the bus before stopping at Llyn Clywedog, a beautiful reservoir area surrounded by miles and miles of hills and green (and the inevitable sheep). Some of my best pictures came out of this area and when I post them I will be sure to put the link here.
After that we drove through the town of Machynlleth where there was a huge parade and festival of general celebration, with a Hollywood theme. We saw bugs bunny and tweety bird drinking pints and smoking as well as a transvestite Edward Scissorhands, so it was an amusing drive even though we didn’t stop. We did stop at a Tesco (supermarket) in Porthmadog so everyone could pick up beer and other beverages for our upcoming evening at the farmhouse. Then it was to Caernarforn, the town in which groups normally spend the night, but the hostels had been booked way in advance for some event in town, hence the fact that we had to journey further on to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere that also serves as a hostel. Caernarforn is a beautiful Edwardian castle, begun in 1283 and set on a bay with lots of little boats. Edward I built it and his son, Edward II, was born there, allowing Edward I to make him the first “Prince of Wales” which is why there are now English princes of Wales. Apparently the Welsh actually like Prince Charles quite a bit because he pays attention to them. Charlotte and I walked around the entire perimeter to get lots of good views and then opted to do a little bit of souvenir shopping instead of paying to go inside the castle, since apparently the outsides of castles are often more worth it than the inside. The town was nice and the view of the bay/ocean was lovely as well. One of the highlights of our visit there was hearing some of the people in one of the stores speak in what we believe was Welsh. How cool! Only 30% of the Welsh speak the language, and most of them are in the north (which is where we were, so it does make sense). Sorry if I’m repeating trivia.
After Caernarforn, we made a quick jump over to the Isle of Anglesey specifically to go to the town with one of the longest names in the world…apparently a town in New Zealand actually holds the record (although the website listed below claims there is a place in Thailand that beats it). The town is known as Llanfair (pronounced something like Clanfair) but is actually
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which translates as "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave." There is even a website (which I just discovered) that is www.(insert name of town here).com. Anyway, all we really did there was stop and take pictures of the signs before getting back on the bus and taking the historic A-5 route to Snowdonia National Park. Snowden is the highest point in the entire UK and the whole park is simply beautiful. I really, really regret that we were not able to stop there for longer and do some hiking. We only got out and took a few pictures before having to get back on the bus, and I know that if I ever get the chance to go back to Wales I want to spend a significant amount of time there. So beautiful. It was also one of the places where the icky weather did not matter much at all, since the mist on the top of the peaks made the scenery even more incredible and mysterious.
FINALLY we arrived at Tyddyn, the farmhouse hostel we stayed in for the night, owned and ran by a woman named Linda. It is actually surrounded by cows and sheep and is a real working farm. The beds were nice and neat and clean, and there were good kitchens and a barbeque, so our guide had collected four pounds from everyone and bought hamburgers, potatoes, sausages, salad, and other good things to eat which we proceeded to make for dinner. Unfortunately, my night spent in the comfortable hostel was rudely interrupted by a pair of hormonal teenagers doing inappropriate things in a bed while there were 10 other people in the room and talking for hours after everyone else had gone to bed and I had asked them to be quiet several times. However, I will not dwell on this aspect of my stay there because it’s not fair to the farmhouse or to Wales. But really, some people need to get some manners.
On that, unfortunately not happy note I need to end for tonight because it’s late and I’m getting up early to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral in the morning, one of the touristy things I still really have to see. I’ll try to do more tomorrow but I am attempting to finish one paper by tomorrow evening so I can start the other and still enjoy my weekend, so we’ll see how that goes. Hope the weather is nicer wherever you are, because it has been cold and windy and rainy here and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon.
We woke up at around 7am on Saturday to pack our things and grab a complimentary breakfast of tea and buttered toast in the hostel basement. One of the things I really do love about the UK is the proliferation of tea drinking…I fit right in and have definitely upped my consumption since being here (partially because it is much cheaper to buy out than coffee). We left on our trusty bus at 8:15 for what was promised to be one of the longest days that the tour group runs. We headed north from Abergavenny to the small town of Hay-on-Wye, by far one of my favorite stops on the entire trip, even though we only got about an hour there. It was one of the most adorable towns we stopped in, with immaculately clean streets and quaint buildings, an old-fashioned chocolate shop selling “the best fudge in Wales” according to our guide, lots of fresh bakeries and food shops, and…wait for it…over 30 book stores. In a town with a population of between 1 and 3 thousand, there are 30 bookshops. How could you go wrong? We stopped in two particularly good ones, the first of which was stocked with random books for only a pound each (I bought two, one by Margaret Atwood I haven’t read and another by Anne Perry) and the second of which is the largest secondhand bookstore in the world. The second one was truly incredible, multi-level and everything (why it is in this little tiny town is beyond me) but sadly I did not get to spend much time perusing, although I did buy a book of Thomas Hardy’s short stories for 2 pounds. I’m shocked I made it out of that town with only 3 books. Charlotte and I shopped around some more, and I purchased a slice of brie and caramelized onion quiche and two kinds of fudge, one of which was Bailey’s flavored. The town holds a huge book festival every year and I would love to go back for that. Anyone want to join me?
After that we made a brief stop at Climery, where Llewelyn the Great (or the Last) true Welsh Prince was killed by the English (the name is pronounced something like Clue-Ellen…Welsh is a damn hard language to pronounce but it looks and sounds really neat). Apparently the English scooped out his brains and put a candle in his head to parade it to London where it was put on the spikes of the London Bridge to intimidate insurgents. That’s where we get jack-o-lanterns from, according to our guide. Pretty gruesome, yes? After this we drove for awhile and had lunch on the bus before stopping at Llyn Clywedog, a beautiful reservoir area surrounded by miles and miles of hills and green (and the inevitable sheep). Some of my best pictures came out of this area and when I post them I will be sure to put the link here.
After that we drove through the town of Machynlleth where there was a huge parade and festival of general celebration, with a Hollywood theme. We saw bugs bunny and tweety bird drinking pints and smoking as well as a transvestite Edward Scissorhands, so it was an amusing drive even though we didn’t stop. We did stop at a Tesco (supermarket) in Porthmadog so everyone could pick up beer and other beverages for our upcoming evening at the farmhouse. Then it was to Caernarforn, the town in which groups normally spend the night, but the hostels had been booked way in advance for some event in town, hence the fact that we had to journey further on to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere that also serves as a hostel. Caernarforn is a beautiful Edwardian castle, begun in 1283 and set on a bay with lots of little boats. Edward I built it and his son, Edward II, was born there, allowing Edward I to make him the first “Prince of Wales” which is why there are now English princes of Wales. Apparently the Welsh actually like Prince Charles quite a bit because he pays attention to them. Charlotte and I walked around the entire perimeter to get lots of good views and then opted to do a little bit of souvenir shopping instead of paying to go inside the castle, since apparently the outsides of castles are often more worth it than the inside. The town was nice and the view of the bay/ocean was lovely as well. One of the highlights of our visit there was hearing some of the people in one of the stores speak in what we believe was Welsh. How cool! Only 30% of the Welsh speak the language, and most of them are in the north (which is where we were, so it does make sense). Sorry if I’m repeating trivia.
After Caernarforn, we made a quick jump over to the Isle of Anglesey specifically to go to the town with one of the longest names in the world…apparently a town in New Zealand actually holds the record (although the website listed below claims there is a place in Thailand that beats it). The town is known as Llanfair (pronounced something like Clanfair) but is actually
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which translates as "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave." There is even a website (which I just discovered) that is www.(insert name of town here).com. Anyway, all we really did there was stop and take pictures of the signs before getting back on the bus and taking the historic A-5 route to Snowdonia National Park. Snowden is the highest point in the entire UK and the whole park is simply beautiful. I really, really regret that we were not able to stop there for longer and do some hiking. We only got out and took a few pictures before having to get back on the bus, and I know that if I ever get the chance to go back to Wales I want to spend a significant amount of time there. So beautiful. It was also one of the places where the icky weather did not matter much at all, since the mist on the top of the peaks made the scenery even more incredible and mysterious.
FINALLY we arrived at Tyddyn, the farmhouse hostel we stayed in for the night, owned and ran by a woman named Linda. It is actually surrounded by cows and sheep and is a real working farm. The beds were nice and neat and clean, and there were good kitchens and a barbeque, so our guide had collected four pounds from everyone and bought hamburgers, potatoes, sausages, salad, and other good things to eat which we proceeded to make for dinner. Unfortunately, my night spent in the comfortable hostel was rudely interrupted by a pair of hormonal teenagers doing inappropriate things in a bed while there were 10 other people in the room and talking for hours after everyone else had gone to bed and I had asked them to be quiet several times. However, I will not dwell on this aspect of my stay there because it’s not fair to the farmhouse or to Wales. But really, some people need to get some manners.
On that, unfortunately not happy note I need to end for tonight because it’s late and I’m getting up early to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral in the morning, one of the touristy things I still really have to see. I’ll try to do more tomorrow but I am attempting to finish one paper by tomorrow evening so I can start the other and still enjoy my weekend, so we’ll see how that goes. Hope the weather is nicer wherever you are, because it has been cold and windy and rainy here and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Wales Part One
I've been back from Wales since early Sunday evening, but this last week and a half in London is going to be a mad scramble to finish all of my final papers while still doing everything I have left to do in this incredible city. However, I am going to take the time to write about my trip to Wales since we stopped in so many places that I am afraid I will forget about them if I leave this for too much longer. I can't go to sleep anyway since there are drunkish people from my program being loud in the kitchen, and if I stay up doing this maybe I'll get some more homework done too. So here goes nothing:
Friday morning I woke up at the obscene hour of 5:15am after spending a restless night worrying that my alarm would falter and no one would wake me in time to catch the tour bus. I packed some snacks for the weekend, in an effort to cut down on food spending, before heading out to the tube station at 5:45am with some girls from my program--Laura, Sarah, and Michelle. Each of us managed to bring only a small backpack and a handbag, making it easy to travel. Kings Cross was quieter than I had expected it to be on a weekday morning, so we must have just missed the work rush hour, since Londoners tend to go to work early and be out well before 5pm. We met Charlotte, my friend who is an RA with me at school, on the tube platform at 6am sharp and caught a train to Victoria station within minutes. We arrived very early at the tour agency, since we wanted to make sure we could find it easily from the tube station, and went back to Victoria to pick up some warm drinks and a little bit of breakfast. We checked into our tour well ahead of time and were on the bus (coach) leaving London almost on time, at 7:20am.
Our guide for the weekend was Nikki, a young woman from Yorkshire, in the north of England, with a strong accent and an indefatigably sunny attitude. Our group consisted of about 30 people of all ages from all over the world. We were cautioned immediately by Nikki that we were not allowed to say the word "rain" on the trip, and could only describe the weather as "atmospheric" (raining) or "dramatic" (pouring/storming). Perhaps this made our weekend more pleasant and positive, but it certainly did not help to appease the waether, because it rained almost the entire time we were in Wales.
We stopped to pick up lunch to go and caffeine at the Reading service statio in England, and then headed into the South of Wales. I think that it took about 3 hours or so to get to the Severn Bridge to cross into Wales, but the driving times on this trip are kind of hard to figure out because we stopped at so many places along our route. Our first stop was at Chepstow Castle, built by the Normans in 1067 in an early effort to take over Wales (a common theme between English/Welsh relations after this point). Our first castle of the weekend looked fabulously mysterious in the grayish, rainy weather, which was a common theme in Wales. If you have to see a country entirely in the rain, Wales is a pretty romantic place to do so. In the town near Chepstow was a bridge over to England, where Charlotte and I took a lovely picture fighting with umbrellas while standing in different countries (I was in Wales and Woopy was in England).
The next stop of the day was Tintern Abbey, the ruins of an abbey that was built between 1136 and 1536 before it was destroyed by Henry VIII when he rampaged the monastaries after declaring himself head of the Church of England. It is most famously the inspiration for Wordsworth's poem of the same name. The ruins are incredibly beautiful, covered in places with moss and missing their roof (Henry took it) but otherwise in good condition. They were also unfortunately partially covered by scaffolding, which seems to be covering at least part of every old building in the UK. At least the British take good care of their history. I opted to take a walk with our guide up to St. Mary's church, a little church on the hill above Tintern Abbey that was destroyed by fire some time ago, and is also very pretty, and gives a good view of the surrounding area. It was a nice walk but because I wanted to stretch my legs and go on the walk I did not have time to actually go inside the Abbey and explore (it cost a small fee). This was one of the biggest problems about the tour, that we often did not have much time at any single place and so were limited to picking and choosing often a limited experience at each stop. However, there is always a price to pay for covering so much ground in such a short amount of time, and the tour did give a good overview of what Wales has to offer (aside from not stopping in any of the "large" cities in the South. Nothing in Wales is particularly large, however, as it is inhabited by only 2.8 million people (in comparison to London's 7 millon).
We then drove to Caerphilly to see the castle there, which is the second biggest castle, after Windsor, in the entire UK. I did not go inside (not much time, again) but it had beautiful grounds and pathways that allowed you to get very close to the castle and inside some of the outer walls. It also had one of the few moats left in the UK, since most of them have been drained for sanitary reasons. It did, however, have a sign warning that the blue green algae in the moat could be dangerous to humans, so we didn't go too near it. I also picked up a cup of tea while Woopy opted for a tasty chicken and asparagus pasty (a kind of pocket pie).
Our next stop was in the beautiful area of the Brecon Beacons, a hilly area with lots of little waterfalls. It was too muddy and slippery to do the entire hike they usually do, but we did walk down to see the Talybont Falls, which were pretty. Unfortunately, it was also slippery going down there and Charlotte fell and got her knees and legs all muddy. Luckily she wasn't hurt and we were already on our way to the stop for the evening.
Finally, we arrived at our stop for the night, the small town of Abergavveny, in a hostel called The Black Sheep or the Great Western, which is located above a small pub. A large group of us went to get dinner in town, about a 15 minute walk, since the pub downstairs was not able to serve food that evening. We went to a chain pub that I can't remember the name of, and Charlotte and I each got Welsh lamb cawl, a traditional stew made from lamb (Welsh lamb is supposed to be the best in the world, and they certainly have enough sheep to be good at raising them by now) and root vegetables and served with bread. It was quite tasty and filling, and nice and warm after a cold and drizzly day where we felt quite damp for most of it. I had my first Pimms and lemonade to go along with it, which is a popular summer cocktail in the UK made from Pimms (a reddish gin drink flavored with herbs and citrus), lemonade (which is really sparkling lemon soda here) and fresh fruit and cucumbers (the latter was sadly lacking in my drink). It was pretty tasty and very light, so I can see why it is a summer drink. It didn't really go with the stew, but oh well.
After dinner we went back to the hostel for quiz night at the pub downstairs, which was run by a transvestite, who at first only had painted nails but later in the evening was persuaded to put on his high-heeled black leather boots and long curly black wig. I had a pint of Brains, a malty beer made and sold only in Wales, and my team (consisting of myself, Charlotte, and some Canadian girls) lost at quiz night terribly. To be fair, we were one of the only teams without someone actually from the UK, and many of the questions were about UK roads and politics. Still, it was a fun night and afterwards I went straight up to take a quick shower and go to sleep. The bed was a bit rickety (but no bedbugs, I checked carefully) but once everyone in my room (about 10 people) got into bed around midnight, I slept very well.
More tomorrow I suppose, I should go do some work. A majority of my program is drunk and singing and dancing in the hallways, and I'm pretty sure when we were warned not to be obnoxious drunk Americans, this is what they meant. I suppose that makes my choice between going to bed early and waking up to do work and staying up to do work late easier...I couldn't sleep if I tried. Bad a capella Madonna isn't exactly bedtime music.
Friday morning I woke up at the obscene hour of 5:15am after spending a restless night worrying that my alarm would falter and no one would wake me in time to catch the tour bus. I packed some snacks for the weekend, in an effort to cut down on food spending, before heading out to the tube station at 5:45am with some girls from my program--Laura, Sarah, and Michelle. Each of us managed to bring only a small backpack and a handbag, making it easy to travel. Kings Cross was quieter than I had expected it to be on a weekday morning, so we must have just missed the work rush hour, since Londoners tend to go to work early and be out well before 5pm. We met Charlotte, my friend who is an RA with me at school, on the tube platform at 6am sharp and caught a train to Victoria station within minutes. We arrived very early at the tour agency, since we wanted to make sure we could find it easily from the tube station, and went back to Victoria to pick up some warm drinks and a little bit of breakfast. We checked into our tour well ahead of time and were on the bus (coach) leaving London almost on time, at 7:20am.
Our guide for the weekend was Nikki, a young woman from Yorkshire, in the north of England, with a strong accent and an indefatigably sunny attitude. Our group consisted of about 30 people of all ages from all over the world. We were cautioned immediately by Nikki that we were not allowed to say the word "rain" on the trip, and could only describe the weather as "atmospheric" (raining) or "dramatic" (pouring/storming). Perhaps this made our weekend more pleasant and positive, but it certainly did not help to appease the waether, because it rained almost the entire time we were in Wales.
We stopped to pick up lunch to go and caffeine at the Reading service statio in England, and then headed into the South of Wales. I think that it took about 3 hours or so to get to the Severn Bridge to cross into Wales, but the driving times on this trip are kind of hard to figure out because we stopped at so many places along our route. Our first stop was at Chepstow Castle, built by the Normans in 1067 in an early effort to take over Wales (a common theme between English/Welsh relations after this point). Our first castle of the weekend looked fabulously mysterious in the grayish, rainy weather, which was a common theme in Wales. If you have to see a country entirely in the rain, Wales is a pretty romantic place to do so. In the town near Chepstow was a bridge over to England, where Charlotte and I took a lovely picture fighting with umbrellas while standing in different countries (I was in Wales and Woopy was in England).
The next stop of the day was Tintern Abbey, the ruins of an abbey that was built between 1136 and 1536 before it was destroyed by Henry VIII when he rampaged the monastaries after declaring himself head of the Church of England. It is most famously the inspiration for Wordsworth's poem of the same name. The ruins are incredibly beautiful, covered in places with moss and missing their roof (Henry took it) but otherwise in good condition. They were also unfortunately partially covered by scaffolding, which seems to be covering at least part of every old building in the UK. At least the British take good care of their history. I opted to take a walk with our guide up to St. Mary's church, a little church on the hill above Tintern Abbey that was destroyed by fire some time ago, and is also very pretty, and gives a good view of the surrounding area. It was a nice walk but because I wanted to stretch my legs and go on the walk I did not have time to actually go inside the Abbey and explore (it cost a small fee). This was one of the biggest problems about the tour, that we often did not have much time at any single place and so were limited to picking and choosing often a limited experience at each stop. However, there is always a price to pay for covering so much ground in such a short amount of time, and the tour did give a good overview of what Wales has to offer (aside from not stopping in any of the "large" cities in the South. Nothing in Wales is particularly large, however, as it is inhabited by only 2.8 million people (in comparison to London's 7 millon).
We then drove to Caerphilly to see the castle there, which is the second biggest castle, after Windsor, in the entire UK. I did not go inside (not much time, again) but it had beautiful grounds and pathways that allowed you to get very close to the castle and inside some of the outer walls. It also had one of the few moats left in the UK, since most of them have been drained for sanitary reasons. It did, however, have a sign warning that the blue green algae in the moat could be dangerous to humans, so we didn't go too near it. I also picked up a cup of tea while Woopy opted for a tasty chicken and asparagus pasty (a kind of pocket pie).
Our next stop was in the beautiful area of the Brecon Beacons, a hilly area with lots of little waterfalls. It was too muddy and slippery to do the entire hike they usually do, but we did walk down to see the Talybont Falls, which were pretty. Unfortunately, it was also slippery going down there and Charlotte fell and got her knees and legs all muddy. Luckily she wasn't hurt and we were already on our way to the stop for the evening.
Finally, we arrived at our stop for the night, the small town of Abergavveny, in a hostel called The Black Sheep or the Great Western, which is located above a small pub. A large group of us went to get dinner in town, about a 15 minute walk, since the pub downstairs was not able to serve food that evening. We went to a chain pub that I can't remember the name of, and Charlotte and I each got Welsh lamb cawl, a traditional stew made from lamb (Welsh lamb is supposed to be the best in the world, and they certainly have enough sheep to be good at raising them by now) and root vegetables and served with bread. It was quite tasty and filling, and nice and warm after a cold and drizzly day where we felt quite damp for most of it. I had my first Pimms and lemonade to go along with it, which is a popular summer cocktail in the UK made from Pimms (a reddish gin drink flavored with herbs and citrus), lemonade (which is really sparkling lemon soda here) and fresh fruit and cucumbers (the latter was sadly lacking in my drink). It was pretty tasty and very light, so I can see why it is a summer drink. It didn't really go with the stew, but oh well.
After dinner we went back to the hostel for quiz night at the pub downstairs, which was run by a transvestite, who at first only had painted nails but later in the evening was persuaded to put on his high-heeled black leather boots and long curly black wig. I had a pint of Brains, a malty beer made and sold only in Wales, and my team (consisting of myself, Charlotte, and some Canadian girls) lost at quiz night terribly. To be fair, we were one of the only teams without someone actually from the UK, and many of the questions were about UK roads and politics. Still, it was a fun night and afterwards I went straight up to take a quick shower and go to sleep. The bed was a bit rickety (but no bedbugs, I checked carefully) but once everyone in my room (about 10 people) got into bed around midnight, I slept very well.
More tomorrow I suppose, I should go do some work. A majority of my program is drunk and singing and dancing in the hallways, and I'm pretty sure when we were warned not to be obnoxious drunk Americans, this is what they meant. I suppose that makes my choice between going to bed early and waking up to do work and staying up to do work late easier...I couldn't sleep if I tried. Bad a capella Madonna isn't exactly bedtime music.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Monster Catch Up Post
First of all, Happy Birthday Mom! I hope you had a wonderful day.
I hope this won't be toooooo long but I have to catch up on this week before leaving for Wales at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am tomorrow morning. Otherwise I'll have too much schoolwork and last minute London things to do when I get back and I'll never be done. So bear with me.
Monday
Our first papers for literature were due on Monday, so after dropping John off at a train to the airport around 10am, I went in search of an internet cafe to print off my paper. People like me who brought laptops are not allowed access to the computer labs in the basement of James Lighthill House, where we live. It is some rule of UCL's, so every time we need to print something we have to pay for both internet use and the actual printing. Sigh. Anyway, I succesfully printed off my paper and went to class after picking up some tea. Class was apparently unremarkable because I don't really remember what happened but overall class has been better this week. Literature has picked up, probably due to the fact that most people much preferred Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway' to the last book we read. British culture continues to be slow, but it's hard to do much else with a class that is 2.5 hours long twice a week. However, from random comments made by our professor recently we have started to realize that she was not only living during the whole time period we're discussing, post 1945, she was also in the very center of a lot of the social movements. For example, during a presentation about feminism the other day the student was naming some famous feminists of the period and my professor said "Oh my daughter is named after her. She is one of my closest friends, and I was at that protest as well just not throwing things about like everyone else." Tuesday she brought in a book in which the author mentions her father as a top debator at Oxford, as well as a photograph of her waving a banner in front of a famous politician's car, and today she brought in a feminist needlepoint banner that was made for her by a famous playwright, another one of her good friends. She is truly amazing and I wish that we could just talk to her the entire class period and ask her questions.
After class I headed straight to Madame Tussauds with my half price ticket that I bought online. I unfortunately went by myself because I had to do my presentation on it the next day and bought my ticket online late the night before (it is almost 10 pounds cheaper that way) and didn't get to tell anyone else. It was a really strange experience, because when you walk into the celebrity rooms the wax figures are just standing amongst the hordes of tourists with cameras and it is easy to bump into Jennifer Aniston and apologize before you realize she is not real. It is very difficult to tell who is real and who is fake and I'm pretty sure I missed a couple of big ones (like the brand new one of the actor who plays Harry Potter) because I was going through rather quickly, and there are just so many. I didn't get too many pictures with celebrities because I would have had to ask someone every time and really, I didn't think I would want a bunch of pictures of myself with various fake celebrities, but I did take one of myself with Albert Einstein and one with Queen Victoria. I also took pictures of just statues, and I'll put some up soon. I particularly enjoyed the historical figures room and the bizarre Chamber of Horrors which still includes the death masks that Madame Tussaud made of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI after their executions (she had to root through lots of bodies to find them) and the guillotine blade that is said to have killed Marie Antoinette. It also has models of more recent serial killers, some of whom were killed on death row and their actual suits are on display and others that are still alive, which I find seriously disturbing.
At the end of Madame Tussauds there is a cheesy ride called "The Spirit of London" in which you get into a cab and pass lots of scenes from London at various times, complete with moving wax figures, much like Spaceship Earth at Disney World. It was pretty fabulous. Lastly, there was a really terrible movie in the Planetarium (which apparently did not draw enough people to remain a planetarium) by the makers of Wallace and Grommit about aliens studying the "stars" of the Earth who then proceed to come and cut open the dome of the planetarium and take pictures of you, since the audience is supposedly made up of stars. They really love the awful pun about stars, and the whole thing was an unsatisfying end to my Madame Tussaud experience. Oh well.
Afterward I came home and wrote up notes for my presentation, and I don't think I did much else. Oh I made dinner too, but the pancake mix that John and I bought but never made turned out pretty badly. Or maybe electric burners and I just don't get along.
Tuesday
Tuesday I woke up and went to class, where I did not get to do my presentation on Madame Tussauds because the other presentations were much longer than they needed to be/should have been since they're only supposed to be 5 minutes long. So I dragged my laptop to class for nothing which was relatively unfortunate. After class I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few essentials for the week, along with snacks for my trip to Wales this weekend in an effort to avoid buying more expensive meals and snacks while I'm there. We went to the theatre that night, to see The Hothouse by Harold Pinter, apparently the world's best living dramatist. It was hysterically funny but also a very black comedy, so difficult to watch at times. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and even more so because one of the lead actors, Finbar Lynch, was with the Royal Shakespeare Company when they came to Ann Arbor last fall. He has a really amazing voice, which sounds strange but everyone notices it, so it was fun to listen to him talk for 2.5 hours.
Wednesday
Wednesday is our class excursions day and this week we our destination was to Oxford. We went by coach, and left at around 9am, which I don't understand because the schedule said 7am and it would have been really nice to be there just as everything was opening for the day so we could have had a few more hours. The drive is about an hour and a half in decent traffic, so by the time we got there it was already after 10. Sigh. This is one of the things about the program that I do not understand, their desire to have us spend as little time as possible each place we go. However, the people who run the international studies program at U of M are coming to visit next week and have invited us for afternoon tea so hopefully they will ask us what we think about it and we can tel them honestly.
Anyway, back to Oxford. I had been once before, four years ago when our girl scout troop came to Europe, and it was basically what I had remembered. A group of us got some coffee and walked up the main drag of the town, stopping in little stores and at booths along the road. Our destination was yet another cheesy indoor ride called "The Oxford Experience" about the history of Oxford. It was much like "The Spirit of London" except the figures were certainly not as nice as at Madame Tussauds and we rode around in desks instead of taxi cabs. It was still pretty entertaining, and our professor even joined us for that one. After the ride we picked up some lunch (well, I brought my lunch and picked up a tasty maple pastry) at "The Campus Buttery" and walked around some more, including stopping at the Alice in Wonderland shop, which used to be a candy store where the real Alice bought her sweets, and in the gardens of Christ's Church College (there are a lot of colleges, which are really residencies, that make up Oxford University), which is where the inspiration for Hogwards in the movie came from. Then we met up with the rest of our group to go on a walking tour of the town with a guide. It was interesting to hear trivia bits about where bits of Alice and Wonderland were inspired and about the history of the town in general, which is very long and turbulent. It has been a student town since at least the middle of the 1300s, which is pretty impressive. It is beautiful but incredibly touristy, and I'm not sure I would want to go to school in that crazy of an atmosphere. We also went into Christ's Church College, which the program paid for. We saw places where some of the Harry Potter movies have been filmed, and the great hall which inspired the dining hall at Hogwarts, althouh no filiming took place there, just on a set that looked like it. Students still eat in the hall every day, which is kind of odd because hundreds of tourists walk through it when it is not mealtime. The college buildings really are quite beautiful however. Our last stop was at the Christ's Church Cathedral, in which the real Alice's sister was immortalized in stained glass as the model for a saint, before she died at a young age, after being engaged to her lover for only four days. So sad.
We got back to the dorm around 5pm and I made dinner and did some homework before going out with my friend Maureen for a drink at the pub down the road to celebrate the fact that I am finally no longer sick. I had a Magner's hard cider, which was tasty but not as flavorful as I was expecting. Afterwards I came back to start/finish the abstract for my history paper which was due today.
Today!
I am finally caught up! Props to you if you made it this far, although I have to admit that I half write these things for myself anway, so I don't forget what I did (it is much quicker than writing in my real journal). Today I had to leave early again to print off my abstract and my ticket for our tour of Wales, which leaves tomorrow morning at 7:15am. Class was fine, and now I'm at home getting things together for Wales. Woopy is actually staying very close to my dorm so hopefully I will somehow meet up with her tonight so she can leave her big suitcase in my room for the weekend, since her program at the London School of Economics doesn't start until next week. Right now I think I'm going to make a quick run to the grocery store for a few more snacks for this weekend and to the ATM for cash to pay the hostels. I hope you all have fabulous weekends and I'll be back Sunday night!
I hope this won't be toooooo long but I have to catch up on this week before leaving for Wales at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am tomorrow morning. Otherwise I'll have too much schoolwork and last minute London things to do when I get back and I'll never be done. So bear with me.
Monday
Our first papers for literature were due on Monday, so after dropping John off at a train to the airport around 10am, I went in search of an internet cafe to print off my paper. People like me who brought laptops are not allowed access to the computer labs in the basement of James Lighthill House, where we live. It is some rule of UCL's, so every time we need to print something we have to pay for both internet use and the actual printing. Sigh. Anyway, I succesfully printed off my paper and went to class after picking up some tea. Class was apparently unremarkable because I don't really remember what happened but overall class has been better this week. Literature has picked up, probably due to the fact that most people much preferred Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway' to the last book we read. British culture continues to be slow, but it's hard to do much else with a class that is 2.5 hours long twice a week. However, from random comments made by our professor recently we have started to realize that she was not only living during the whole time period we're discussing, post 1945, she was also in the very center of a lot of the social movements. For example, during a presentation about feminism the other day the student was naming some famous feminists of the period and my professor said "Oh my daughter is named after her. She is one of my closest friends, and I was at that protest as well just not throwing things about like everyone else." Tuesday she brought in a book in which the author mentions her father as a top debator at Oxford, as well as a photograph of her waving a banner in front of a famous politician's car, and today she brought in a feminist needlepoint banner that was made for her by a famous playwright, another one of her good friends. She is truly amazing and I wish that we could just talk to her the entire class period and ask her questions.
After class I headed straight to Madame Tussauds with my half price ticket that I bought online. I unfortunately went by myself because I had to do my presentation on it the next day and bought my ticket online late the night before (it is almost 10 pounds cheaper that way) and didn't get to tell anyone else. It was a really strange experience, because when you walk into the celebrity rooms the wax figures are just standing amongst the hordes of tourists with cameras and it is easy to bump into Jennifer Aniston and apologize before you realize she is not real. It is very difficult to tell who is real and who is fake and I'm pretty sure I missed a couple of big ones (like the brand new one of the actor who plays Harry Potter) because I was going through rather quickly, and there are just so many. I didn't get too many pictures with celebrities because I would have had to ask someone every time and really, I didn't think I would want a bunch of pictures of myself with various fake celebrities, but I did take one of myself with Albert Einstein and one with Queen Victoria. I also took pictures of just statues, and I'll put some up soon. I particularly enjoyed the historical figures room and the bizarre Chamber of Horrors which still includes the death masks that Madame Tussaud made of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI after their executions (she had to root through lots of bodies to find them) and the guillotine blade that is said to have killed Marie Antoinette. It also has models of more recent serial killers, some of whom were killed on death row and their actual suits are on display and others that are still alive, which I find seriously disturbing.
At the end of Madame Tussauds there is a cheesy ride called "The Spirit of London" in which you get into a cab and pass lots of scenes from London at various times, complete with moving wax figures, much like Spaceship Earth at Disney World. It was pretty fabulous. Lastly, there was a really terrible movie in the Planetarium (which apparently did not draw enough people to remain a planetarium) by the makers of Wallace and Grommit about aliens studying the "stars" of the Earth who then proceed to come and cut open the dome of the planetarium and take pictures of you, since the audience is supposedly made up of stars. They really love the awful pun about stars, and the whole thing was an unsatisfying end to my Madame Tussaud experience. Oh well.
Afterward I came home and wrote up notes for my presentation, and I don't think I did much else. Oh I made dinner too, but the pancake mix that John and I bought but never made turned out pretty badly. Or maybe electric burners and I just don't get along.
Tuesday
Tuesday I woke up and went to class, where I did not get to do my presentation on Madame Tussauds because the other presentations were much longer than they needed to be/should have been since they're only supposed to be 5 minutes long. So I dragged my laptop to class for nothing which was relatively unfortunate. After class I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few essentials for the week, along with snacks for my trip to Wales this weekend in an effort to avoid buying more expensive meals and snacks while I'm there. We went to the theatre that night, to see The Hothouse by Harold Pinter, apparently the world's best living dramatist. It was hysterically funny but also a very black comedy, so difficult to watch at times. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and even more so because one of the lead actors, Finbar Lynch, was with the Royal Shakespeare Company when they came to Ann Arbor last fall. He has a really amazing voice, which sounds strange but everyone notices it, so it was fun to listen to him talk for 2.5 hours.
Wednesday
Wednesday is our class excursions day and this week we our destination was to Oxford. We went by coach, and left at around 9am, which I don't understand because the schedule said 7am and it would have been really nice to be there just as everything was opening for the day so we could have had a few more hours. The drive is about an hour and a half in decent traffic, so by the time we got there it was already after 10. Sigh. This is one of the things about the program that I do not understand, their desire to have us spend as little time as possible each place we go. However, the people who run the international studies program at U of M are coming to visit next week and have invited us for afternoon tea so hopefully they will ask us what we think about it and we can tel them honestly.
Anyway, back to Oxford. I had been once before, four years ago when our girl scout troop came to Europe, and it was basically what I had remembered. A group of us got some coffee and walked up the main drag of the town, stopping in little stores and at booths along the road. Our destination was yet another cheesy indoor ride called "The Oxford Experience" about the history of Oxford. It was much like "The Spirit of London" except the figures were certainly not as nice as at Madame Tussauds and we rode around in desks instead of taxi cabs. It was still pretty entertaining, and our professor even joined us for that one. After the ride we picked up some lunch (well, I brought my lunch and picked up a tasty maple pastry) at "The Campus Buttery" and walked around some more, including stopping at the Alice in Wonderland shop, which used to be a candy store where the real Alice bought her sweets, and in the gardens of Christ's Church College (there are a lot of colleges, which are really residencies, that make up Oxford University), which is where the inspiration for Hogwards in the movie came from. Then we met up with the rest of our group to go on a walking tour of the town with a guide. It was interesting to hear trivia bits about where bits of Alice and Wonderland were inspired and about the history of the town in general, which is very long and turbulent. It has been a student town since at least the middle of the 1300s, which is pretty impressive. It is beautiful but incredibly touristy, and I'm not sure I would want to go to school in that crazy of an atmosphere. We also went into Christ's Church College, which the program paid for. We saw places where some of the Harry Potter movies have been filmed, and the great hall which inspired the dining hall at Hogwarts, althouh no filiming took place there, just on a set that looked like it. Students still eat in the hall every day, which is kind of odd because hundreds of tourists walk through it when it is not mealtime. The college buildings really are quite beautiful however. Our last stop was at the Christ's Church Cathedral, in which the real Alice's sister was immortalized in stained glass as the model for a saint, before she died at a young age, after being engaged to her lover for only four days. So sad.
We got back to the dorm around 5pm and I made dinner and did some homework before going out with my friend Maureen for a drink at the pub down the road to celebrate the fact that I am finally no longer sick. I had a Magner's hard cider, which was tasty but not as flavorful as I was expecting. Afterwards I came back to start/finish the abstract for my history paper which was due today.
Today!
I am finally caught up! Props to you if you made it this far, although I have to admit that I half write these things for myself anway, so I don't forget what I did (it is much quicker than writing in my real journal). Today I had to leave early again to print off my abstract and my ticket for our tour of Wales, which leaves tomorrow morning at 7:15am. Class was fine, and now I'm at home getting things together for Wales. Woopy is actually staying very close to my dorm so hopefully I will somehow meet up with her tonight so she can leave her big suitcase in my room for the weekend, since her program at the London School of Economics doesn't start until next week. Right now I think I'm going to make a quick run to the grocery store for a few more snacks for this weekend and to the ATM for cash to pay the hostels. I hope you all have fabulous weekends and I'll be back Sunday night!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Markets, Shakespeare and Pictures
I will try to catch up a bit in today's post, most of which I am sorry to tell you that I wrote in a notebook during one of my classes the other day in an attempt to stay awake and listening (which I know sounds like a stretch but if my mind is active I can pay more attention to what is going on, and I was taking notes at the same time).
Sunday
Sunday was John's last day in London, so we made the effort to be out and about relatively early in order to make the most of the day. Since John had some souveniers to pick up for various people (and I've b egun trying to accomplish the same goal...requests anyone?) and we'd heard good things about the Brick Lane market, which is only open on Sundays, we decided to head there first. After passing many tempting Indian restaurants and sweet shops, we came to the market itself. It is an odd mix of stands. There are more formal indoor markets with artists, jewlers and designers selling high-quality, unique and often hand-made wares, as well as outdoor streets lined with people sitting on blankets surrounded by old clothes, jewlery, and junk. Those parts were almost like a giant garage sale, and although there were a few neat finds, John and I found the indoor markets more worthwhile, if also more expensive. There were also streets with more everyday market goods, including baked goods, produce, and fresh meats (which looked rather shady), as well as household goods and electronics. I picked up some neat things at the markets but will refrain from describing them here, since that may spoil the surprise for some of you.
After browsing Brick Lane for quite awhile, we headed to the Spitafields Market, which is open daily but only has food on Sundays, and is generally more active on weekends. this was the same market I went to after dropping Eszter at the train station, but it was still fun to go through again. It is more like the indoor markets in Brick Lane, with nicer goods. I have to say, however, that one of my favorite parts of the markets is the huge range of delicious food stands, most of which are relatively inexpensive. John and I split an order of chicken teriyaki, complete with rice and salad, for lunch, and afterwards got a bubble tea. It was the first place I have seen with this delicious treat since being in London, which is surprising (despite the fact that Mimi warned me before I left) considering there is a huge international population here. The one we got was really just pure mango juice, freshly made, with two kinds of tapioca beads and ice. It was very delicious and fresh. Our last treat from the markets was a Nutella crepe. Really, you can't go wrong with that.
After thoroughly going through Spitafields (and waiting out a heavy but quick rainstorm) we ventured back to Brick Lane so that John could take some photographs of things he saw earlier. Then we took the tube to the area by the Globe and walked across the Millenium Bridge over the Thames. The Millenium Bridge is a neat footbidge with great views up and down the river. We found a pub on the water and split an order of traditional fish and chips and "mushy peas," which are a lot like mashed potatos but made form peas.
After dinner we headed to the Globe to see "Love's Labour's Lost." We had standing seats, in order to better experience what the so-called "groundlings," or working class people, in Shakespeare's days would have felt like. It also only cost 5 pounds a ticket to stand, and three times more for the priviledge of sitting. The play was a bit difficult to follow through the first act since neither John or I had read or seen it before, but it was still very funny. It helped that the actors often enter thorugh the groundlings and run around amongst them, shoving people out of the way as they go. They also tried their best to make it as raunchy as it would have been in Shakespeare's time (and possibly more so)...there were a few humping scenes and one off the older male actors completely mooned the audience, and we saw much more than we would have liked. The poor children in the audience...and their parents thought they were taking them to an educational experience. The acting was also quite good, although it was very difficult to stand still for so long.
The Globe itself made the play well worth seeing. It was built to be as authentic as possible, and is very close to the original site (although not directly on it since there are other buildings there now that could not be bought out). It has a real thatched roof and is open air above a good portion of the stage and all of the standing audience, so that if it rains you get wet (luckily for us it only drizzled a bit during the second act. The pigeons also fly through the theater occasionally. Unfortunatley, this also means that the effect of this beautiful space is occasionally marred by the loud sound of airplanes flying overhead, which make it very difficult to hear the actors, whose voices are not amplified at all.
After the play was over, John and I admired the view of the London night skyline (and unsuccessfully tried to take pictures of it) before heading back to the tube station. Unfortunately, they started having signal problems on the line we were on a few stops into our ride and we had to get off and find a bus instead, which cost us another ticket and took a lot longer. At least John got the London double-decker bus experience before leaving. I spent the rest of the night finishing my English paper.
Unfortunately I have actually done things every day this week despite having class, so I think I need to stop now and post some pictures before I bore you all more than I already have. I want to do justice to Madame Tussaud's, the bizarre play we saw last night, and Oxford, and I need to finish the abstract for our history paper tonight.
Just a few side notes: I am feeling much better, almost perfect, finally, which is good because I'm off to Wales bright and early Friday morning with Woopy and some girls from my program. Also, the hot water in our building has stopped working. It is yellowish and cloudy (they never said the hot water taps were potable but this is really unusual) and quite chilly. Mel, if you made it this far into the entry, I thought you would appreciate that it is not only Germany that has problems keeping its dorms functioning. They didn't even leave us a nice note to warn us, like they did with you.
Some pictures now... from Brighton (the pictures of the water and the weird looking Indian castle structure that is the Royal Pavillion), Stonehenge and the Neolithic Burial Mounds, and Bath. I won't label them all but I'm sure you can figure out which is which.
Sunday
Sunday was John's last day in London, so we made the effort to be out and about relatively early in order to make the most of the day. Since John had some souveniers to pick up for various people (and I've b egun trying to accomplish the same goal...requests anyone?) and we'd heard good things about the Brick Lane market, which is only open on Sundays, we decided to head there first. After passing many tempting Indian restaurants and sweet shops, we came to the market itself. It is an odd mix of stands. There are more formal indoor markets with artists, jewlers and designers selling high-quality, unique and often hand-made wares, as well as outdoor streets lined with people sitting on blankets surrounded by old clothes, jewlery, and junk. Those parts were almost like a giant garage sale, and although there were a few neat finds, John and I found the indoor markets more worthwhile, if also more expensive. There were also streets with more everyday market goods, including baked goods, produce, and fresh meats (which looked rather shady), as well as household goods and electronics. I picked up some neat things at the markets but will refrain from describing them here, since that may spoil the surprise for some of you.
After browsing Brick Lane for quite awhile, we headed to the Spitafields Market, which is open daily but only has food on Sundays, and is generally more active on weekends. this was the same market I went to after dropping Eszter at the train station, but it was still fun to go through again. It is more like the indoor markets in Brick Lane, with nicer goods. I have to say, however, that one of my favorite parts of the markets is the huge range of delicious food stands, most of which are relatively inexpensive. John and I split an order of chicken teriyaki, complete with rice and salad, for lunch, and afterwards got a bubble tea. It was the first place I have seen with this delicious treat since being in London, which is surprising (despite the fact that Mimi warned me before I left) considering there is a huge international population here. The one we got was really just pure mango juice, freshly made, with two kinds of tapioca beads and ice. It was very delicious and fresh. Our last treat from the markets was a Nutella crepe. Really, you can't go wrong with that.
After thoroughly going through Spitafields (and waiting out a heavy but quick rainstorm) we ventured back to Brick Lane so that John could take some photographs of things he saw earlier. Then we took the tube to the area by the Globe and walked across the Millenium Bridge over the Thames. The Millenium Bridge is a neat footbidge with great views up and down the river. We found a pub on the water and split an order of traditional fish and chips and "mushy peas," which are a lot like mashed potatos but made form peas.
After dinner we headed to the Globe to see "Love's Labour's Lost." We had standing seats, in order to better experience what the so-called "groundlings," or working class people, in Shakespeare's days would have felt like. It also only cost 5 pounds a ticket to stand, and three times more for the priviledge of sitting. The play was a bit difficult to follow through the first act since neither John or I had read or seen it before, but it was still very funny. It helped that the actors often enter thorugh the groundlings and run around amongst them, shoving people out of the way as they go. They also tried their best to make it as raunchy as it would have been in Shakespeare's time (and possibly more so)...there were a few humping scenes and one off the older male actors completely mooned the audience, and we saw much more than we would have liked. The poor children in the audience...and their parents thought they were taking them to an educational experience. The acting was also quite good, although it was very difficult to stand still for so long.
The Globe itself made the play well worth seeing. It was built to be as authentic as possible, and is very close to the original site (although not directly on it since there are other buildings there now that could not be bought out). It has a real thatched roof and is open air above a good portion of the stage and all of the standing audience, so that if it rains you get wet (luckily for us it only drizzled a bit during the second act. The pigeons also fly through the theater occasionally. Unfortunatley, this also means that the effect of this beautiful space is occasionally marred by the loud sound of airplanes flying overhead, which make it very difficult to hear the actors, whose voices are not amplified at all.
After the play was over, John and I admired the view of the London night skyline (and unsuccessfully tried to take pictures of it) before heading back to the tube station. Unfortunately, they started having signal problems on the line we were on a few stops into our ride and we had to get off and find a bus instead, which cost us another ticket and took a lot longer. At least John got the London double-decker bus experience before leaving. I spent the rest of the night finishing my English paper.
Unfortunately I have actually done things every day this week despite having class, so I think I need to stop now and post some pictures before I bore you all more than I already have. I want to do justice to Madame Tussaud's, the bizarre play we saw last night, and Oxford, and I need to finish the abstract for our history paper tonight.
Just a few side notes: I am feeling much better, almost perfect, finally, which is good because I'm off to Wales bright and early Friday morning with Woopy and some girls from my program. Also, the hot water in our building has stopped working. It is yellowish and cloudy (they never said the hot water taps were potable but this is really unusual) and quite chilly. Mel, if you made it this far into the entry, I thought you would appreciate that it is not only Germany that has problems keeping its dorms functioning. They didn't even leave us a nice note to warn us, like they did with you.
Some pictures now... from Brighton (the pictures of the water and the weird looking Indian castle structure that is the Royal Pavillion), Stonehenge and the Neolithic Burial Mounds, and Bath. I won't label them all but I'm sure you can figure out which is which.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Bath and Stonehenge
...so I am a little behind on blogging, but tonight I will do this past Saturday and we'll take it from there. Weeks aren't as eventful as weekends anyway.
So this past Saturday John and I went early to King's Cross bus station to catch our tour coach for Stonehenge and Bath. It picked us up at 8am but we didn't actually leave the city until around 9am because we had to pick up at a few other stops first. Our tour guide was an elderly British man who was born in Wales and did not speak English at all (only Welsh) until he was 12. He was very funny as well as informational, giving us facts not only about our two main destinations but about London and the countryside as well.
We arrived at Stonehenge probably between 11 and 12...honestly it is difficult to remember exact times because John and I were both so sleepy from getting up early that we drifted in and out of napping most of the way there. We had about an hour at Stonehenge and really you don't need too much more than that, although John would disagree since he did not get enough time to sketch it. You can't walk too close to the ruins, or in among them at all because they are apparently quite wobbly from surrounding traffic, and of course there are always concerns about people wanting to take souveniers from the stones themselves. We were told before we got there that they would be smaller than we imagined because of the way they are photographed, but I thought they looked exactly as I had imagined them. They are absolutely incredible, and of course still very mysterious because no one knows, or probably will ever know, why they were put there in that manner.
We left then for another hour or so in the coach on the way to Bath, and I was much more alert for this ride and able to really take in the beautiful countryside. It is absolutely picture perfect, with hedgerows and sheep and everything. We even passed through a few tiny towns, one of which still had a tiny dungeon from when they used to hold town drunks until they were sober enough not to be a nuisance to society.
Unfortunately, we only got about 2.5 hours in Bath, since it is almost a 3 hour ride back to London. This was a little disappointing, but the tour was less expensive than doing both things on our own so it still ended up being worth it. Bath is a town built entirely out of the same, yellowish stone that is taken from the hillside it sits on, or somewhere very nearby. To this day, everything built in the town must use this stone. It was first occupied in Roman times because of the natural hot springs, and is the location of some of the best preserved Roman ruins in the UK, the Roman baths. We went into the baths, of course, which are now a museum but you can go right down to the original Roman steps and blocks that the pillars would have stood on. There is also a wealth of Roman artifacts in the museum. The rest of the baths were built over the Roman ruins when they were rediscovered in the 1800s, I believe. Bath's springs were rediscovered in Elizabethan times, and became very fashionable during the reigns of the four Georges in that century, hence all of the beautiful Georgian architecture that Bath is known for. I thoroughly enjoyed the museum and was even brave enough to try some of the healing waters from the springs, which mainly tasted like hot sulfur water, and quite salty. So far they have not done too much to clear up my sore throat.
After the Roman baths, we wandered around the city in the direction of the Jane Austen centre, which I went into briefly to see the gift shop and take a picture with Jane Austen herself. I didn't drag John into the museum itself because I thought I'd rather see the rest of the city where so many of her novels took place than read about it inside. It was a very beautiful day, and the decision was well worth it. We walked around some more, I got an ice cream cone, and we went into Bath Abbey, a beautiful church from the late 1400s that looks much like a smaller version of Westminster Abbey. Then, unbelievably, it was time to get back on the bus and head for home. However, our tour guide did take us around the city by bus one more time to show us some more famous architecture, such as the Royal Crescent, which were houses designed to look like a palace (today they are divided up into a hotel, a museum, and flats, each of which costs around $1,000,000 US). That evening John went grocery shopping and made dinner again, so kindly, while I worked on my literature paper.
Pictures tomorrow maybe...I have a presentation for lit tomorrow that I should finish now.
So this past Saturday John and I went early to King's Cross bus station to catch our tour coach for Stonehenge and Bath. It picked us up at 8am but we didn't actually leave the city until around 9am because we had to pick up at a few other stops first. Our tour guide was an elderly British man who was born in Wales and did not speak English at all (only Welsh) until he was 12. He was very funny as well as informational, giving us facts not only about our two main destinations but about London and the countryside as well.
We arrived at Stonehenge probably between 11 and 12...honestly it is difficult to remember exact times because John and I were both so sleepy from getting up early that we drifted in and out of napping most of the way there. We had about an hour at Stonehenge and really you don't need too much more than that, although John would disagree since he did not get enough time to sketch it. You can't walk too close to the ruins, or in among them at all because they are apparently quite wobbly from surrounding traffic, and of course there are always concerns about people wanting to take souveniers from the stones themselves. We were told before we got there that they would be smaller than we imagined because of the way they are photographed, but I thought they looked exactly as I had imagined them. They are absolutely incredible, and of course still very mysterious because no one knows, or probably will ever know, why they were put there in that manner.
We left then for another hour or so in the coach on the way to Bath, and I was much more alert for this ride and able to really take in the beautiful countryside. It is absolutely picture perfect, with hedgerows and sheep and everything. We even passed through a few tiny towns, one of which still had a tiny dungeon from when they used to hold town drunks until they were sober enough not to be a nuisance to society.
Unfortunately, we only got about 2.5 hours in Bath, since it is almost a 3 hour ride back to London. This was a little disappointing, but the tour was less expensive than doing both things on our own so it still ended up being worth it. Bath is a town built entirely out of the same, yellowish stone that is taken from the hillside it sits on, or somewhere very nearby. To this day, everything built in the town must use this stone. It was first occupied in Roman times because of the natural hot springs, and is the location of some of the best preserved Roman ruins in the UK, the Roman baths. We went into the baths, of course, which are now a museum but you can go right down to the original Roman steps and blocks that the pillars would have stood on. There is also a wealth of Roman artifacts in the museum. The rest of the baths were built over the Roman ruins when they were rediscovered in the 1800s, I believe. Bath's springs were rediscovered in Elizabethan times, and became very fashionable during the reigns of the four Georges in that century, hence all of the beautiful Georgian architecture that Bath is known for. I thoroughly enjoyed the museum and was even brave enough to try some of the healing waters from the springs, which mainly tasted like hot sulfur water, and quite salty. So far they have not done too much to clear up my sore throat.
After the Roman baths, we wandered around the city in the direction of the Jane Austen centre, which I went into briefly to see the gift shop and take a picture with Jane Austen herself. I didn't drag John into the museum itself because I thought I'd rather see the rest of the city where so many of her novels took place than read about it inside. It was a very beautiful day, and the decision was well worth it. We walked around some more, I got an ice cream cone, and we went into Bath Abbey, a beautiful church from the late 1400s that looks much like a smaller version of Westminster Abbey. Then, unbelievably, it was time to get back on the bus and head for home. However, our tour guide did take us around the city by bus one more time to show us some more famous architecture, such as the Royal Crescent, which were houses designed to look like a palace (today they are divided up into a hotel, a museum, and flats, each of which costs around $1,000,000 US). That evening John went grocery shopping and made dinner again, so kindly, while I worked on my literature paper.
Pictures tomorrow maybe...I have a presentation for lit tomorrow that I should finish now.
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