Artists, History, and Theatre (And Good Eats ~Alan)

So, my Shakespeare presentation went well, and for the most part I really enjoy my classes. I only have one professor I don’t like, and that is because she is very boring and doesn’t include us in her lectures. Mostly she shows us slides and talks about things we already know and doesn’t once ever ask us anything. I think she just talks because she likes to hear herself. Anyway, every other class is a trip to an art museum, so it doesn’t much matter cuz I only ever have to hear her once every two weeks.

Speaking of the art galleries, Monday we went to Tate Britain. Our assignment was to look at the works of John Constable and William Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. It was all well and good, though I don’t much like the Turner artwork or the people that attend the museum for fun. They tend to be rude and uptight and get angry if you are trying to write a paper about the work they happen to be looking at that very moment.

Over the weekend we took a trip to the Churchill museum and Cabinet War Rooms. It was fun. It was historic and the history was interesting. It was a little bit cramped and there were a bunch of people there, but I suppose it wouldn’t have been any better if you had to live there back then.

Alan would like me to post a shout out to the fabulous dinners he’s been making. They are delicious, I must say. We’ve been doing pretty well with money too. We are actually spent a little to buy theater tickets. Yesterday, we went to see Les Miserables at the Queens Theatre. It was amazing. I loved it. It was beautiful. The best part about it is that we were 6 rows from the stage and the tickets were only £30 a piece. If it had been on broadway it would have been hundreds of dollars.

Today we went to the Wallace collection. The Wallace collection is a house in London that was donated to the city by Mr. Wallace’s widow. The house is left almost entirely in its original condition, completely full of artwork that today is work hundreds of millions of dollars. There are rooms completely full of armor and weapons that he collected because he liked to look at them. Full on cannons and jousting saddles. The rooms…there are Rembrandts and Velázquez and just bunches of others. And the front stair way…is absolutely gorgeous. Gorgeous. If I had billions or trillions of dollars, I would live there. Alas I don’t. Also unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in there and there is a nice person standing in each room making sure that you can’t sneak any. Which is sad cuz it was all so gorgeous.

But, we'll return to the beginning because I’ll talk about classes again for a minute. I really do enjoy them. Last night I wrote a paper on The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter, and there evolution from Literature to Film to Video Game as evidence of the progression of British Popular Culture. Which is pretty much nothing I would ever do in an Organic Chemistry class at home. It just makes me happy.

Everyone here is sick though. I’m praying I don’t get it, but we’ll see. Wish me luck.


Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.


My favorite Constable painting from the gallery on display. I stole this picture cuz I wasn't supposed to be taking them.


Buckingham Palace after the Churchill museum and CWR. I think I look silly in this picture, but Alan likes it.


Pin holes in the map on the wall in the CWR. They were taking the boast in the ocean. These were all put in place in the 1940s during WWII. I thought it was really cool. It really makes history more real.


The phone room thingy. The green ones are scramblers, which encrypt the messages so they were hard to interpret if intercepted. The wax man at the end has a sugar supply in front of him that you can't see. This was found in a desk in the CWR labeled with the guys name. It was his sugar supply and has been in that desk drawer since the 1940s. So cool.


Mrs. Churchill's room during the war. For the wife of the prime minister, her room even makes dorms look good!! I am very glad I will never have to live in that building.

Stonehenge and Bath Photos

So, I have a project due on Monday. A ten minute speech on character relationships in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. But, we had a trip to Stonehenge and the city of Bath today. While in Bath we saw the ancient Roman Bath that was built nearly 3,000 years ago. I loved the city. It was absolutely gorgeous and I would love to live there some day. These pictures are incapable of describing what I saw while I was there. Sorry, the pictures appear in reverse order due to the upload thinger and I am too lazy to switch them. At the end there are also some pictures from our trip to Harrod's.

This is me in front of Bath Abbey, a beautiful church that we unfortunately didn't get to go inside of. The carvings on the front and architecture in general is gorgeous.


This is the inside of the Roman Bath. In the water is part of a reflection of the Cathedral which is also above it in the background. Lots of people touched the water, but it is disgusting and I heard someone got meningitis from touching it once. Better safe than sorry, but everyone who touched it did say it was very warm.

This is me, at the far end of the bath with the length of it in the background.

I was pretending to touch the water in this picture, but Alan cut it out. It is still an good picture though.

This is again the inside of the bath, naturally heated spring water. The Romans thought it would heal you. On the right side of the photo you can see a strange reenactment guy.

This is Alan, relaxing next to the Bath. Yay!

This is the Royal Crescent. Originally built as houses, it, as are many things in Bath, is in the Roman style. It is now offices dedicated to the conservation of the city, but if they were sold as houses would cost more that £2.5 million. They are 5 stories high and most houses like them in the city have been converted to apartments. If you look off to the left you can see a slight wall. They erected it so that you couldn't drive up to the buildings, and is today still known as the "Haha" (as in Haha, you can't get there!).

This is the rather impressive bridge across the River Avon. The water is brown due to the recent storms, and the current is also much stronger than typical. In the summer, they take canoes on it. The waterfall that you see is illusive, because it looks tiny but is really a 20 ft drop. The funny part is, in a part of the picture you can't see, there are steps up the waterfall in the river for the swans to walk from one level to the next!

This was a gorgeous park that we really wanted to go into. Unfortunately, it was "closed due to adverse weather." It was, however, an absolutely beautiful day. It was sunny and bright, though chilly.

This was a really great restaurant that we ate lunch at. It was called The Walrus and The Carpenter (from Alice in Wonderland). The food was amazing!! I had bangers and mash and Alan had Curry Chicken and it was just wonderful. The people were great too! They were some of the first British people we met that will actually just talk to you!

This is a really old arch way and the original medieval street from the town. I was absolutely in love with this place. Oh, yes, and we were lost and Alan was reading the map to get us to the restaurant for lunch.

These were some sheep that were really cute. I liked them a lot, but not as much as Alan. They were just chilling in the fields around Stonehenge, right next to the highway!

This is Alan and I in front of Stonehenge. You'll have to excuse the picture as it was really really cold and really really windy. We were freezing. But it is a good photo and it was sunny and blue skies, and hey, its Stonehenge!!

This, again, is Stonehenge. It was cooler than I imagined. I loved it. I really really wish it had been warmer though. We had audio tour things to listen to, but it was so cold that we couldn't hold them up to our ears. So, I want to go back and see it again in the spring or fall or something.

This was in Harrod's. It was a Swarovski crystal suitcase. Everything there was super expensive and ostentatious like that.


This was my favorite thing in the store. It cost £400. But, I really wanted it. At least I got to hug it...

Classes and Whatnot.

The last few days have been busy and relaxing, both. Sunday, we met up with a friend from school and went to Harrods. Harrods is interesting. We thought it was like a mall, that would have a central aisle thing. Its really not though. Its like a 6-7 floor department store that is so huge and so packed that you can find anything and anyone there. It is also really expensive, but I haven't gotten around to uploading those pictures yet so I'll so you some stuff (like the giant £400 teddy bear ($600 ish) and the Swarovski crystal suitcase) later.

Monday, was rather interesting. We had a sign up in the morning for our excursions. Now, we were going to go early and get there before 9 because there are only a limited number of spots for each trip, but we were under the impression that no one else would be early. This was due to the fact that we asked the staff members what time students typically got in to sign up for the trips and they said they usually sign up within the first week, not the first day, and that no one ever got there early and queued up outside the door. So, we figured, even getting there a half hour early we would be the first ones there and therefore be guaranteed a place. So, its 8:20 and we are walking towards our building and there is a giant crowd of people, and we think it is for the bus stop...but it isn't. There is a massive line of people outside the building that have been there for hours as though they were waiting for concert tickets or something. Well, we did a quick head count and were numbers 23 and 24 in line and some trips only had 25 places, so we were really relieved. By the time 9:00 rolled around the line was nearly down the block and people kept getting in front of us to talk to there friends, but they would eventually go back to their rightful places and we would be relieved. The paperwork was a nightmare, but we ended up getting into every trip that we wanted and shelling out a massive £568.00. But hey, we're now going to Paris, Scotland, Wales, Oxford, Blenheim Palace, and on a Jack the Ripper tour of London. So, for weekend trips all over Great Britain and Europe, that isn't so much money.

After that we had a couple hours to kill, so we walked over to our sister institution The Imperial College of London to explore their student union. We found it sadly deserted, but that was probably due to the fact that it was 10:30 in the morning. We sat there for about half an hour after exploring and then walked back to our school. We went to the computer lab and then up to the CAPA "Library." I put it in quotes, because it is a very very very VERY tiny room full of books. Some girls came in to look for text books that they "needed" for their classes because they were on the recommended reading list with no intention of returning them for the entire semester, which we thought was really rude because other people may have needed those books too and we typically only have to read like one chapter from them, and judging by the look of them they would probably never open them anyway.

That is something that we have noticed about most of the other students. They are all party animals and don't really take any kind of academics seriously. They drink a lot, and they are loud and rude and we can't really stand most of them.

Anyways, after they left we started reading for our Shakespeare class that was an hour later and that was more than anyone else could say. The good news about that was I knew what my topic was for my presentation next week because we got to pick and I picked a good one because I had already read some. But the professor was great. He talked about 300 words a second, but is really interesting and I really like him.

After class and dinner, we went to a British theater production that was absolutely hysterical. I loved it. The theater was strange, unique, and tiny. But the production was great.

Today we had two more classes, Art History and Understanding Britain. Both are good classes, but the art history prof is a little dry. Her lectures are terribly boring but the good news is that every other class we will be spending in museums, which will be tons of fun. The second class is great. I love our prof. He is sarcastic and dry and hysterical. He let us out early to watch the inauguration on tv, which we did. Since then, I have been reading for my presentation, and soon I will be going to bed because I have to get up early tomorrow for a police talk presentation thingy. So, I hope you are all having a good time back in America.

<3

One More Fun Day of Sightseeing!

So, Today was a fun filled day full of sight seeing. That's mostly what this first week has been. We've pretty much mastered the tube station, except the platforms which keep turning themselves into strange mazes. The British are good with signs and labeling tho. The only thing we haven't mastered is reading the signs. We tried to go see Westminster Abbey this morning, but it turned out the tube line that we wanted to take to get there was not operating at the stop we tried to transfer to it from. We didn't read the sign. So instead we got off and walked through Green Park near Buckingham Palace.

After that, I used a public toilet. It was eerie under ground and had pink toilet paper. Then we headed over to our school for a Coach tour of London. It lasted 3.5 hours and we saw lots of things. Mostly we just drove around the city and listened to a great, funny tour guide who knew everything. We occasionally got out to take pictures and I'll post some for you. The most interesting part was probably when we got to Trafalgar square, and there was a riot/protest for Palestine and our coach got caught in traffic. It was fun tho.

This is Harrod's. Its huge and sweet and super duper expensive. We are going to tour it tomorrow.
This is Westminster Abbey! We were going to tour it today, but didn't get to. I'll be excited to later though!
This is me in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. That is where Princess Diana married Prince Charles, and when you tour it you can go the whole way to the top of the dome to see the views!

This is a man on a motorcycle. You can see the board on the front of his motorcycle. That means that he is studying for an exam called "The Knowledge." When he completes it, he will be a licensed taxi driver and must know every hotel, restaurant, road, etc in London. It takes about 3 years to learn all the information.

This is me in front of Tower Bridge. We drove over it after this was taken.
This is a pretty bridge that you can't see much of because we were in a moving bus. You also can't see that it is pink. Its named for Prince Albert who married Queen Victoria.

My Legs Hurt, but I bought a picture uploader thinger!!

I was informed that it was -17 degrees Fahrenheit in Pittsburgh today. That sucks. I'm pretty much loving the constance 45-50 degree weather here. :-) But really, I'm sorry to everyone stuck there.

On a more different note, today was fun, mostly. I woke up and tried really hard not to wake my hung over roommates. I got ready to go and Alan and I made breakfast in his flat. Then we left early for his meeting because we were going to go get isic (international student identification cards) cards this morning. Instead of going to our normal tube stop we went on an adventure to find a different near by one and the walk led us through a cute little town. Unfortunately the ride on the tube was rather warm today (despite the fact that its underground it gets unreasonably hot). And the fact that I was wearing a hat and scarf and gloves and coat and sweater and it was 50 degrees didn't help. Then we shoved more people than should ever be on a subway on to it and set off on a jerky, hot journey. It didn't last long. We go off several stops early cuz I couldn't ride anymore without feeling sick. It turned out alright though, because the stop led us to Buckingham Palace! And since we decided to look around there instead of going to get isic cards, we had a fun time exploring again.

Then we made our way to CAPA for Alan's meeting (which was the same as mine yesterday). While he was there I went and walked around Hyde Park and looked at Round Pond and Kensington Palace. There were birds and dogs and groups of primary school children in matching uniforms playing football (soccer). It was glorious. It started to rain, but that's London and I stuck it out and it was still fun! Afterwards I walked down a bustling street shoppers as I was looking for a computer store to find an upload thinger for my camera. I found one that wasn't terribly expensive and that is why you will now get to see some of my photos.

Then Alan and I met up again and came back to our flats to change for out orientation outing tonight at a historic pub called The Gate. Something really famous happened there, but something really famous has happened everywhere in London and I can't remember what it was. The food was good but the rest of the students acted like stupid, loud, rude, American drunks, and yes, they got drunk. So Alan, Brittany, and I left to go find a Gelato place near a tube stop nearby. It turned out to be an adventure because we didn't know the name of it, and were not even sure if it was the right one, but we found one. It was tasty. A random Londoner told us it was too cold for ice cream. It was 50 degrees. Unfortunately, the Adventure took 2 hours and my high heels did murder to my feet.

So we came home and now I'm relaxing and I'll show you some pictures.


This is the Last picture of Alan and I in America. It was in our hotel in Philly, outside our suite door (which was amazing).
This is me on Westminster Bridge in front of Parliament at about 10 pm. Notice the double decker in the background (they are everywhere).

This is me on a stairway that leads down to a boat on the Thames. In the background you can see the Eye, the County Hall building (the colorful one) and the Aquarium beneath it.
This is me again on a really cool bridge. In the background is Big Ben, Parliament, the Eye, and the Thames.
This is one of the Palace Guards at Buckingham Palace. We missed guard switching by an hour :-(
This is me, in a phone booth. Ones that look like this really aren't very common.


This is the Sunken Garden from Kensington Palace, part of the Palace is in the Background.
This is one corner of Round Pond in Hyde Park. You can see that it is just covered in birds. Unfortunately, there are no giant geese in this picture for you guys to see. (They really were huge!)

I Am An Idiot.

I have had a wonderful day today. I woke up this morning and got used to showering in my shower, which is interesting. It only has a small plexi-glass sheet thing that shields half the tub from the ground, no shower curtain or anything. The toilets are different also. And the water is fickle in its temperature, and our dishwasher is broken. But otherwise the flat is pretty nice. Its small compared to the others, but its nice.

After I showered I ate a croissant that was free that they left for us with some strawberry jam that was also free. It was amazing. The jam was really thick and you could slice it rather than spread it. After that Alan and I left to head to CAPA. We left early since we didn't exactly know where we were going, and then rode the tube. The tube is fun. I like it. We've ridden it pretty much everywhere :-). Its really quiet and really clean and easy to navigate.

We finally got there and we were early so we went exploring and found a nice Sainsbury that was huge and walked around until I had my meeting today. It was long and ran over, but it was interesting nonetheless. Alan walked around Hyde Park until I was finished and said it was pretty. Then we went back to Sainsbury and bought stuff to make dinner tonight. We came home and made dinner and then got stuff and went back out for the night.

We took the tube down to Westminster and saw Big Ben and Parliament and some pretty buildings, the river Thames and what we think was Westminster Abbey, though it was too dark to tell. It gets dark around 3:30 here. I took lots of pictures that I would post for you, but it turns out that I am an idiot.

I forgot my camera cable that I upload pictures with. So I have a bunch of pictures that I can't put onto my computer and show anyone. I hope I can find a way to or have my family send my cable or something. I hope.

Talk to you guys later.

<3

I Have Arrived!

Well, I'm in London now, in my flat. Its pretty nice. The flight was ok, and it was early. Then we had a bus ride around London dropping people off at their respective flats. From what I saw it is a pretty city, but it was so foggy that I couldn't see much. Mostly I'm just really tired. But I have to stay awake until later tonight. But I'm not gonna write anymore cuz really...I'm sleepy.

Tomorrow Is The Day!

So, right now I'm sitting in the computer lab in the Embassy Hotel (they are really cool hotels if you've never stayed in one. They have rivers.). Anyways, I'm sitting in the lab and I just got filtered from facebook, like I was in highschool all over again. Sigh.

But, it will be ok because tomorrow I fly for 7 hours across the Atlantic into England (YAY!). I will let you all know how it goes/went when we get there and get settled in. Until then, Cheerio!

What I've Realized...

I get on the plane in less than a week now. I started packing today, mainly just throwing stuff I want to take in the general direction of my suitcase. I would be further if I had done any wash, but I haven't and probably won't be packed until the night before we drive to Philly.

I've been staying up till all hours of the night reading and knitting and stuff. But yesterday I decided I would set my watch to London time. What I realized was that I've been going to bed around 9:00 am London time and waking up around 7:00 pm London time. Thats pretty much daylight. What this means is that jet lag is gonna be something killer. And I get cranky when I'm sleepy. Unfortunately.

But the fact that I have less than a week means I really need to buckle down and start getting stuff done. I need to do wash. I need to go shopping. I need to pack. I generally need to prepare myself for traveling to another country. I am nervous. I guess that's normal. But I'm also excited, and I know I'll have a great time...once I get there.

<3

Less Than Two Weeks

I've decided to start this blog to keep track of my adventures in London. It will be more convenient than facebook for letting everyone know what is going on in my life, I hope. I will still, of course, be using facebook, but I'm not a terribly huge fan of writing notes on there as a blog. That is mostly why I've started this.

Moving on to other things though, there are less than two weeks until my flight leaves, 9 days to be exact. I still have so much to do. I haven't even started packing and I have new clothes that I still need to buy. I feel completely unprepared. But, knowing me, I probably won't start packing until the 11th or so!

Anyway, I'll do what I can to keep this updated and keep in touch with everyone! To all my friends heading back to PITT, have a great semester. I will miss you all!!

<3