Exploring the Unreal City

Exploring the Unreal City UPDATE:

2009-08-14T01:05:00.002+01:00

Hello,

It's about a year now since I returned from Europe. A lot has changed and a lot more as stayed the same. On the off chance anyone takes a look here I thought I would update you as to what I am spending my time on now, but posting a link to my new, more ambitious blog:

Twenty-Something Travel

Twenty-Something Travel will track my progress as I plan a around the world adventure. It will also aim to give first time travelers the resources and information they need to plan their own adventure.

So please come check me out! And tell your friends!

Stephanie

The River of Time

2008-05-13T11:49:00.000+01:00

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my
song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
-TS Eliot, "The Wasteland"

The Thames (sounds like Tems) is the heart and soul of London. When the Romans first arrived in England in 43 AD they built a small settlement by the mighty river, which they called Londinium. Over the centuries the strategic river trade position of Londinium lead to more settlers, more traders and more buildings. Rulers of the land recognized the importance of the location; William the Conquer er built a larger fortification on it's banks (which would later become the Tower of London). The city expanded like rapidly growing organism; absorbing nearby townships as it grew to become the great, living city that exists today.

The Thames is still a major trading river, but it is also a major lifeline- it weaves through the concrete and steel, connecting the modern city with it's roots. A cruise down the Thames is like a trip through time; you can see the Tower of London, the reconstructed Globe Theater, St. Paul's and the gothic houses of Parliament interspersed with the Millennial Wheel, the Tate Modern, and a variety of glass and steel apartment buildings.

In honor of my Dad choosing to spend his birthday in London, I arranged for us to go on a guided river side pub walk. The guide, a loud spunky woman with truly British teeth, told us that the Thames is unusual in that it is a tidal river. In every 24 hour cycle the water level rises and falls a full 19 feet- twice! This is a dramatic difference that I've unwittingly noticed many times. At high tide the river is close and immediate, it presses along the embankment like a fat man in a bath tub. At low tide it is a thin and shallow ribbon, the water recedes to reveal hidden staircases leading down to wide rocky beaches. I've never given it much thought other than that it looks pretty gross at low tide, but our tour guide told us that beachcombers can easily find bits of broken pottery and other treasures on the banks- instead of washing away, pieces of treasure are simply lifted up and redeposited by the constant rise and fall of the river.

After her spiel the group bounced joyfully to the next pub...while I bounced joyfully down to the beach. I've always had secret dreams of being an archaeologist; Indiana Jones in a kicky skirt if you will. The beach wasn't quite the Temple of Doom but it was a fascinating corner of the city I never even knew existed! Far from the gray sloppy muck I envisioned, the stretch was a sea of whites, browns and greens peppered with a rainbow of red and yellow volcanic looking rocks. Within minutes of combing the pebbles I found a half a dozen shards of porcelain with a dainty blue ink design. There was treasure everywhere! a ghostly green bottleneck with a glass cork still attached. A brown clay fragment of a much larger pot, with a thick dotted design at the neck. Was any of it more than a couple years old? I have no idea. But I like to imagine that the porcelain was from a dainty Victorian tea set and the bottle came from some long ago dusty apothecary. The clay pot...it's Roman, and it's been jostling under the tides since the dawn of London, just quietly waiting for me to arrive.

This week has been bittersweet as it is my last one here in London. I love it here and I can hardly bare the thought of leaving, but a whole new set of adventures await me back in the States...at least I hope!

Actual Shows I Have Watched on British TV Since I Arrived

2008-05-09T13:13:00.003+01:00

TrueLife: Half Man, Half Tree

World's Youngest Faith Healers

Britain's Youngest Grandmothers

Britain's Most Embarrasing Bodies (A 5 part series!)

Gotta love it.

This will be my last post in the UK for a little while, I'm heading off on some travels around the continent. I will try to update when I can, but I'm not sure what the internet situation will be!

huh

2008-05-06T16:31:00.004+01:00

To the person who somehow found my blog by searching for "cave woman love fantasy novel,"

Sorry about the disappointment...

Land of 1000 Castles

2008-05-06T11:51:00.004+01:00

Imagine the most impossibly green rolling hills of farmland patchworked with vibrant yellow mustard fields and dotted with fluffy white sheep. It's springtime so little baby lambs gambol through the grass, under a blue canopy of sky. Now add in a crumbling castle or abbey and that's pretty much the standard view I could see in any direction while driving through Wales last weekend.

My lovely Dad and Stepmother finally made it over to London to visit me and to drive around the English countryside. When my Dad suggested that we all go away for a weekend I immediately suggested Wales. I've had a cursory jaunt through Scotland, dabbled with the Emerald Isle and have explored much of Southern England, so I was eager to see yet another undiscovered corner of the British Isles. Wales seemed a particularly enigmatic place; patched onto the corner of England, a part of the United Kingdom for 100's of years yet stubbornly maintaining a completely different cultural identity and language. Plus the country has over 600 castles- and oh how I get a kick out of castles.

It was quite a shock to me to learn that the A40, the road which my living room looks out onto, can actually be followed all the way to Wales. If I felt like going for a particularly ambitious walk I could walk straight to the coast with only an ugly highway as my map! That's not really that fun though so we eschewed the main thoroughfares for a serious of windy little roads which took us through vast fields and villages that more then define the word "quaint". As we drew near the border the BBC transformed into a collection of guttural growls known commonly as Welsh. It is a language like none other. A couple phrases to learn:

thank you = diolch

street= ystryd

beer= cwrw

Yes, those are the correct spellings- I have no idea how one would pronounce any of those or what happened to all the vowels. Luckily, everyone in Wales can speak English, but they work very hard to maintain their national language.

Our first stop was Tintern Abbey, or what is left of it. Built in the 1130's for the Order of Cistercians (or White Monks as they were known because of their white robes), the abbey was of particular interest to me because it was probably there that a monk known as Geoffrey of Monmouth penned the earliest recorded reference to King Arthur in his Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). After Henry the VIII kicked the crap out of the monasteries Tintern sat in neglected ruin for hundreds of years. But rarely will you see prettier ruins. The massive arches springing incongruously out of the beautiful welsh landscape inspired paintings by JM Turner and a poem by William Wordsworth who wrote;

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

Pressing deeper into the Wye valley we headed towards our resting place for the night, a charming town known as Hay-on-Wye. As dusk approached however, traffic came to a standstill on the two land country road we had been traveling. Lulled by the peaceful scenery and warm weather we abandoned our car to see what the hold up was. About 200 yards ahead of us was an antique tractor resting gently on it's side while a two truck tried to puzzle how to pick it up. A farmer who had walked straight off the pages of a story book stood dejectedly to the side. A strange country sight for us city slickers.

Hay-on-Wye was so charming, and so amazing that it may actually be where I go when I die (if I'm good that is, if I'm bad I'll be sent to Florida). It was in fact so awesome it warrants it's own post, so look for that later.

My Dad somehow managed to drag me away from Hay by noon the next day, and after a drive through the misty and mysterious Brecons Beacons National Park, we turned the car towards Cardiff, Wales' capital. Like everything else in Wales Cardiff is a charming city. It has more public park land per person then any other city on the planet- although the day was gray and rainy and we took little advantage of this fact. In face we spent most of our afternoon gawking at Cardiff Castle.

I've seen quite a few castles in my time but Cardiff is the most castle-y castle I've encountered. It is the perfect Disney castle, with imposing gray stone, turrets, and an over the top colorful clock tower. Inside the battlements is the ruins of a thousand year old keep, with a moat and a large Welsh flag beating proudly in the wind. All of this is sitting literally in the center of a modern city.

The castle was functional and certainly imposing back in the day, but more recently (as in the past 200 years) served as a summer home for an impossibly rich Scottish family. We toured the inner chambers, which had been decked out in a dizzying wealthy and ornate style that would make the Sheiks of Dubai feel plain. In a stark contrast we also climbed to the top of the dilapidated keep- a truly dizzying trek, for a spectacular and terrifying view of downtown. After everything else I'd seen that weekend, the flashy new football dome seemed anachronistic. Cardiff may be a modern city but the rest of Wales seems magnificently lost in time.

City of the Living; City of the Dead

2008-05-01T16:02:00.005+01:00

"London, after all, is a city of tombs. But London nevertheless is
a city in the full tide and race of human life."

These two sentences, from a Virginia Woolf essay entitled "Abbeys and Cathedrals" sum up the eternal dichotomy of life and death embodied not just by London, but by all big historic cities. The hustle of city life is anchored in the memory of all those who no longer bustle through the city. Every big city as at least one good cemetary, London has many fantastic ones.

A city of memorials to be sure; I've always enjoyed visiting London's many graveyards. Some people find my fascination odd or macabre, but I've never found anything spooky about tehse places. They are peaceful yes, beautiful most of the time, and if you take the time to poke around they are always full of fascinating stories. Like the churchyard near my house which has a tombstone for a man who died drowning-- and another tombstone next to it for the anonymous man who died trying to save him. Or the dozens of heartbreakingly small tombstones for babies, sometimes half a dozen in one family plot. These small monuments are sometimes all that is left to record the lives, marriages, deeds and deaths of these long ago people. So don't they deserve to be respected, admired and remembered? Even if it just by some unknowning curious girl with a big imagination?

My favorite London cemetery is the inside of Westminster Abbey, which I've written about before. For sheer star power you can't beat it- anyone who is anyone has their bones resting there. Elizabeth I is buried there, and Mary Queen of Scotts, Alford Tennyson, Robert Brown, Chaucer. Even more celebrities are simply memorialized with monuments. It's quite a sight to see: the pomp and circumstance, the overwhelming awe at how one small nation could produce so many recognizable historical figures. The grandness of English history is emphasized by the soaring Gothic architecture or the church.

Equally appealing, but often overlooked, are the smaller, secret graveyards which dot London. Waundering through a great green square you might not even realize at first that you've stumbled upon an old burial ground at all; many of the tombstones have been moved or cleared away to make room for dogs playing catch and youths on bicycles. An example would be St. Andrew's Gardens, the small park behind my old dorm i n Bloo msbury. Gray and green tombstones line the borders of the park, more of an accent than a main focus.

London is bursting with people; try and take to come out of Leicester Square tube station around rush hour on a Friday and you will not believe that many people could exist. Festivals, races, movie premieres, demonstrations, London is a complex moving organism that never stops. It is exhilarating but it is also exhausting. I think that is what makes these old, half forgotten places so appealing. Time stops, or at least slows down- for once you can actually hear yourself think. Woolf really says it best:

"The only peaceful places in the whole city are perhaps those old graveyards
which have become gardens and playgrounds...Here one might drowse away the first
days of spring or the last days of autumn without feeling too keenly the stir of
youth or the sadness of old age. For here the dead sleep in peace, proving
nothing, testifying nothing, claiming nothing save that we shall enjoy the peace
that their old bones provide for us."

I am hard pressed to think of another author more in tune with the rhythms and songs of London than Virginia Woolf. Although her modernistic novels may not be my favorite and although I make fun of her whenever I get the chance, after reading her essays in The London Scene I have a new found respect for her. She was a native Londoner, and her love of the city really shines through in her writing in a way I can only hope my love shows in mine.

Democracy in Action

2008-04-29T08:41:00.006+01:00

Being a good American girl, (and being as fed up with Bush as everyone else), I have been following the elections in America very closely. By now I, like I'm guessing everyone back home, am sick to death of it. Luckily I have the ability to turn off the coverage whenever I feel like it- I can't even imagine how smothering it must be back home.

Actually, I can, because right now London is caught up in a similar electoral maelstrom. The race for Mayor of London ends May 1 thankfully; at this point it may be even more omnipresent than the election in the US. If that is even possible. Everyday the news shows the two lead contenders; slimy incumbent Ken Livingstone, and foppish Tory challenger Boris Johnson running around London shaking hands, making unimaginably empty promises and hurling attacks. Like so many elections it has boiled down to a battle of personalities at this point; and it's every bit as exhausting as listening to Obama and Hillary go at it. And I don't even have a vote!

There's an interesting little piece in Slate magazine today by Anne Applebaum comparing the London mayoral race and the Democratic Primary. Check it out, it's a quick read and it proves that politics are a dismal science pretty much everywhere:

London's Postmodern Mayoral Election

Shining Bright

2008-04-23T22:45:00.006+01:00

After a winter that seemed so stretch on and on and on, spring has finally arrived in the United Kingdom. The past two days we've finally had some well earned sunshine and warmth; it is amazing how just a slight difference in weather can make the entire city come alive. Yesterday I sat out in Regents Park in bare feet with a book and watched about half of London do the same: little kids running through thesoft grass, couples getting amorous among the swollen tulips and solitary thinkers like myself, just soaking up the sun.

This evening Jason and I had a stroll through Hyde park. There pictures aren't from today, they are from the only other nice sunny day that has occured since I moved here, it gives you a good idea of what things are looking like this week:

Mmm British Food (Yes really!)

2008-04-21T08:37:00.007+01:00

Okay, England is not exactly known for it's fabulous cuisine, I will admit. English food is generally heavy, meaty and covered in either grease or gravy. It has strange and goofy names like bangers and mash, shepherd's pie and toad in the hole (don't ask). However there are some bright spots, but first
Things not to eat in London:

Hamburgers- The English are not satisfied with their meat until it has had all flavor and juice thoroughly cooked out of it. I'll cut them a little slack, because of mad cow disease, but it's still a pitiful situation. I've been fantasizing about hamburgers for about a month now; thick and juicy, the way God intended.
Mexican Food- And I promise I've tried. Peas in a quesadilla? Carrots in a burrito? Just no. No no no. With the exception of one fabulous restaurant in Covent Garden the only way to get halfway decent Mexican is to cook it yourself (or in my completly inept case beg Andy to make fajitas for me).

Those two areas aside, cuisine in England isn't completly bleak. Here are a few things any visitor to London should experience:

The Full English Breakfast- Perfect if you are hungover, or just very, very, very hungry. The full plate usually consists of: Rashers (English Bacon which is AMAZING), sausage, two eggs, fried toast (yes, fried), tomatoes, mushrooms and baked beans (yes, baked beans). Sometimes it also includes, chips (fries), black pudding (blood pudding) or bubble and squeak (simply indescribable). Yes, all on one plate. Yes England is second only to the United States in obesity.
The Cream Tea- The perfect afternoon snack after a long day of sightseeing: a pot of tea accompanied by a fluffy scone. First you cover each half of the scone in delicious clotted cream (regular cream will NOT do), then add jam on top. Sure it might give you a heart attack- but a delicious one!
Curry- Don't even try to argue that this is not British food. The Curry house is an important staple of the local cuisine. Guaranteed to be the best Indian food you can get outside of India.

Junkfood- From chocolate digestives (Bill Bryson calls them a "British masterpiece"), to flapjacks, to the wide variety of strange and alluring crisp flavors (bacon? lamb and mint? prawn cocktail?). And the candy bars! my favorites are Crunchie Bars, the Cadbury chocolate bars with the creme egg filling and Malteasers, which are kind of like Whoppers but more delicious.

Subterranean City

2008-04-18T08:38:00.005+01:00

The warehouse where I spend my working hours has a lovely view of a solid brick wall, supporting some raised train tracks. All day long I hear Southwest trains whistle by on their way to Wimbledon. Underneath the tracks there is a small door embedded in the wall; probably meant as a maintenance shed of some sort. Over time I've come to realize that its primary function is as makeshift winter lodgings for a portly homeless man. Who knows how long he's been living there, certainly since before I started working here. Most days he can't be seen, or only glimpsed at through a crack in the thick door. On nice days he is easy to spot; sitting in a lawn chair, soaking up the sun. One morning he had a pair of jeans and a t-shirt hanging on the fence, drying in the windy air. He's pretty bold for a squatter actually.

I kept thinking of this wall dweller whilst I read Neverwhere , a bizarre fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman. I'm not sure how to describe this novel; it's a fairytale for adults I suppose- utterly unlike any other novel I've read (this is the same guy who wrote the novel for the recent movie Stardust- which I am told featured Robert de Niro as some sort of gay pirate). In Neverwhere a fairly average Londoner named Richard Mayhew accidentally falls into the world of London Below- a kind of parallel city which exists underneath everyday London. The plot involves a vengeful angel named Islington, sexy she-vampires and two psychopathic hired assassins who travel through time. It's pretty out there, but what makes the novel work is it stays rooted in the framework and mythology of London- for example Gaiman imagines an actual royal court at Earls Court Tube Station, Knightsbridge is home to a terrifying Night Bridge and Oxford Circus...well you get the idea.

What struck me most about the book is its focus on the hidden and forgotten London. His London Below manages to exist alongside regular London, completely unnoticed. A city that has existed for thousands of years must be weeping with secrets; forgotten landmarks, hidden tunnels, places that have long since been buried over by the detritus of progress. So I did a little research. Paris has it's underground catacombs, London has an entire network of abandoned tube stations. The first underground train in London left the platform in 1863- that is 145 years ago! Since then a number of stations, tunnels and platforms have been built and later shut down. Shut down--but not destroyed. There are about two dozen stations which sit ghostly and unused below the earth. This includes the now defunct British Museum Station. You can see pictures of a lot of these stations at http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/. I warn you though, it's pretty eery.

It gets even stranger though. Deep Level Shelters built far underneath even the deepest tube lines. They were built by the government during World War Two as bomb shelters and never inhabitated- they are now used mainly for storage (what is so important- or so useless, that you need to store it hundreds of feet underground? Government secrets? Old Spice Girls albums?). Apparently there is society, Subterranea Britannica dedicated to exploring these underground spaces.

I've been here for five months, and I feel like I know London pretty well. But when I walk down the street, I really have no idea what's behind the next building, or buried deep beneath the streets. London has more secrets then even a lifetime here could reveal.

Baseball in the UK

2008-04-14T16:29:00.002+01:00

No sooner did I start writing about missing baseball then my brother sent me this article. Maybe I don't have to go home after all! (Kidding Mom, I promise)

Baseball's Worldwide Appeal

Can't Hardly Wait

2008-04-14T08:45:00.003+01:00

Yesterday afternoon at Tottenham Court Tube station I passed a busker playing an almost perfect cover of Sweet Home Alabama. I wasn't the only one enjoying it, a group of women, seemingly rather intoxicated for four in the afternoon, had gathered around him and were singing along, dancing with enthusiasm. I don't know what it is about that song that is so appealing, even on another continent, but I started to miss home as I waited on the crowded platform.

I can't lie, I am starting to feel the slight twinges of homesickness on a regular basis these days.
I love everything about where I am right now; the people, the city, the nonstop flow of chocolate digestives into my stomach, but there are some things which can never be replaced. As the weather creeps back to sunny and warm I feel an unstoppable yearning for crackling Nationals games, languid backyard barbecues and frenetic dollar pint nights at Rock Bottom with the Friendship. And Spots, my sunny brown-eyed puppy dog. Arlington is calling to me, which means soon it will be time to head home.

But not without a few more adventures first!

I have a month left in London. A really exciting month including a visit from my Dad and Lorry, a weekend trip to Wales, and possibly a chance next weekend to go gliding. Then of course there are all the loose ends to tie up, people to say goodbye to and final London sightseeing tasks to cross off my list.

May 14, exactly 1 month from today (and exactly 6 months after leaving home), I catch a flight to Sarajevo and begin a whirlwind tour of the former Yugoslavia. A month exploring war torn Bosnia & Herzigovina, the sunny Adriatic coast of Montenegro, fierce imperial Serbia, the lakes, caves and Alps of Slovenia and Mediterranean Croatia. This is all capped with a week long cruise off the Coast of Dalmatia. Whew. I'm exhausted just typing it all. The Balkans have gotten a bad rap I think, if you want a taste of where I'm going (and to be impossibly jealous) check out these pictures from Balkanology.com.

I will then be taking my exhausted self back to London to rest for just a few days before it's off again- to Spain! I'll be visiting my dear friend Andrea who is working in Madrid this summer before spending another week or so in Andalusia. At this point I am thinking Cordoba and Seville (but I would love some suggestions).

I'll be taking advantage of the cheap fares in Europe to come back to London, and- if all goes according to plan, I will hopefully be home before the Fourth of July!

It's going to be so hard to leave London. This place has become a true home to me. I feel more connected to it than cities I've actually lived in much longer (I'm looking at you Atlanta), and on some level I don't think I will ever be finished with it. The fact that I have so much to look forward to does make it slightly easier though.

Where have all the writers gone?

2008-04-07T11:20:00.010+01:00

Last week I finally got around to seeing an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of portraits from Vanity Fair magazine. They had a collection of portraits from the teens, twenties and thirties, and then a selection from the eighties, nineties and the current decade (Vanity Fair had it's heyday at the start of the century, went out of business and was then revived, hence the 40 year gap).

There were some really gorgeous portraits on display, the one here of Gloria Swanson is probably my favorite- old Hollywood glamour at it's best.One thing that struck me as I perused was the sheer number of authors featured in the earlier years, and the almost total lack of them in the later pictures. "Of course you'd notice that" Liz said in her you're such a nerd tone. But it was strikingly true; early Vanity Fair featured HG Wells, Ernest Hemingway (kind of a hottie), Virginia Woolf (definitely NOT), Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Yeats, Auden etc. etc. etc. Later Vanity Fair had a few good ones; Arthur Miller and Martin Amos were there in the early nineties, there was one of Seamus Heaney but after that, there was not a wordsmith to be found among the swanky stars and glitzy politicians.

"That's because there are no great authors today," Liz said. "That's so not true!" I exclaimed a little to loudly, garnering some evil looks from other patrons (British people are excellent at doling out death stares, the looks you get for jostling someone on the tube are truly terrifying sometimes). "I mean authors you would teach in class, not Tom Clancy," she continued. Exasperated, I started listing a string of modern greats; Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, John Irving (not a bad looking guy in my opinion), Zadie Smith (almost model pretty), AS Byatt.

"Who?"

"She wrote the book Possession."

"Wasn't that a movie?"

I rolled my eyes and went to investigate a portrait of Thomas Hardy. I don't think you can honestly blame the magazine. Named after the novel, Vanity Fair is of course going to have shallow priorities- what's hot, what's popular. I think in the 1920's, writer's mingled easily with movie stars; all shared a space in the public conscience. The early pictures featured not just writers, but dancers, conductors, stage actors- a menagerie of different artistic talents. These days I guess Vanity Fair's audience is far more interested in reading about Gwyneth Paltrow (who starred in the movie Possession- and was featured in oh, half a dozen of the portraits), than AS Byatt. Maybe Vanity Fair still does features on authors, I don't know, I don't read it, but if they do they don't afford them the same glamorous film shoots with Annie Liebowitz that they grant George Clooney and Lindsay Lohan.

I'm not passing judgement on Vanity Fair- their portraits are still quite beautiful and it was an awesome exhibition. I just think it's sad that we as a society we devour information about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes but can't give Alice Walker the time of day.

CORRECTION: Liz would like me to tell you all that she is not "ditsy" and is in fact smart! Actually, she is one of my better read friends, so I really should give her a break. Liz is smart! Tell your friends!

Playing catch up

2008-04-07T08:25:00.006+01:00

This weekend I was discussing with my fellow Emory graduate/world traveler/blogger Alex how one of the major problems with keeping a blog is the constant maintenance. Sometimes you just don't feel like writing anything, but the very nature of blogging makes it absolutely essential to keep adding new material, or risk losing your audience. And the longer you go without updating the more stuff piles on that you feel you should mention, the more daunting the task becomes. So, in an effort to skirt the build-up, here's an update on everything I've been up to:

- Easter Weekend I had a fantastic visit from the love of my life Kim, her boyfriend Brian and our good friend Kate Lyn. Ate a lot of Peeps, watched a lot of girly TV and all the other fun things we used to do back when we were roommates (I've been living with boys so long I'd forgotten the simple joy of watching a Disney movie). Brian and Andy bravely tolerated us. We did some sight seeing, had an ill-fated attempt at the Monopoly Pub Crawl (not for beginners), and did some partying with the Australians- a must-do on any trip to London.

- The past couple weekends have been collaborating with Jason and Liz to complete Time Out Magazine's London Scavenger Hunt. They send you all around the city to gather various pieces of information off of buildings, statues etc. So far we are about halfway through, our efforts keep being cut short by completely miserable freezing rain. Still, we will succeed and win the grand prize- a trip to Antigua!

-London always has bizarre weather but this weekend was the strangest I have ever seen. On Friday it appeared spring might actually grace London with it's presence; I didn't even need a jacket walking home from work. Sunday morning I woke up to big thick snowflakes carpeting the world outside my window. This was the first real snow London had gotten this year (and the biggest recorded snow fall for April ever) but by 2 PM the sun had come out and the snow was gone! Except for a few wet patches you would never know it had snowed at all. Very strange.

-Finished reading Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh. It was a fun little book; mostly a satire of the post-WWI London social scene. Lots of shallow twenty-somethings living frivolous, hard partying lives whilst spending their parents money. It was a quick and enjoyable read, although most of the characters were obnoxious and rather unlikeable. I suppose that was the point though.
I've now moved on to a really delightful book called Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. It's a fantasy novel which takes place primarily under the streets of London. More on this later.

-Part of the reason I've been quiet here is that I've been spending a lot of my internet time researching some traveling that I'm planning to do in May after my visa expires. I'm really excited about it but it's still in the planning stages so I will save that for another post.

Alright... back to business as usual!

Charles Dickens Desk to be Auctioned by Christies

2008-04-03T08:33:00.006+01:00

The desk where Charles Dickens penned Great Expectations is to go up for auction by Christie's in London. The desk, and chair, are believed to be worth around £80,000. The furniture was donated by Dicken's relatives and all proceeds from the sale will go to the restoration of Great Ormand Street Children's Hospital.

Full Story Here

Going to Howth for the Day! Part One

2008-03-26T16:39:00.001Z

The following is a continuation story written by Jason and I during our day trip to Howth, on the coast of Ireland, last weekend.
Bold= Jason
Italics= Stephie

The two Americans squirmed with excitement as the train pulled out of the station. Ralph pulled out his glasses and studied the map while Sam twirled her hair and stared out the window at the bleak Irish landscape, "going to Howth for the day, whatever mad you think of it?"
"Well Sam, there's something I didn't tell you about this day trip..."

"I know we planned on having a relaxing day away from the office so I went ahead and rented bicycles for the two of us. I think a ride up the coast would take off a lot of our stress."
Sam smiled coolly back at him and said she thought that would be nice. She turned her eyes back to the paper she had picked up at the station and thought how misleading her calm demeanor was. She had and inkling that this jaunt to the shore might not be just as relaxing as Ralph expected it to be...

Although they had been friends for many years Ralph still had no idea about Sam's double life. He would have to know soon though... Sam's thoughts were interrupted by Ralph's squeal of indignation, "Closed! How can the bike rental be closed? I must have gotten the date wrong! Now what?!?"
"I know," Sam said, "let's climb up that hill..."

Though a bit dissapointed about the bikes, Ralph eagerly agreed and soon they were padding their way through the flowering bramble. Just as thy reached the top of the hill, Sam spun around and yelled back to Ralph who had fallen behind. "I think it's starting to rain. Let's head to that cleft in the rock and see if we can find a bit of cover."
They scrambled over a pile of rocks and climbed into a small space with enough cover to keep the rain off.
Ralph pulled his coat around him and said "lucky this cave is here, but how did you know about it?"

Sam sighed. "Ralph, there's something you don't know about me," she began. As she spoke she removed a tape measure from her pocket and began walking the length of the cave. " I have this hobby you see. I'm an amateur treasure hunter."
"Huh?" A puzzled look crossed Ralph's face as he squeezed water out of his soggy socks. The squelching echoed off the slick stone walls.
"All of those nights I told you I was home working on my stamp collection- I was actually researching shipwrecks off the Irish coast. This morning I finally received the last piece of information I needed. If my calculations are correct, the treasure should have been lodged right around... here."
" I can't beleive you would be so deceptive; I don't think I know you at all S-" Ralph's tirade was interrupted by a stranger entering the cave."

Without notice something whizzed past Ralph's ear. "Get down" screamed Sam as she threw herself behind a rock. Ralph, now completly disoriented, had just enough time to lay down as again something flew by, this time raining him with pieces of the cave wall.
He heard an unfamiliar woman's voice come from the mouth of the cave. He thought that she was speaking Russian but he couldn't be sure. He tried to find Sam amidst the dust filling the cave.
"Sam, Sam, are you alright?" He shouted from the floor, for he dreaded lifting his head just an inch.
"Shut your mouth" was the only reply he received as the woman moved towards him. She was now speaking clear English with only a faint hint of what must be a Russian accent. Ralph had little to do but lay prostrate on the ground. Every nerve in his body was tense with fear.

"What are you doing here?" demanded the willowy blonde, her shotgun aimed squarely at Ralph's brain. There was no sight of Sam anywhere in the dusty cave.
"We-err.. I got caught in the rain, I was just trying to find some shelter." Definatly best not to mention anything about treasure he thought to himself.
The woman appraised him cooly over the rim of her gun. Her glamorous cheek bones suggested a James Bond villain, but oddly, she was dressed like.. well like a farmer Ralph thought.
"I think we should go see my husband," she said finally. Ralph had no time to reply before he was hoisted to his feet.
Outside the squall had ended. As he reluctantly trudged through the bramble undergrowth Ralph glanced back at the cleft and wondered what had happened to Sam.

Sam was shaking, not from the rain, which had now ceased, but from what she had got Ralph into. Poor, innocent Ralph was only looking to get away from the city and now he was in the hands of one of the most ruthless treasure hunters in the world. She knew she couldn't be seen and when she heard guns fired, she hid herself in a section of the cave she knew would keep her well hidden. "Ho had she been found?" she thought as she sat calculating her next move. "Elizaveta Kournikova is perhaps teh greatest female treasure hunter, and leagues above me," she thought aloud; "but I kept my research as secret as possible, how could she have any clue?"
Her mind raced back to Ralph and his situation, which made her sick to her stomach. She ran out of the cave and, hiding behind a rock, watched as they drove off. She could hope that he continued to be brave and keep up the impression that he had been alone..
For his sake, she prayed that he could figure he wasn't dealing with an ordinary farmer!

The house at the top of the hill looked like any ordinary farmhouse, which momentarily quelled Ralph's fears. Maybe this really was just a simple misunderstanding! As they drew close though, he could see that something was not quite right. A front window had been recently smashed apart, a thin patterned curtain flew raggidly in the wind. Propped by the front door were two muddy shovels and a very fancy looking metal detector.
The russian shoved him through the door, where a skinny man with shocking orange hair studied a huge curling map. He looked up angrily and a torrent of Russian words were exchanged between the two. Ralph hid his sly smile and tried to look as confused as possible. He silently thanked providence for the four years he spent at university, studying Russian.

TO BE CONTINUED

London Playlist #3

2008-03-25T11:04:00.006Z

It Was Supposed to be So Easy- The Streets
I Found Out- The Pigeon Detectives
Silver Lining- Rilo Kiley
Valerie- Mark Ronson w/Amy Winehouse
I Don't Feel Like Dancing- Scissor Sisters
Relax- Mika
Better Together- Jack Johnson
Go Places- The New Pornographers
Chocolate- Snow Patrol
Strange And Beautiful- Aqualung
London Still- The Waifs

The Soggy Emerald Isle

2008-03-20T11:39:00.002Z

"How was Ireland?" Everyone keeps asking me.

"Wet." I reply.

The plan was conceived months ago, around the time Jason and I realized that his birthday, St. Patrick's Day, and our ridiculously close proximity to Ireland coincided. Our friend Liz enlisted for our weekend of Guinness drinking, birthday celebrating and leprechaun chasing.

A quick rundown of the highlights:

- Meeting up with this dashing fellow, who you may recognize as Mr. Oscar Wilde, the most witty gay playwright Ireland has to offer. He is my favorite of the many writers which came out of Dublin (Including James Joyce, JM Synge and WB Yeats). I had to break into a park and scale a pretty large rock to get to him, but hey NOTHING comes between me and a witty gay playwright.
-The Jameson Whiskey Distillery Tour. We opted to do this instead of the more touristy and expensive Guinness Brewery Tour. They don't actually use the distillery to make whiskey anymore but the tour was pretty interesting. At the end the guide picked several participants to be whiskey samplers, and I was one of them! Got to try several different kinds of Irish whiskey and compare them to Scottish and American ones. The Irish were definitely the best in my opinion (it didn't help that their selection for "American whiskey" was Jack Daniels). Also we ate whiskey fudge which was delicious!

-Howth. After a day of mucking around Dublin in the cold and drizzle, Liz had the brilliant idea of leaving town! So we took a train out to Howth, this sleepy little fishing village just forty five minutes from the city center. It was the best decision we made all weekend. It was still cold and damp, but while Dublin was a smaller, paler version of London, Howth was everything I wanted Ireland to be; lush, misty, a little mysterious. We walked winding roads of cute (probably multimillion dollar) cottages up the hill, hopped a fence and found ourselves in a brambly field overlooking a vast expanse of the Irish sea. In the middle of the gray waves was the green island called Ireland's Eye. As we wandered down the hill we passed some ruinous stone houses and found ourselves at the edge of great ragged cliffs. It seemed so perfect it was almost mythical. Later on we decamped to a tiny little ice cream shop called Maude's for the most delicious ice cream I think I've ever had.
I never thought I would find a city more expensive or more rainy then London, but Dublin has certainly proved me wrong. 6 Euros for the cheapest beer made my eyes bug out of my head like some freaky cartoon character, and going out in the constant downpour gave me a nasty cold. Still Dublin was not without it's charms. The accents for example--amazing enough to give the English a run for their money. The Irish people were pleasantly outgoing and friendly, especially compared to the cold reserve one usually encounters over here.

Overall I would give Dublin lukewarm ratings, but I'd love to go back and visit the rest of the country. With a change of scenery, some time, and maybe some nicer weather, I could fall hard for Ireland.

An American Girl

2008-03-17T14:47:00.007Z

"She lets the cop have it, full
blast, the eyes, the smile, the blaze of being a young American."

There are a lot of things which make London unique, but one of the absolute coolest is the unmatchable diversity of people who call this city home. I was lucky to grow up in Arlington, which is a very diverse area, but even so I am blown away by the international complexity found here. It seems that almost everyone in London comes from somewhere else; the streets are packed with Australians, Kiwis, South Africans, Indians and Arabs, not to mention all the shades of European. 253 captures this well; the flurries of conversations in languages completely unknown, the rainbow of faces and the interconnected web of cultures layered on top of one another. Like the United States, England has become home to waves of the hopeful in search of wealth and opportunity (and just like the US, England is currently incensed in debate over the Illegal Immigrant Problem).

Similar to the US, but it is quite different to be looking at things from the other side of the coin, as a foreigner here myself. Obviously coming to London as a white, English speaking American is a very different experience then that of many other, braver transplants. Still, it's a new and interesting experience for me, to live as an outsider, and to be defined first and foremost by my American-ness.

"American-ness." Such an odd idea really, like 250 million people can be summed up in any one cultural category- yet people do it all the time with foreign cultures. At home, using "American" as a descriptor of a person is pretty much meaningless, like saying someone has hair. So it's a very self reflective experience to find yourself in a place where people think they know something about who you are just because they caught your accent.

Diversity, alienation and cultural identity are concepts Geoff Ryman touches on a lot in 253. This isn't surprising really, of all the London books I've read so far 253 is the only one written by someone who isn't British. Ryman was raised in Canada and London, after college he joined the fine tradition of authors who immigrate permanently to England (see Henry James, TS Eliot etc). I'm sure that he, like me, understand the constant self awareness of being slightly different, in some fundamental way.

At least, as Ryman points out, the British generally like Americans. A lot of the world thinks America is a nation of boorish war mongers. But on a personal level Ryman seems to feel (and I've found as well), that while Americans are terribly intimidated by the British, they actually like us quite a bit:

"I felt the same thing when I first arrived in Britain. I was billeted in a
medical school and bubbled with pre-emptive loathing of the very smart people in
British universities who were bound to snub me. Instead they rapidly became
friends or lovers, their response conditioned by the mask of Americaness that I
wore. They were disappointed to learn my parents were English. "So you're really
just a Brit," said one of them glumly.

All right, spit it out. A lot of Brits have a sexual kink for
Americans. They went off me very slightly when they found out I wasn't. See what
I mean about positive racism? "

(By the way I showed this quote to Andy and he merely looked at me skeptically. Similar to the incredulous look he gives me when go off on some Hugh-Grant/Colin-Firth/English-accents-are-so-hot tangent. Bias runs both ways).

So where does that leave me, apart from a renewed sense of shame over George Bush and an extreme fondness for Tom Petty's "American Girl"? I think that one of the important things about travel is that it pulls you out of the safe zone of uniformity. It's not just about exposing yourself to places where people are different, it's about putting yourself in a place where you are different from the people. It pulls the abstract question of national identity into sharp focus and forces you to examine who you actually are.

May not be Irish, but I am oh so Lucky

2008-03-13T11:13:00.006Z

Exciting things are happening! First I am finally leaving the country this weekend; I'm off to the Emerald Isle to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and Mr. Jason Hirama's birthday in style! The forecast says rain in Dublin all weekend, but I've never been one to let a little water stand in the way of a good time (I do live in London after all).

Secondly next week I am finally reunited with my dearest soulmate Kim, as three of my favorite Atlantans, Kim, Brian and Kate Lyn arrive for a visit. Hope they bring some Atlanta sunshine with them...

And finally on another international travel subject: if anyone has traveled in the Balkans in recent years, or knows someone who has, drop me a line, I have a few questions for you. I'm particularly interested in anyone who has been to Bosnia, Serbia or Slovenia.
Thanks!

Guess I'm Old School

2008-03-11T14:11:00.009Z

Wow, it did not take me very long to speed through 253. The bite size stories and general lack of continuity make it ideal for procrastinating at work (and the dull type face almost makes it look like you are doing something important). The novel raised some interesting point about London that I do want to talk about, but I'm going to hold off on that for now and just give you my general impression of the "cyber novel."

The basic premise is simple and at first seems like it should be quite boring. Each "page" describes a different passenger during the morning commute on the Bakerloo line; what they look like, who they are, and what they are thinking about. Some of these people are very interesting, some are very dull- just like real life. What makes the concept work is the connections which Ryman establishes between seemingly unrelated characters. Sprinkled through each account are hyperlinks which demonstrate similarities and relationships. Instead of reading the story linearly, you can jump through the cars, following subplots and reading situations from multiple points of view. This is the kind of thing that the internet can do but obviously paper doesn't really allow (Ryman did publish this book as a paper novel as well, using an index instead of hyperlinks- somehow I doubt the effect was quite the same).

Novelty aside, it's a pretty compelling read, especially if you are someone with a voyeuristic imagination. I'm always wondering about people I see on the tube (or more importantly, how I look to people I see on the tube!). On a personal level though, cyber novels have nothing on the experience of holding a real live book in your hands. I may be a puritan, but to me, bound books have a certain magic to them which the internet will never be able to capture. It was fun to be able to read while sort of looking like I was doing work, but I missed the security of having a novel to burrow into on the tube. I know electronic publishing is gaining popularity, but I'm certain the good old fashion paperback will never go extinct. Curling up in bed at night with a cozy book just can't be replaced by cuddling with a glowing laptop.

So I'm happy to have a real, honest to goodness novel back in my hands. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, is a zany, satirical look at London society between the world wars. According to my extensive background research (looking on wikipedia) it is heavily influence by my favorite, TS Eliot, and was recently made into a movie directed by Stephen Fry. Hmm... TS Eliot and Stephen Fry... two awesome things that don't really go much together, so this should be interesting indeed.

Wet Feet

2008-03-11T12:15:00.007Z

During my usual prolonged morning procrastination I happened upon this neat little interview with Rick Steves. I know some people really don't like him (personally his guide books are little to narrow for my taste), but he does make Europe accessible to the average American, which I find commendable. The article short but it's basically all about how his life as a globe hopping travel writer is amazing and how he is so happy and how I might sell a kidney to Satan to have a life like his.

Anyways I liked what he said when the interviewer asked him "Why Europe all the time? Why not South America through the back door?"

Europe is my roots. I just have this hunger to learn more about my roots.
And I love the good living of Europe. I'm just a Europhile. There's nothing
wrong with South America. . . . But my job is to be the travel teacher for
Americans in what I consider the wading pool for world exploration: Europe.
That's where you go first.

At the moment I'm finally starting to plan a somewhat lengthy jaunt through southern Europe for when my work visa expires in May (money permitting- Satan, call me!). Once this is all over it's going to be time to explore another continent... or, you know, all of those countries and continents I'm still lusting to visit. But, like Rick says, Europe is my roots. I may not be well traveled yet but I'm getting my feet wet. Or at least damp.

A Breath of Fresh Air, and a Glass of Hot Water

2008-03-05T09:57:00.013Z

I have a confession to make.

For the past month, maybe two, I have been dying to get out of London. It might seem a shock, given the weekly valentines I pen to it on this website, but lately I have been desperate to go somewhere, anywhere, else. It isn't that the magic is gone in my London love affair, it was just that after three months of complete exclusivity, we needed a break from each other. I needed to take a breather.

Luckily my attention span for people is better than for cities. So when Andy suggested a weekend trip to Bath, a small English city about two hours out of London, I was thrilled. As the train burrowed out of the congested frantic streets of London into bright and open countryside I could feel the tension lifting from my shoulders. Everything outside my window was so sunny and green and vibrant. I know it was sunny (and vibrant) in town too, but the clouds that were clearing were in my mind.

Bath is probably the most pleasant looking city I've ever seen. Everything in this small English city was pretty and quaint and photogenic. The uniform pale limestone Georgian style buildings, the sparkling river Avon which winds through a plush green park and the panorama of hills that surround the town are completely perfect, like some sort of imaginary movie village.

What makes Bath more then just another pretty English face is the water. Steaming, sulphurous mineral water bubbles up from the soil here to form three natural hot springs. In 43 AD, when London was just a fishing village, the conquering Romans happened upon the springs and built an elaborate bathing facility and temple to the Goddess Minerva. They had no scientific means of explaining hot water pouring out of the earth, to them this was a miraculous site of healing.

Once the Romans took off, the temple fell into disrepair, was gradually forgotten and buried under new buildings during the Middle Ages, while a towering Cathedral- a tribute to an entirely different religion, sprung up mere yards away. By the 1700's Bath was hip again, an elite resort town for the aristocracy. The wealthy flocked to Bath for the supposed curative powers of it's waters, and for the budding social scene. In the 1900's the Roman ruins were accidentally rediscovered, excavated and made into a museum. Bath's primary industry nowadays is tourism, and the entire city is a UNESCO world heritage site.

We spent a lot of time wandering the pretty streets of the city, eating scrumptiously fattening foods and trying to avoid the biting wind which marred the otherwise perfectly sunny weekend. The City of Bath offers a fabulous free walking tour, but it costs a ridiculous amount to get into any of the many museums scattered about the city. The only one really worth the money is the Roman Baths, which are well preserved and presented. There is also a free audio tour, starring my favorite American/pseudo-British travel writer Bill Bryson, so I was happy.

At the end of the tour you can throw a coin into one of the hot baths, supposedly for luck. Then you have an opportunity for a real test of courage- drinking a glassful of the natural spa water. Served uncomfortably warm, the water naturally contains 43 different minerals. It smells like rotten eggs and tastes...well... if you hold your nose it's not that terrible. The Georgians believed that two pints a day was the key to good health. I have doubts that I could get down two pints of the stuff, but we ought to get some credit for both finishing our glasses. It sure tasted evil enough to be healthy.

Good luck and good health, two things which seem to be finally (hopefully!) back on my side.

The 411, and 253

2008-03-04T08:24:00.010Z

I hope I'm not tempting fate in saying that life is pretty excellent right now. Work is dull mostly (except for yesterday, when your narrator bravely sampled a Ghost Pepper), and money is tight, but I've been having great fun; taking advantage of the city, partying it up with the Australians, spending lots of time with a certain boy and finally actually getting OUT of London. Hopefully I will have some time to actually write about these things; check back soon to find out about the love affair between my Australians and Rambo; how Cambridge and Oxford are basically identical; why reading is sexy, and whether you should dare to drink the spa water in Bath. And oh! I have done the impossible; found good Mexican food in London. So I'll probably be raving about that soon as well.

On the literary front; I finished a Study in Scarlet on the tube this morning. Quite a suspenseful read! I do a lot of reading during my hour long commute each morning and evening. My fellow passengers read a lot too. Although the trashy tabloid papers are ubiquitous, i see far more people reading actual books on the London Underground then I ever did on the DC Metro. Just further reinforces the stereotype that British people are smarter than Americans. Nosy girl that I am, I'm always interested to see what the people around me are reading too. I crane my next, and I read over people's shoulders and am generally obnoxious. Once, I got into an in depth conversation with the woman next to me, who also happened to have an open copy of Atonement on her lap. It's the only time I've EVER seen two strangers talk to each other during the morning rush.

It's kind of a strange irony that I'm not going to be able to read my next novel choice on the train; although the London Underground it the very subject of the book. While all my choices up to now have been fairly traditional, this piece is actually an "online novel." It's called 253 by Geoff Ryman. It's such an interesting concept, I urge you to go to the website and check it out, it explains the idea better then I possibly can.

I haven't started reading yet, but I'm definitely intrigued by this medium, I think it's an interesting experiment. In fact, since it is free and accessible by anyone, I was hoping to garner a little audience participation, an experiment of my own. I think it would be really cool if I could get a bunch of YOU people to read at least a part of this story and then email me your thoughts.

Since you guys are almost certainly reading this while you are at work, procrastinating, why not procrastinate with this? Read as much or as little as you want, then email me what you think at Stephanie.Yoder@Gmail.com. I'll post the results in a week or two.

Proof I Bring the Sunshine With Me Wherever I Go

2008-03-04T08:12:00.004Z

UK has sunniest winter on record

Too bad it's still freeeezing though.

(longer post coming later this afternoon)

The Earth Moved!!!

2008-02-28T20:45:00.003Z

Yeah, so improbable as it seems, England had an earthquake!

Wasn't very intense or even noticeable in London, most people slept through it. I was halfway awoken by a strange low rumbling. At the time I thought it was just a really loud train (the tube's tracks run behind my house). I went back to sleep, it wasn't until I got to work the next morning that I'd even knew there had been an earthquake!

Weird stuff....

More Real Than Not

2008-02-25T14:55:00.010Z

"You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such
individuals exist outside of stories"

So says John Watson to Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle's first novel starring the "world's most famous detective". It's kind of a literary in-joke (In many ways Dupin was the prototype for Holmes himself), made funnier by Holmes' disgust at being compared to such a "very inferior fellow." It's also funny the distinction Holmes and Watson make between the "fictional" Dupin and the "real" Sherlock Holmes. When you take his vast fame and position in the public eye into account, Sherlock Holmes is in many ways more real then not.

Holmes has a strange cult following. Holmesians, if you will, study his life as if he were indeed an actual historical figure. These scholars dissect the four novels and fifty-six short stories Doyle penned about the detective in an attempt to create a full historical biography on him. They pick out the minutest of clues and fill in the gaps left by Doyle with speculation and educated guesses. There are even conspiracy theories surrounding Watson's narrator biases.There have been multiple biographies of Holmes published, and there have been scholarly debates over certain inconsistencies within the stories. Look into it sometime, it's some strange stuff.

On a less esoteric, Holmes has become so ingratiated in our culture that his influence goes beyond that of many real individuals. For instance, Sherlock Holmes is an inducted member of The Royal Society of Chemistry. Quite an achievement for a fictional character. No "real" Sherlock Holmes ever lived at221b Baker Street, but his house is a museum now nonetheless. They've recreated his sitting room (how does one 'recreate' something which has never existed?), and he apparently receives a great deal of mail there. UKTV did a survey recently and found that 58% of British teenagers thing Sherlock Holmes was a real person (whether this is a testament to Holmes popularity or a failing of the school system I will leave up to you).

Now I'm not judging- I actually think it's kind of awesome that a piece of fiction can be so influential that it actually leaps into real life. And I certainly understand the strange and special feeling of visiting a historic site of a fictional event (See the past three months of blogging for reference). I think maybe that is the mark of really great fiction. Literature so stirring that it blurs the line between reality and fantasy so that while you may cognitively know something isn't real, your heart and your imagination override that fact.

I haven't investigated 221b Baker Street, but I'm hoping to maybe get over there this weekend so I can report and tell you if I have a run in with the great detective himself. March is going to be a busy and exciting month so stay tuned because I should have lots to say!

PS. For a really cool, strange and funny twist on the fictional characters as real people/fiction as reality scenario, I highly recommend all of the books in the Tuesday Next series by Jasper Fforde, starting with The Eyre Affair. Actually I recommend it anyways, some of the funniest nerdy literary in-joke fiction ever. The man's a genius. A hilarious, hilarious genius

A Waunder 'Round the City

2008-02-18T15:13:00.016Z

If, at some cocktail party somewhere in the future, you overhear someone refer to the "City of London," do NOT chime in with some enthusiastic account of your tour of Parliament or the fun you had on the London Eye. London may be one of the largest cities in the world, but when Londoners refer to The City, they are almost always talking about the original square mile that was once known as Roman London. Nowadays it is the central financial and business district of London; flooded with suits on the weekdays, almost deserted on the weekends (in the smack center of a city of 14 million, the City has only 8,000 inhabitants). So it was an odd, and ultimately inspired choice, for Jason and I to go rambling through the urban jungle this past Sunday.

Our original intentions were just to visit Old Spitalfields Market, just outside of the City. This was part of my effort to visit all the major markets in London despite having no money to spend at them.London has some truly excellent markets and, while smaller then Camden Market or Portabello Roads, Spitalfields had some of the most unique and original stalls in the city. We browsed the bargain couture, the miniaturized Banksy's and the dime store paperbacks, then had fresh and delicious prosciutto and sun-dried tomato sandwiches.

After lunch we set off wandering south. The vague goal,was to find this cool little church Jason had stumbled upon once. The result was a rambling and unorganized walk through the City.

Everywhere in London you can find historical and modern elements mixed together, but but nowhere is there as a pronounced juxtaposition between old and new as here in the oldest heart of London. Churches dating back to the 1600's (some with pre- Great Fire routes tracing back to the Dark Ages or Roman times), cuddle up to the bases of skyscrapers. It's a strange cognitive task to take in the ancient and modern, the spiritual and commercial so nonchalantly co-existing. The lack of human presence in the streets made it even more odd. On a Sunday afternoon, when the City is drained of businessmen and morning church-goers the streets are almost completely empty, and you can meander from church to church, shivering in the ghostly shadows of office buildings. It's almost surreal and strangely peaceful, probably the only time of the week the financial district can claim to be so.

For one measly mile the City has an excessive amount of interesting surprises. We happened upon the Monument (tragically it is completely enveloped in scaffolding until 2009) and countless little churches which I made us investigate thoroughly. Finally we stumbled upon the one we'd been looking for in a desultory way for the past 4 hours. It was well worth the hunt. St. Dunstan's in the East is a tiny oasis of green in the concrete jungle of the city. Originally a medieval church with a Wren tower, the interior was decimated in World War Two. Instead of rebuilding the City then hollowed out the inside, left the exterior walls and created a small open air garden. It's unique and solemnly peaceful, definitely worth a visit.

By then it was early evening, the sun was starting to go down and we were thoroughly chilled. We retired to an interesting little tea shop in the shadow of the greatest Wren church of all, beautiful and dominating St. Paul's.

What a nice day. Pictures courtesy of Jason Hirama.

How Awesome is Banksy

2008-02-18T15:07:00.002Z

Every time Christie's has an auction they have an open exhibition beforehand to showcase the works for sale. These shows are a hidden London bargain, completely free and open to the public. When my dear friend Cari was in town Jason too use to see the Post-War and Contemporary Art exhibition at Christie's South Kensington where he works (yes, we both work at Christie's now... long story). To be perfectly honest, while I'm a HUGE fan of modernist poetry, modern art isn't really my scene. While Cari and Jason were oohing and ahhing I spent a lot of time exclaiming "really? 25 million pounds for that?" One small piece in a corner did catch my interest though. It was a drawing by someone I've admired for a long time, the graffiti artist Banksy.

You may have heard of Banksy, he is pretty famous nowadays and his art work can be found hidden all around London (that is until the city officials find it and take it down). He's sort of a rogue, anti-capitalism, anti-establishment performance artist. He's done a few things in the US and around the UK but he works primarily here in the capital. Big billboard type images, tiny little ones stenciled onto random walls. Some of it is very serious and political. Some of it is funny and irreverent. it all makes you think though.

Some Banksy feats, according to Wikipedia:

- At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in seven foot high letters.

- In 2004, Bansky walked into the Louvre in Paris and hung on a wall a picture he had painted resembling the Mona Lisa, but with a yellow smiley face akin to the Wal-Mart character for a face. He is quoted as saying: "To actually [have to] go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring, It's a lot more fun to go and put your own one up."

-In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?".

How awesome is that? I love that this guy is just running around highlighting the ridiculous and whimsical in the world.

This got me wondering, if this guy is so revolutionary and anti-commercialism, what is his work doing up for auction, selling to the highest bidder for thousand and thousands of pounds. I found the answer on Banksy's official website:

I don't agree with auction houses selling street art - its undemocratic, it
glorifies greed and I never see any of the money.

Way to go Banksy! No sell-out is he. Like I said, I'm no art expert, but I do think that Banky

's work raises interest questions about, among other things, the intrinsic value of art. It brings a lot into focus when you consider that his work is simultaneously a criminal public nuisance, and a collection of masterpieces auctioned off to the wealthy. Every day I sit in this high security warehouse, and I watch various objects, supposedly worth millions of pounds, come and go. Some of it I get, a Monet, an ancient Chinese icon, a Rodin sculpture, those are things I can at least understand the value of. Other things completely baffle me. But, whether i get it or not, I constantly wonder: is any piece of art really worth £26 million? Even if it is meaningful/rare/beautiful/would look really good behind the couch? I don't pretend to know, but in my gut I think there are probably more worthwhile ways to spend that much money. I appreciate art, but from what I can see, not much of the art industry is about art itself, it seems more about art as an investment, or art as a status symbol. Which I think is silly on a superficial level and tragic on a deeper one.

Maybe that's what is so cool about Banksy. Art in a gallery, or a private home, or in my warehouse, is for the few in privileged. But when you stick your masterpiece on an overpass, well then it really is for everyone. And maybe when your work is mostly anonymous, and unsolicited and it is easier to be irreverent and unpretentious and make your statements without critical concern, maybe that is a purer kind of art. Or maybe not, but it is kind of refreshing.

That's just my (mostly uninformed) two cents.

The City of Love is Paris Anyways, London is the City of Fog

2008-02-11T11:25:00.002Z

(New look! Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?)

We had the most beautiful weekend in London. The constant gloom and chill that pervades London evaporated under blue sky, sun and sixty degree temperatures. It was glorious and we celebrated Saturday afternoon on the Circle Line Waitangi day pub crawl. Waitangi day is the national holiday of New Zealand. Thousands of Kiwi's, some in costumes, converged at every tube stop on the central line for day long drinking, chanting and merriment. It was quite impressive to see. Here is me and my three roommates at Notting Hill Gate tube stop, around 11 am (yes they are Australian not Kiwi- they just like any excuse for a good time).

This Monday morning though the chill has returned, along with a heavy fog, which was pressing particularly heavily on the river this morning as I walked to work. The fog is quite fitting actually, I've decided I'm going to use this week to re-read The Wasteland and other TS Eliot poems. I was reminded of him this morning because TS had some great descriptions of London fog in his poetry. I refer you again to the couplet from which this blog wa s christened:

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn

So perfectly stated. I wish I'd had my camera to capture the Thames and Wesminster across the bridge this morning. You literally could not see the north bank of the river, it was like staring into a cloud or a vacuum. It was surreal and ghostly beautiful.

In other news, it's that silly holiday again, the cellophane candy red, bloated hallmark day we call Valentines. I've never been much of a fan but completely ignoring it makes me feel like a cynical grump. The person I would really like to spend V-Day with is on a business trip to Portugal this week (yeah, I want his job too). I did have plans with a girlfriend, but she's been sent on a last minute business trip to Russia!

Curses, I need a more glamorous job. And something to do on Thursday besides eat Ben and Jerry's and watch American Gangster with the Australians for the 8 trillionth time. Not that that isn't romantic...

Any suggestions?

My Talented Friends

2008-02-10T15:46:00.001Z

Sometimes I feel a bit silly telling people that I have a blog. It seems simultaneously pretentious and juvenile, I mean any 13 year old can keep a record of their day to day life online. Of course I hope my blog is more interesting then a 13 year olds, and I do believe it's the best way to share and present my experiences.

I have a handful of friends who are out doing incredibly interesting travels of their own, and some of them seem to agree with me on the the blogging issue. I thought I'd take a couple moments to point you to a handful of other cool travel blogs to check out, especially when I am slow with the updates:

My friend Cari, who is far braver then me, has just moved to Amman, Jordan! On her way from the states to the middle east she stopped in London for a long weekend. You can read about our time together (and her exciting Jordanian adventures) on her new blog:
Amman Etc.

Then there is my very talented friend Alex, who is teaching English in Korea right now. His blog is a showcase for his interesting, and humorous writing. I highly recommend checking it out:
Writing the Ship

Living the Past

2008-02-07T08:13:00.001Z

I almost missed my stop on the tube this morning because I was so engrossed in my novel of the moment. Isn't that just the most exhilarating, when you absolutely can not put a book down? Right now the novel distracting me is Atonement by Ian McEwan. I haven't seen the movie, which was just nominated for an Oscar, but if it's at all reflective of the book then it's probably brilliant. The novel is cheating on my London Novel Project just a bit, 2/3 of the novel takes place in Surrey and on the battlefields of France, but it's the part that does take part in London, a wartime London right before the blitz, that captivated me.

In a London that is so old, rambling and vast, I am constantly reminded of different, earlier versions of the city. I'm talking about tangible relics of the past; The Tower of London is a short squat reminder of the medieval, the architecture of train stations gleam with Victorian ingenuity. And everywhere around the city there are simple memorials and reminders of London during the Great Wars.Today on my way to work I thought about how exhilarating and terrifying it must have been to be a part of that. America sacrificed plenty during WWII, but we had two oceans to cushion us from the immediate danger. It's strange to think that while we were planting Victory Gardens and holding war rallies London was actually under attack. Children shipped out to the countryside, people carrying gas masks everywhere like handbags, and the constant lurking fear of the German forces amassing just on the other side of the channel. The rationing, the blackouts, the actual shelling. I'm not a war history buff, I'm just an imaginative romantic, and it's strange to imagine what it must have been like to walk these streets I walk everyday.

And of course there are concrete reminders all around the city. The gates of the British Museum are speckled with pock marks from some long ago shrapnel. Other buildings were wiped out completely. At orientation I learned that the main Christie's building on King Street was decimated during the bombings, only to be rebuilt using the exactly same, incidentally completely illogical, blueprints (go figure).

And of course the memorials. London loves it's monuments even more then Washington DC does. It makes sense when you have so many momentous things to be reminded of. Every train station, every public building, and business which existed before 1945 is bound to have a plaque commemorating employees killed during the war. Larger monuments commemorating both World Wars are spread all over the city. On remembrance day they are blanketed in wreaths of red paper poppies. Nobody will be forgetting any time soon.

Sometimes I think of the history of London like a play, a really long play with many different acts. The build on each other. The city is over a thousand years old, it's been through quite a lot. Often times I think history is easily ignored, but here it is a constant presence, because it's such an integral part of London's personality and being. Obviously you can never go back and relive the past, but in London, the past is a constant part of living, and that's the next best thing.

Sicko, or How to Waste a Lot of Time and No Money

2008-02-01T15:54:00.001Z

During my very first ever finals week, freshman year of college, I got what I thought was the world's worst food poisoning. After several hours of excruciating stomach cramps and uncontrollable vomiting my sage friend Kim pointed out that maybe it wasn't food poisoning after all. It was then that I got to make my first ever visit to the emergency room (Emory being such a top rate medical school, going to the hospital actually consisted of walking across the street from our dorm), my first ever overnight hospital stay and my first ever operation, the next evening, to remove my angry appendix.

That sucked. A lot. But on the bright side it made a really funny story for the campus tours I used to give. Also it was good practice for the fun ER visit, hospital stay, and surgery that I was subjected to this past January. Things weren't nearly as serious this time around thankfully, but I have gotten to explore the intricacies of Britain's famous National Health Service (NHS) in more depth then I ever intended or really wanted to.

I don't think you need to hear all the gory details of what happened, so the Cliff Notes are that I got a staph infection under my skin. How it got under there I may never know, but I will tell you that it is not an experience I'd recommend to a friend. Or an enemy for that matter. Although not life threatening or anything terrifying like that, it's been a pretty miserable illness and recovery. However, being the optimist that I am, I think I'll list the upsides:

Upside #1: Britain has socialized health care!

A certain smart alec Brit I know (or as they say here, a certain cheeky git) keeps shaking his head at me, "bloody foreigner's, taking advantage of our tax money." I'm not too ashamed to say this is true- the NHS has saved my poor, uninsured butt.

Can you imagine what an ER visit, overnight hospitalization, surgery, antibiotics and follow-ups would have cost me in the United States? The very thought gives me chills. Here the bill thus far has been a big fat zero. I can't say getting sick away from home is very fun, but if you're going to do it, best to do it somewhere like here.

Upside 2: I had lots of time to read!

So health care is free here, but it is also slower then the Beltway at rush hour in a blizzard. Obviously I can't complain, free is free, and it wasn't like I was dying or anything, but the waiting around must breed monk like patience into the sick citizens of England. Or give them a lot of time to knit.

Upside #3: People are inherently good!

Well that's a sweeping generalization if ever there was one, but I've encountered nothing but nice and supportive people during this whole experience. The nurses at the hospital were just so incredibly sweet and kind. So were the med students who wanted to practice on me, since I was the only patient in the ward under the age of 80. My doctor wasn't terribly friendly but he resembled a British McSteamy, so all is forgiven.

Plus I had ridiculously great support from my friends here. Jason and Liz, the Aussies and that cheeky Brit were all so helpful. I was initially very worried about missing so much work, but Christie's has been mega-supportive too thank goodness.

This was obviously a disaster that I could never have planned for and certainly wouldn't have chosen, but I know it could have been so much worse. I've described myself before as "fatally optimistic," I'm utterly determined to find the good in everything. It's an annoying trait but it sure beats feeling sorry for yourself. I just hope that I cant take lessons away from this experience, use it to grow, and hopefully someday (not quite yet, but someday) I can spin it into a really funny story.

Down but NOT Out

2008-01-30T15:30:00.000Z

I will be the first to admit that things have been quiet here for way too long. I know it seems like I am full of excuses, but this time at least hopefully you guys will let me off the hook.

January hasn't really been my favorite month this year. In fact healthwise it's been a total disaster. I've had a serious of stupid and painful health issues, involving missed work, multiple trips to the emergency room and even some fun time spent in surgery/the hospital! Yeah, I've been sampling the NHS first hand, and thoroughly too. Don't worry lovely readers, I'm not in any mortal peril, but the constant illness has been pretty exhausting and frustrating. Even though it turns out I have a fantastic support network here, being unwell so far from home is pretty lonely and scary. Add to that the uncertainty of taking so much time off from work and things just haven't been so fabulous in Stephie-Land of late (although, as people keep cheerfully pointing out- at least I'll have lots of material for my blog! Misery does sell I guess).

On the bright side: I'm feeling enormously better. Nothing is totally resolved but getting there slowly. So hopefully (oh for the love of god cross your fingers) I can go back to doing exciting things and bragging to you all about them. And January wasn't a total wash, a handful of cool things did happen which I will hopefully be catching you up on. Starting with The Friendship's New Years in London, coming soon!

Away For the Holidays or Party Like an Australian

2008-01-07T14:20:00.001Z

Years from now, when I look back at Christmas 2007, I will always remember it as the year of the leopard print g-string.

Let me preface by saying that Christmas is my favorite time of year. I'm a big fan of the gift shopping, the hokey overplayed holiday tunes, the tree-trimming, all the bells and whistles. A lot of people find the commercialism really shallow and disheartening but for me at least, all the frivolity is just icing on the actual important things, like tradition, friends and family. So although I am constantly reminded just how lucky I am to be out here, the prospect of spending Christmas alone in a foreign land left me more then a little melancholy.

Of course, last year I spent Christmas Eve (link) in a pale and lonely corridor of Heathrow Airport, trying to sleep upright in the most uncomfortable plastic lobby chair. My only companions were the night janitor, a very large samoan man who seemed friendly but spoke no English, and a rather raggedy homeless man. I doubt any of us found the situation very merry (except maybe the homeless guy, he curled up behind my luggage and slept quite soundly through the night). Anything that happened to me this year would probably be an improvement on that.

My Christmas turned out to be quite nice, even when not compared to that sleepover in the baggage claim. In the absence of family, we have to create our own, which is how I came to celebrate Christmas with my very own rag-tag Australian-American family. One of our roommates had gone skiing in Sweden but Australian Matt and Australian Ryan were there, along with two very sweet girls who were visiting Ryan from home. On the Yankee side we had myself and Cassie- a girl I had befriended at the BUNAC hostel who is also actually from Northern Virginia. Most of us hadn't even known each other a month prior, but it was Christmas, so family we had to be.

We even had a Christmas tree! A miniature multicolored aluminum thing I had picked up at Paperchase. And of course every tree needs a star, and ours could be none other then the centerpiece of our house- a large men's leopard print thong.

Anyone who has visited me at 360B knows about the thong (or g-back, as the Aussie's call it). Many have even been lucky (or unlucky) enough to spy one of my roommates modeling the thing- which is quickly becoming tattered with overuse. This lucky piece of lingerie was my contribution to the house- I found it while going through a bag of old clothes left in my room by the previous occupant (based on what I found my room was formerly inhabited by a rather poorly dressed girl with a very, very large boyfriend). I showed the Aussie's my peculiar find and it was love at first sight, it's been a constant fixture in our house ever since. It often figured prominently in drinking games and other house punishments. That is the subject for a whole other post, so I will just say that the thong is an important and prominent feature of our house, and it sat proudly atop my tiny tree, surrounded by gifts.

I've always thought of the night before Christmas as a time for family; a time to watch an old movie, maybe go to a midnight mass, listen at the window for Santa Clause and all that. This year Cassie and I were introduced to the old Australian Christmas Eve tradition of partying like there's no tomorrow. It seemed a little bizarre to me but who am I to go against tradition? Decked out in white tank tops, Santa hats and red bows, we played a Christmas round of Kings Cup then headed out to the Walkabout, an Australian dive bar and dance club. The place was packed! We danced, we drank, we even saw a fight- it didn't feel very Christmas-y but it still beat Heathrow airport.

Christmas Day was surprisingly traditional. We woke up late, opened presents (there were even a couple things for me!), and watched old movies on TV while Amanda and Kay, our visitors from down under, cooked us a delicious Christmas dinner with chicken, stuffing, gravy, potatoes, the whole deal. Earlier I had failed miserably at baking Christmas cookies, so this time around I stuck to helping Roommate Ryan mix up the Christmas Punch (2 parts vodka, 2 parts soda, 1 part fruit juice, add champagne as needed). We gathered around the table and drank a toast to new traditions, new friends and new family. Then we stuffed our faces and passed out. Some things never change.

Fog is boring

2008-01-06T22:10:00.001Z

Nobody dare say I didn't try.

I tackled Bleak House with all the enthusiasm I could muster for a thousand page Victorian novel with Bleak in the title. I mean, it's Dickens, it has to be great right? Last year I fell in love with Great Expectations- I'm almost certain I passed that Victorian Lit class on sheer enthusiasm for Pip, Estelle, Miss Havisham and the whole gang. Actually, reading that book while living two blocks from Charles Dicken's home is what inspired this book project thing in the first place. So nobody can say I didn't give Bleak House my all!
I hadn't bargained for passages like these:

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.

Okay A. that is the first page, and B. it goes on like this for 1000 pages. Well for at least 110 pages. That is how far I got before I finally threw in the towel.

I always feel guilty when I quite a book midway through, there's taunting voice in my head yelling "dummy!" and "quitter!" But at the same time, it's January. It's freezing outside and I'm sorry but life is just too short to spend the next month plowing through this depressing muck. So I give up, London is foggy, I GET IT.

So I'm on to happier, more interesting novels, specifically London Fields by Martin Amis. It's a little complicated but as Amazon puts it:

In this very British tale, femme fatale Nicola Six manipulates racist, sexist scoundrel Keith Talent and well-mannered, naive Guy Clinch as an omniscient narrator/novelist spies on the trio in order to develop his book.

So far I love it. But more on that later.... It was actually sunny today!

* PS: Thanks Andrea for letting me steal the picture!

London Playlist #2

2008-01-06T21:58:00.000Z

1. All My Loving- Jim Sturgess
2. Alloway Grove- Paolo Nutini
3. Fluorescent Adolescent- The Arctic Monkeys
4. Bones- The Killers
5. Supermassive Black Hole- Muse
6. Goodbye Mr. A- The Hoosiers
7. Cigarello- The Fratellis
8. Don't Look Back in Anger- Oasis
9. All Possibilities- Badly Drawn Boy
10. Time to Move On- Tom Petty
11. Waiting for the 7.18 - Bloc Party
12. Back to Black- Amy Winehouse
13. Carolin- David Gray
14. These Streets- Paolo Nutini

Excuses

2008-01-02T16:36:00.000Z

It's been quiet on my page because:

The neighbor we were stealing internet from went away and turned off his router! I finally convinced the boys it's time to buy our own but the Sky man hasn't come yet and today at work has been the first time I've had any real internet access in a week.
I broke my camera and haven't had the money to get it fixed yet
I'm reading Bleak House and despite my best efforts it's terribly boring and I just can't bring myself to write about it
The Friendship is in town and I am very very busy partying it up with them (more on this later)

Sooo sorry about that folks but hopefully things will be back to normal soon and I will have the means, time and ability to sit down and write.

Promise!

Steph

The Season of Giving

2007-12-21T11:47:00.000Z

Wednesday night Jason and I went to Christie's Christmas party, ate their free food, partook of their open bar and danced to their inhouse band "No Rezerve" (clever, huh).

Yesterday my office let me take home 5 nice bottles of french champagne we received as tips from clients.

Today at work I've already been given £40 in christmas tips. (EDIT: and a dazzling assortment of chocolates. And I'm getting sent home early for the holidays)

Not bad for my second week of work aye?

They're Watching You, All the Time

2007-12-17T14:16:00.001Z

I finished Down and Out in Paris and London the other day. It's was an interesting read, but I think I can (thankfully) say that I couldn't really make that many connections between the London Orwell tramped around in and the London I currently inhabit.

In fact, as I walk around the city I am constantly reminded of a different George Orwell novel, 1984. Now I confess that I haven't read this particular futuristic dystopian fiction since about eight grade, but from what I remember, London 2007 has some eery similarirites.

I think it's the security cameras. Actually I know it's the security cameras. I never noticed them really until I started my job, where I personally am in charge of monitoring six cameras (out of about 100 around the building). The cameras are impressive: you can zoom in, out, around, pull in tight on people's faces, follow them down the street. No blurry black and white images here.

Now I see cameras everywhere. I'm not joking, you can not walk down a street, corridor or Tesco shopping aisle without your every movement being recorded. Friday night I was out at a pub and they even had cameras in their dining room!

So I did a slight amount of research:

- Britain has 4.2 million cctv cameras- one for every 14 people in the country

- On average, every Londoner is captured on cctv 300 times a day(!)

And if that doesn't scare you, listen to this:

"By 2016, there will be cameras using facial recognition technology embedded in lampposts, according to the Surveillance Studies report. Unmanned spy planes will monitor the movements of citizens, while criminals and the elderly will be implanted with microchips to track their movements, the report says. "

(ttp://www.b loomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=avL4PSqZrcj4)

Apparently cctv used has exploded in the years after September 11 and the London bombings. I'm not sure why this bothers me so much; maybe because I don't beleive we should have to trace our civil liberties in the name of security, maybe because it's a slippery slope between surveillance and control. Maybe because I have read enough futuristic dystopian novels (mostly by british writers, now that I think of it) to just find it really, really creepy. In any case, there is a cctv camera trained on me right now, as I sit at my office typing this. I should go, Big Brother is watching...

Adventures in Unemployment (Part 2)

2007-12-12T15:15:00.000Z

"It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs--and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety."

Okay, I definitely wasn't down and out in the sense Orwell means (picking cigarette butts of the street to scavenge the tobacco? I don't even smoke but- eww). But I sure can relate to the anxiety of hovering right above the precipice. Alright, I am being over dramatic, but after three weeks of unemployment, discouragement and anxiety were close friends of mine. There's only a certain amount of CV's a person can stand to send out with no feedback. The agencies were encouraging but hadn't produced much other then Coffee and America Haters LLC (they weren't the only ones to hold my nationality against me- I was turned down after one interview due to "cultural differences." You'd think I'd swaggered in there like George W. or something).

Finally though, as I was verging on week four of being a bum, success! One of my agencies finally came through in a big way and I have managed to actually land a job. A pretty sweet one too. Little auction house called Christie's, maybe you've heard of them?

I'm working at Christie's Fine Arts Security Systems, the branch of Christie's that deals with the storage and protection. I'm working in the control room, surrounded by keys and cctv

monitors. The position is part reception, part security- I pretty much completely control who goes in and out of the building, and what they can do while they are here. It's kind of exciting- just think of all the millions of pounds worth of treasures under my protection! Most of the art is locked up, but I've seen a couple of funky statues and the like, maybe if I'm lucky I'll get to go into the vault sometime. The people are very nice (although once again I am the youngest!) and I got to go to the holiday Christmas party last night- we went bowling- the most oddly pseudo-American experience I've ever had.

The best part of the job: free breakfast and lunch, and more tea then I could possibly ever drink. The worst part: the day starts at 8am, the office is about an hour commute from my house, meaning I'm up far before the sunrise every morning. Today it was so cold the cars were covered in frost and I actually wanted to die. But hey, employment is employment, and if it enables to keep living the London high life then I really can't complain!

Adventures in Unemployment (Part 1)

2007-12-12T15:13:00.000Z

"It was, at any rate, notoriously impossible to starve in London, so there was nothing to be anxious about."

George Orwell may have found that true back in 1933, but I haven't been terribly anxious to test his theory (or to sleep in the slums like he did when attempting to live on eight pence a day). The past few weeks, though mostly exciting, have been troubling ones as well. I visited countless employment agencies, took mind numbing typing tests (I type 65 wpm if you were curious) and suffered by the phone for hours. BUNAC literature promised me that 90% of participants find a job within the first two weeks or some amazing figure like that, so as I sunk into week three, not to mention sunk a large chunk of my savings into my deposit and first months rent, creeping panic lurked constantly under the surface.

Last week I decided to lend myself out to the odd temp job, figuring a day's worth of pay is better then none, and at least I wouldn't be sitting around pretending to be an Australian housewife that afternoon. I spent two miserable days making coffee at an upscale law firm. It was some eye opening stuff, mainly to the fact that most well to do lawyers, or solicitors as they are known here, are assholes. This firm counts Jude Law, Matthew Perry and David Beckham among their clients, and they can't be troubled to say thank you when you make them a mug of tea. I spent my non-coffee making time in the post room, talking to the employees there, and I felt genuinely awful for the abuse they have to put up with on a daily basis. I got off relatively easy, my favorite conversation with my supposed supervisor, a skinny imposing woman ala meryl streep in The Devil Wears Prada:

Steph: Here's your coffee.
Meryl: (looks at cup disdainfully) Who are you?
Steph: Uhh, the temp…
Meryl: Where are you from?
Steph: Washington DC
Meryl: Oh, your accent isn't too horrible. For an American.
Steph: Umm, thanks?

I wonder if she'd say that to Matthew Perry.

Reading List Update

2007-12-08T12:14:00.000Z

I actually finished Ann Veronica over a week ago and haven't had a chance to sit down and put anything together about it. I feel no shame though: the point of this blog is to record my exploits, not hinder them. So if I'm actually out living, then that's kind of the point yes?

When I was putting together my reading list Ann Veronica was kind of a wild card, but it turned out to be the perfect book to start with. Considering the turbulence of the past few weeks it was somewhat comforting to follow the heroine's struggles to establish herself similarly in London. And to know that I can probably succeed in ways that she couldn't thanks to a little thing called women's suffrage. Ann Veronica solves her problems by running off with a married professor. I don't quite see that in the cards for me... oh but then who knows?

There's nothing that quite matches the experience of reading a scrap of fiction and going "yes! I know that exactly!" It's those moments that are the point of this reading experiment, so this book really solidified my resolve to continue in the hopes that the mostly random order of books I selected will somehow continue to parallel my real life experiences. Unfortunatly, the next book looks like it will speak somewhat to my current unemployed state. Down and Out in Paris in London by George Orwell. Suggested by my father and described by Amazon thusly:

This unusual fictional account, in good part autobiographical, narrates without self-pity and often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-out of two great cities. In the tales of both cities we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and society.

So between the late nights, the pub meets and the sight seeing (not to mention the arrival of one Mr. Jason Hirama-hooray), I ought to get through this slim volume in the next couple of weeks. After all that is what long tube rides are for!

Life Down Under

2007-12-07T17:58:00.000Z

***Sorry about the lack of updates- life has been crazy busy!!! I’m struggling to catch up on my back log of subjects. Hopefully this weekend...***

I’m sitting on my couch right now, drinking a beer and watching a Snow Kite Boarding video. I’d never heard of snow kite boarding... Until last week that is. Now I am familiar with a great variety of boarding activities : skateboarding, long-boarding, surfing, kite boarding, snow boarding. And now snow kite boarding.

That, is what living with boys will do to you.

Not that I’m complaining, I love my new little London home. It’s on the central line, so it’s super convenient to get in and out of town, plus I’m starting to get out and see what sites Acton has to offer. They are few, but include a couple good pubs and, incredibly, an ASDA (literally the british equivalent of Wal-mart- evil but with cheap cheap groceries so I’m willing to set my morals aside for the sake of not living in poverty).

My room is tiny, but cozy and cute. At night I can hear the train go by, a sound which reminds me of my old apartment at Emory, and always puts me directly to sleep. We have a big kitchen (as flats go), and a terrific common room with couches and a big tv.

The common room is the best part, because that is where I hang out with my awesome new roommates... And learn their Australian ways.

They buy their beer in bulk, Carlsberg, Fosters, whatever is cheapest at ASDA. Yes, Australians do drink Fosters- IF it’s on sale. And boy do they drink a lot of it. This Saturday I learned that no, I can not keep up with them- nor should I try.

That being said they are absolute sweethearts. Kind of like living with three Australian older brothers. I bought us a multi-colored aluminum christmas tree. Just doing my bit to make our little home a little homier.

Oh and if you were wondering, Snow Kite Boarding is kind of like snow boarding... but airborne...

Hardcore.

Kensington Gardens

2007-12-02T21:39:00.000Z

‘It was because I heard father and mother,’ he explained in a low voice, ‘talking about what I was to be when I became a man.’ He was extraordinarily agitated now. ‘I don’t want ever to be a man’, he said with passion. ‘I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long long time among the fairies.’

- Peter Pan

Negligent November

2007-11-29T22:53:00.000Z

“And now for some weeks Ann Veronica was to test her market value in the world. She went about in a negligent November London that had become very dark and foggy and greasy and forbidding indeed, and tried to find that modest but independent employment she had so rashly assumed.”

Wow do I know how she feels. November is drawing to an end and though I’ve spent hours sending out CV’s, following up on leads, and just generally pestering anybody who might have a job for me, I am still unemployed. I’m trying not to be discouraged but as one by one the people who arrived at the same time as me land employment, this job search spiel is getting to be tiring.

There’s nothing to do about it but to press on. I certainly need a job now that I’ve found success in another on of my searches and moved into a flat! I’m living in a house in North Acton, about twenty minutes from the heart of London on the Central Line. I’m sharing the place with three Australian guys.

Yes, three Australian guys.

I have a small single room which I’ve managed to decorate in purples and pinks, a nice contrast from the rest of the place where the decor could be described primarily as “skateboard.”

Pictures and stories will abound soon... Keep your fingers crossed that a job- any job, will come my way!

London Air

2007-11-29T21:53:00.000Z

Despite my annoying tendency to go on and on about how great London is, I really haven’t been out to do much sightseeing since I’ve been here. I decided to remedy that this past Sunday and actually go out and see some of those great London sights.

I decided to walk along the south bank of the Thames where I haven’t spent much, or really any time. I started out by the Tower of London which I always find incredible impressive no matter how many times I’ve seen it. I then walked across Tower Bridge which is the really cool Bridge that everyone always thinks is London Bridge because that is the bridge they always show in movies. It was a painfully chilly day and the wind on the bridge was both painful and exhilarating. I stood at the center of the bridge and let it rush through me, whipping my hair around, for as long as I could stand it.

I crossed to the South-bank and walked along, stopping at the Tate Modern, a truly excellent museum, to check out the giant crack in the floor and to meander around and warm up.

Awhile ago I talked about my Great London Novel Pr oject, and despite the tumultuousness of the past couple or weeks I have been sticking to it! I was really glad I had when I sat down at a cafe for lunch and read Ann Veronica’s first impressions on fleeing to London to start a new life:

“...she walked out into London with a peculiar exaltation that partook of panic and defiance but was chiefly a sense of vast unexampled release.
She inhaled a deep breath of air- London air.”

How eerily appropriate. I continued to walk along the river, passing such exciting surprises as the South Bank Book Market and this awesome skate park with gorgeous graffiti. I finally walked back north across one of the Jubilee bridges, where I snapped these terrific shots of Parliament in the setting sun. It’s moments like this that just totally embody how pretty London can be.

“And this great mellow place, this London, now was hers, to struggle with, to go where she pleased in, to overcome and live in. ‘I am glad,’ she told herself, ‘I came.’”

Into the Wild

2007-11-26T00:18:00.000Z

"Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth."

I had a different topic planned to write about tonight, but I had the oppurtunity to go see Sean Penn's Into the Wild tonight and I wanted to really strongly recommend it to everyone. It is an incredibly gorgeous movie, great music, beautifully filmed and Emile Hersch really ought to get an Oscar for his portrayal of Christopher McCandless. Go see it- you will be happy you did.

Into the Wild is of course based on the book by John Krakeur, about the true story of this kid, recent college grad, who set off to explore the country with nothing much more then the clothes on his back. I read the book a few years ago and found it especially interesting when I learned that not only was McCandless from Northern Virginia (Reston I think), he actually graduated from Emory, with a degree in English!

Of course the similarities more or less end there, I don't have much desire to give away all my posessions and head off into the Alaskan wilderness, but certain aspects of this film really hit home for me tonight. When I saw the scenes filmed at Emory it really drove home that McCandless was just a regular kid. He ended up doing some extraordinary things- but he could of been any guy I'd known at school. And, like me, he seemed to think his crazy post-graduate adventures were temporary. He was doing everything he could to postpone what feels like the inevitable landslide into conformity and monotony. When he set out into the wild, he thought that was just a stop on his journey- that he would be coming back out again. Obviously I can't really compare swinging around London with hauling fresh water and shooting at moose, but for me it was just a reminder that even now, in this gap year, actions still have repercussions and you never know when the course of your life might change in unexpected ways.

London at Night (Everything Looks Better in the Dark)

2007-11-21T13:30:00.000Z

Viva Mexico?

2007-11-19T23:40:00.000Z

I almost forgot I stumbled upon this place while walking around Covent Garden. Looked a little expensive, and not necesarily very authentic but may be worth a try.
The quest continues...

First Days in London

2007-11-19T16:26:00.000Z

Well I have been in London 5 days now and things are going swimmingly. The weather, up until today, has even be good (somehow London manages to be charming even when it is pouring rain- I suppose it has to be). I’ve been out and around my old neighborhood, eaten at my favorite pizza place and stocked up on British snack food. I was worried about knowing nobody but I’ve also managed to meet a few cool people and have some fun out on the town.

My hostel is crowded and kind of dirty, but incredibly safe and full of very friendly people. Last night we had a movie marathon and I introduced everyone to the classics known as Four Weddings and a Funeral and When Harry Met Sally. Cultures coming together- that's what it's all about (ha). Some people have been living in the hostel for almost six months! I'll be there for at least two weeks but after that hopefully I can find a place to move to. I'm not crazy about the whole sharing a room, living with mice, communal bathroom thing.

I spend my days running around London interviewing, setting up bank accounts etc. Most of my downtime during the day is spent at the BUNAC offices conducting a massive job search and fraternizing with the other desperate unemployed people.

On Saturday I waundered around Covent Garden, which is this cute shopping area which was all decked out for Christmas already and quite beautiful. There was a street performance going on involving some shirtless men in tutus, on unicycles, juggling. It was impressive. I snapped a few shots and made sure to give the fitter one of the two a pound.

I’ve also started the first book in my challenge; Ann Veronica by HG Wells. Amazon describes the novel:

At twenty-one, the passionate and headstrong Ann Veronica Stanley is determined to rule her own life. When her autocratic father forbids her, via formal letter, from attending a fashionable art-school ball, and even further refuses to allow her advanced study of science, she decides she has no choice but to leave her family home and make a fresh start alone. She escapes the stodgy suburbs to London, enrolling as a student of biology and immersing herself in a world of intellectuals, socialists, and suffragettes. Soon, however, she finds that freedom comes at a price, when she meets the brilliant Capes, a married academic, and falls hopelessly in love.

Seemed like a fitting place to begin, no?

It's almost 5 pm so it's quitting time at BUNAC headquarters. I'm going out for a pint or two with some new friends. I'll try to write something more substantial once I have something substantial to say...

This Post Is Not Exciting- But my Life Is!

2007-11-16T22:51:00.000Z

This is just to let everyone know I'm here, in London, safe. I'm in my hostel right now, watching Death Proof with some cool people (yes they have Tarantino in London). I'm battling jetlag, trying to resist my bed for as long as possible. Outside I can here drunk college students singing at the pub across the street. Things are kind of hectic right now but I will try to write a real post sometime in the next few days.

Big Bad World

2007-11-13T23:24:00.000Z

After a year of planning I can hardly believe I am finally leaving tomorrow. It seems at once all too soon and long long overdue. My bags are (mostly) packed, and I've said my tearful goodbyes to all my lovely friends and family.

It's difficult to describe my feelings. Leaving everything I've had here for the past six months is sad, and I am pretty petrified about what the next couple weeks are going to be like until I get myself established. It's so odd not knowing where I'll be next week, what my life will be like.

At the same time I believe that overcoming fear is a part of life. Even though this is over whelming now, I know that in the long run this is all going to be so amazing and exciting. I think change is fundamentally good, and even if things suck for a little, they will work out because, well because they just have to. It's a new chapter, and it should be a pretty exciting one!

As for now, I'm laying here enjoying the final comforts of home: my warm bed, raindrops on the roof, and my kitty curled up in the crook of my arm. Tomorrow night this time I'll be a jet lag warrior somewhere over the Atlantic. Then after that? It's impossible to know. But for now I'm just going to snuggle Eliot closer and fall asleep listening to Paulo Nutini and dreaming of British boys...

Cross the border,
Into the big bad world
Where it takes you 'bout an hour
Just to cross the road
Just to stumble across another poor old soul from
The dreary old lanes to the high-street madness
Eye fight with my brain to believe my eyes
And it's harder than you think
To believe this sadness
That creeps up my spine
And haunts me through the night
And life is good and the girls are gorgeous
Suddenly the air smells much greener now
And I'm wondering around
With a half pack of cigarettes
Searching for the change that I've lost somehow

Nothing Makes Me Happier then a List of Books

2007-11-07T15:03:00.000Z

When I was in college the most exciting part of the year for me was the day I finally got a hold of the book lists for my English classes! I would get so excited just thinking about all the fantastic books I would be reading that semester. That is how I feel now, except better because I picked these books out myself. There is something really cool about taking control of your own education. This is just a tentative list, subject to change and DEFINITELY open to any suggestions:

Ann Veronica and/or War of The Worlds- HG Wells
The Diary (selections) - Samuel Pepys
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
Mother London- Michael Moorcock
A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The first Sherlock Holmes novel)
Vile Bodies- Evelyn Waugh
Saturday- Ian McEwan
Bleak House - Charles Dickens (does anyone know of another, maybe shorter, Dicken's novel that features London prominently? Bleak House is 1200 pages and just sounds so... bleak...)
The Wasteland (of course) and The Preludes- TS Eliot
253 - Geoff Ryman
The London Scene - Virginia Woolf
The Drowned World- JG Ballard
Hawksmoor or The Lambs of London- Peter Ackroyd
Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
Neverwhere- Neil Gaman
Robinson or The Hard Shoulder- Christopher Petit- Robinson

Dreams for Plans, or Making the Most of Literary London

2007-11-07T14:58:00.000Z

I’m leaving for London one week from today, and although I am currently having ten simultaneous breakdowns on subjects like “packing” and “money,” I can’t say I’m leaving a minute too soon. I have been planning this move for almost a year now- ever since I said goodbye to London back in December. Even before I finished my semester abroad I knew I wasn’t done with the city that somehow managed to steal my heart and capture my imagination.

Luckily this time I have the benefits of experience and time to make sure I don't squander my days over there. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with this extra time there, and how I can best experience London. I love planning (when I was 12 I planned out our family trip to Disney World- to the minute. Thanks for not killing me Mom), and I love projects. So after much thought I present to you:

The Stephanie Yoder London Book Club!
(membership: me)

If you do even a cursory internet search you can see that there is just a massive amount of literature written about London. And I don’t even mean books which are set there, but books which explore the nature of London itself, as a living entity. It may sound a little nutty, but clearly I am not the only one obsessed with this city- what a releif.

I want to read as many of these books as I can while I’m there. I’m hoping to average a book about every two weeks. If all goes according to plan I’ll be able to tie my own personal experiences into what I find in the literature. Maybe even make a few field trips to important places in the books. London is such a literary city that won't be difficult. Basically, the goal is to use these books as a tool for interpreting my own life.

I’m not sure if this idea is at all exciting to anyone but me. Of course this will all only be portion of what this blog is about. I’ll still be sharing my travels and my personal stories, so even if your not that into English literature hopefully my site won’t be a total nerd fest.

Or at least not more so then it already is...

London Playlist #1

2007-11-02T00:53:00.000Z

Ooh La La- The Faces
Werewolves of London- Warren Zevon
Don't Panic- Coldplay
Silent Sigh- Badly Drawn Boy
Clark Gable- The Postal Service
Clash City Rockers- The Clash
Cuntry Boys and City Girls- The Fratellis
Matinee- Franz Ferdinand
Fit But You Know It- The Streets
Tears and Rain- James Blunt
All You Need is Love- David Lynden Hall
When The Sun Goes Down-
The Arctic Monkeys
Dry Your Eyes- The Streets
But It's Better if You Do- Panic! At the Disco
Across the Universe- The Beatles

Exploring the Unreal City Explained

2007-10-22T02:43:00.000+01:00

I’ve had a few questions about the title of my blog. I can see how “Exploring the Unreal City” might come off a bit esoteric, especially if you are not a huge TS Eliot nerd like myself. Seriously, I named my cat after him:

Like me, Eliot was an American who loved London. He moved to England at age 25 and basically never left (He actually renounced his US citizenship and became a British subject- professors are never sure whether to teach him as an American poet or a British one- both sides want to claim him). Unreal City comes from a line in his epic poem ‘The Wasteland’:

“Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn”

He goes on to describe a dark and numb post-Great War London. It’s all somewhat dark, but there is a certain tenderness to those words which appeals to me.
I’ve read the Wasteland more times then I can count, and in no less then three seperate college courses, and every time I find new beauty in his words. I can’t pretend to say I know what he was thinking when he wrote the line above, but I can tell you what the Unreal City means to me. I think it refers to an intangible part of London, on that extends beyond population, history and geography. This spirit of London, is what captured the imagination of countless poets, novelists and journalists. In her book Imagined London Anna Quindlen calls this the “world’s greatest fictional city,” and that, more then anything, is what enthralls me.

Over the next half a year I’m going to be doing my best to explore this vast place called London, both through the concrete realist of walking, working and drinking here (let’s face it- probably a lot of the latter), and through the printed page (more on this in the next post). When you mash the two together, the living and the literary, that is what I call
exploring the unreal city.

All Things to All People

2007-10-21T19:17:00.000+01:00

In my desperate struggle to save money I have had to forego most opportunities for travel over the past five months. Except for an overnight at the beach and a weekend trip back to Atlanta, I’ve barely been anywhere lately. This has been really hard as I tend to get restless and miserable if I am forced to be in one place without respite for a long time. Luckily for me there are far worse places I could be then in Arlington, and the ridiculously poor exchange rate is motivation enough to stay put.

Day trips also help. A couple of weeks ago I took a day trip up to New York City with my Dad. Broadway shows are a tradition of ours so we went up to see Spamalot and wander around for the day. I love visiting New York, although I tend to get overwhelmed by the New York-ness of it. The towering buildings, the throngs of yellow cabs and the ubiquity of ads plastered on every surface is over-stimulation to the extreme. It got me thinking about how different cities can be, even huge metropolises, and what exactly it is that attracts me to London so much. In my eyes London is the perfect cross between the manic hipness and commercialism of New York City and the dignity and history of Washington DC. Both New York and DC are amazing cities, but they have a very distinct character which you have to accept if you chose to live there. London is so vast, so diverse and varied that it can’t really be categorized as a “city for politics” or business, or fashion or what have you. London, like an enigmatic love interest, is a city I feel like I could spend my whole life in and never fully understand its character.

Which makes me all the more excited to dive in. I leave in 24 days and the proximity is both exciting and nerve racking. I have SO much to do before then, but I absolutely can not wait!

And We're Back

2007-06-20T17:20:00.001+01:00

A lot has happened since I wrote that last entry on the eve of my departure from London. An entire semester back at Emory, graduation, employment, adulthood (well- maybe I wouldn’t go that far). Most of my friends are looking at apartments, finding nice cushy permanent jobs, pursuing careers and all those fun things. Well, that stuff just isn’t very appealing to me at the moment. I have no desire to get a job (well at least not one without the word “temporary” in front of it), I’m living at home indefinitely and my future career goals are simply a giant question mark. It’s not that I’m a lazy bum, the problem is that my heart is aching to go exploring, travel and learn. So, in the style of the great 19th century writers and artists, I am taking the Grand Tour. Well, in a style:

The Plan: Six months working and living in London; exploring all the wondrous places and details I know I missed last time; reading the classics and really trying to understand the vast swath of land, culture and history this is London. Hopefully, this will be followed by a 2-4 month (depending on how long my money lasts) backpacking trip around Europe.
Total it should be nine months abroad, depending on how long my money holds out. I expect it will be a really fun time, in any case better then getting a real job. But, although I may joke, I’m not just going over there to bum around. It’s not totally fleshed out yet but I have a lot of ideas and a lot of goals, which you will hear about later. One of the biggest is to revamp this blog to make it a true reflection of the things I am doing abroad. Last time around this was mainly just a way to keep my friends and family updated on my travels. This year my trip is much bigger and broader, and my hope is that my writing will reflect that.

Right now my goal departure date is November 10. I realize that is still pretty far away, but I will be writing on here in the meantime about my travel plans and preparations as well as a few more general travel related things. And there should be some big design changes as well.

Reflections

2006-12-25T03:00:00.000Z

This post is being written while I sit in the dingy off-white departures terminal of Heathrow airport. It is past 2 AM, ridiculously cold, and all around me I am surrounded by sleeping travelers. The, like me, were most likely forced into spending Christmas Ever at the airport by the fact that the tube doesn’t run tomorrow morning and a minicab all the way out here costs about 70 pounds (!).

I could be sleeping too, but I am startlingly awake, thoughts buzzing.

I am leaving tomorrow.

It didn’t really hit me until just now, sitting alone in a sea of snoring travelers. My incredible journey is basically over. I keep running through my head everything that has happened to me since I first arrived at this airport back in September. The amazing places I’ve been, the people I’ve met (some of whom may be lasting friends), London in all it’s awesome diversity. I arrived one person, and all of these things have pooled to make me someone new. Someone better I like to think; smarter, braver, more interesting. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has always been thrilling. I can say without reserve that studying abroad is one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.

Which is why leaving is like coming down from some incredible high. It has been such a tumultuous year overall and such an amazing three months specifically, that it is hard to think what comes next. What will returning home be like? It seems like everything has changed, but practically everything will be just the same as I left it. It is going to be an adjustment, but at the same time I am so excited for whatever comes next. A few terrific weeks back at home, one more semester at Emory and then- who knows?

I would like to come back to London to live for awhile, if the stars align just right. Or maybe to live somewhere else in Europe. In any case I will definitely be doing more traveling. Next on my wish list are Spain, Morocco, Egypt and Istanbul. One of the most important things I have discovered is the immense power I have over my own fate. Whatever the next step may be I am more than ready to meet it head on.

More Pictures from Rome

2006-12-24T23:59:00.000Z

I've been struggling for awhile now to put into words all the things we saw in Rome. I felt I covered both Venice in Florence easily in one post each, but this is my third attempt to write about Rome and I can not seem to draw everyhting together. The ancient and the religious are two defining aspects of the city, but here are a few more pictures of the spectacular sites of Rome which don't fit into either of those categories:

Tiber Island, the world's smallest inhabited island. There is a hospital there as well as a few little shops and such. Obviously it is surrounded by the famous Tiber river and connected to Rome by a bridge crowded with street merchants hawking "designer" purses. I love that Rome is temperate enough that there were still leaves on the trees in December.

The Spanish Steps, another famous Roman landmark. There are known as a great place to people watch, although the only people there to see were other tourists. My friend was excited though, apparently the Spanish Steps made an appearance in the Hilary Duff Movie (so they must really be important). Near the top there was a pretty impressive nativity scene set up. Directly to the right of the stairs is the house where Keats died at age 25.

La Piazza Dei Popolo, my favorite of the many piazzas we saw (notice the christmas tree at the top of the hill). I liked this one because it was elegant, yet open, and, unlike the Spanish Steps it was full of Italian youths just hanging out. Growing up in DC I am used to living casually among the most iconic of monuments, but it is still hard to wrap my head around the thought of living a normal life among such beauty and history.

If you climb up that hill past the Christmas Tree you find yourself in the Villa Borghese, Rome's beautiful public park. We stumbled in here by accident, just hours before we needed to catch our flight back to London. The Villa was beautiful, lush, full of young Italian lovers, parents playing with their children and people walking their dogs. I find Rome so interesting because the entire city is a living museum, carefully preserved and revered, yet still so alive and exciting. It is a lot like London in that respect, yet even more sprawling and ancient. Although London is my first love, I think I could just as easily devote myself to Rome and all it's beauty.

Okay enough about Rome, it is back to London for just one night, and then, finally, my triumphant return to the United States!

Roman Holiday Part Two: Holy City

2006-12-24T23:58:00.001Z

Let me just preface this by saying that three days is not enough time to see Rome. Not by a long shot. Like London, Rome is a city I could live my whole life in and still find rich secret corners to explore. Just for starters the city has over 900 churches, spanning from the ancient to the very modern. It's overwhelming just to imagine, almost a thousand churches, each with it's own unique architecture, art work and history. Left to my own devices I might have waundered into every shiny church that caught my eye, but with only a day to devote to the holier side of Rome, we stuck with the most famous highlights.

In a nice segue between the ancient world and the Catholic one the first church we visited was the Pantheon. This is one of the oldest buildings in Rome, it was originally an ancient Roman temple, built in 125 AD. It evolved alongside the city and was converted to a Christian church in the seventh century. It is easy to see the pre-christian flair still in this overwhelming, circular building with it's impressive and influential domed ceiling. It is also well known as the burial place of Raphael, my least favorite ninja turtle. It is even more big and overbearing then it looks here, just this massive stone building sandwiched into the city.

But most of Rome was like that, everywhere we went there were churches. dozens and Dozens of churches. Old Churches, new churches, massive churches, tiny churches, ornate and plain churches. Churches right next to other churches. Why did they need three catholic churches in a row? Who can tell but they are beautiful to see. It was pretty overwhelming so we decided to go straight to the source- Vatican City. My personal religious leanings can only be described as very lapsed Catholic, but even so, the prospect of being in the Holy See a mere three days before Christmas was exciting.

As the trip's resident Catholic, I had spent most of the week fielding questions about the state religion. What is a relic? Why are priests celibate? What is the difference between a basilica and a church? (the answer to all three: I have no idea!) On our bumpy public bus ride across Rome I found myself struggling to outline the basic ideas of the Pope, St. Peter's and the Holy See, the tiniest independant state in the worldI could tell I hadn't done a very good job, my friend seemed to imagine the pope has some sort of holy cross between Santa Claus and Dumbledore...

We didn't run into the Pope, but we did get our fill of Michelangelo's elaborate St. Peters. It was every bit as massive and imposing as the most famous church in the world should be. I took over one hundred pictures and not a single one could capture the immensity of this structure. It is the biggest, richest, most massive building you could imagine. From the glittering golden altar to Michelandelo's famous Pieta (now viewable behind bullet proof glass after an unfortunate hammer attack) to the rows and rows of confessionals, each with a sign indicating the language of the priest inside, the place was entirely overwhelming. In the summer I've heard it can take hours just to get inside the doors so this was one instance where our off-season tourist strategy definatly payed off. While not empty (I'm sure it is never empty) there was space to waunder, and to breathe, and even to find a secluded corner to say a small prayer.
After some unfortunate misplannings, we made our way around the church to the Vatican Museums. The Catholic Church is nothing if not wealthy and over the centuries it has amassed an art collection which could give the British Museum a serious run for it's money. The biggest draw here is of course the Sistine Chapel. It was beautiful of course, but in a crowded, touristy way (I think it may have been the most crowded space I saw during my entire three month trip). All week I had been personally rediscovering some of the most iconic symbols there are: The David, the Colisseum, the entire city of Venice. This was one of those moments, and for once, it didn't live up to the hype. I was more compelled by the rooms and rooms of paintings, sculptures and other treasures which lead up to the chapel. There is some really amazing stuff that is completly overshadowed by the tourist attraction element.

Our final stop that day was secular in nature, but certainly no less touristy. The Trevi Fountain is at the top of every guidebook list, and probably requires no explanation at all by me. We got there right as dusk was falling and the backlights were coming on. The deal is if you throw a coin in it means you will return to Rome. Of course I threw mine in, over my shoulder, like everyone else. Rome was an amazing city, like London, I think it would take me a lifetime to full explore and appreciate it. I didn't need to throw a coin in the fountain.

I know I'm coming back.

Roman Holiday Part One- Ancient City

2006-12-24T23:58:00.000Z

I’ve already explained to you my love of cemeteries. It is that same pull towards the old, decrepit and abandoned which draws me towards very old, forgotten buildings or ruins. Stonehenge, Anasazi Cliff Ruins, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, I can not resist the richness, the romance and mystery which surrounds these sights. They might be the biggest tourist draws in the world, but I can’t help but feel there is some special meaning reserved, just for me. Maybe I’m just full of myself. Anyways, this love for the ancient is part of why I absolutely adored Rome. Like London, it is a city with illustrious past, and even more so then London, thousands of years of history have been preserved concretely, making the entire city a living monument or museum. Loved it.
I knew Rome was impossibly vast, and that there was just no hope of covering it all in the three days we were to spend there. We decided to devote our first day primarily to ancient Rome; The Coliseum, the Forum and the Pantheon, all conveniently grouped near each other in the southern part of the city. And what better place to start then with the blockbuster attraction of Rome, the Coliseum? I knew it would be impressive, but wow. Dating from 80 AD, it wasn’t the largest Roman amphitheater, but it was the most durable, it is still in impeccable condition, two thousand years later. Its image is known by all, but you don’t really get a feel for the scope of it until you are actually inside. Inside the structure there was fabulous exhibit on Greek mythology, which contrasted interestingly with the roman temples of the forum, visible just outside.

The weather in Italy had finally taken a turn for the better, it was sunny an almost warm, the perfect day to wander among the ruins of the Palatine and the Forum. Palatine Hill was once the poshest neighborhood of ancient Rome. It’s now a gorgeous park and collection of ruins; we spent quite some time soaking up the majestic pillars, the beautiful orange trees and the feral cats skulking everywhere (descendents of roman god cats?). Eventually we descended into the Forum, the ancient center of Rome, home of its temples, markets and meeting places. Many of the structures, like the House of the Vestal Virgins, are rubble now, but there are still some spectacular temples almost whole. Particularly memorable were the stark pillars of the Temple of Saturn shooting defiantly up into the air. Just to walk among these ruins and envision what once was, made the whole trip, the whole study abroad experience, entirely worth it to me.
Rome can be dizzying to navigate; it is so huge, and so frenetically busy. A new church or ruin or monument around every turn, it would be easy to wander for days. Another item on my Rome agenda, one that drove my travel mates crazy, wasn’t a flashy temple or ruin; it was tucked into the eaves of a small church. If you know me at all you know that I am crazy about Audrey Hepburn, I couldn’t visit Rome without paying homage to at least one scene from Roman Holiday. It took a couple hours, but I finally tracked down La Bocca della Verita, the Mouth of Truth. Here I am trying to reenact one of my favorite moments, a shame Gregory Peck didn’t show up though…

Firenze: Italy full throttle

2006-12-24T18:09:00.000Z

In many ways Italy was a final culmination of my travel experiences all fall. I’d never really had the chance to do so much independent traveling before, to actually plan and execute these adventures on my own. I had been planning all semester (and it might even be said my entire life), this journey to the country of my ancestors. My travel maters, Manishi and Julia, two fantastic Emory friends, understood this, and were happy to let me do all the research, make all the plans and lead them around Italy in my own way. They were happy simply to come along for the ride. I think they thought I was doing them a favor, but really, it was a great gift they gave to me.
Florence is of course one of the most famed cities in Italy, but it was the one I knew the least about before we arrived. It is such an interesting place; a sophisticated modern city crowded with historical squares, palazzos, basilicas and museums. I wasn’t sure where to start, but our hostel was an excellent references point, just two blocks away from the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, or as it’s commonly calls the Duomo, because of it’s massive terra cotta dome. Everything about the Duomo was massive, from its elaborate emerald façade to its vast empty insides and its shiny interior dome, painted by Michelangelo and, in my opinion, even more impressive then the Sistine Chapel.
Using this as a starting point we were able to hit many of Florence’s highlights during a 36 hour spree of hard core sightseeing (this whole trip was so short, and so intense, we would often collapse at our hostel by 10 pm, just to tear ourselves out of bed early morning to see more glories). My personal favorites were the Fountain of Neptune and the sculpture garden in the Piazza del Signoria – the original home of The David and where you can still see the Rape of the Sabine Women among other sculptures, the street markets outside the Basilica di Orsanmichelle (can’t resist a good street market), and the stunning views from the Ponte Vecchio. The Ponte is a medieval bridge which spans the river Arno and has spectacular vistas of the hills of Florence.
Although I’m not hugely knowledgeable about art, even a passing interest, and a single semester of Art History, was enough to leave me stunned by the art museums of Florence. There is of course the massive Uffizi Gallery, where I was stunned by the Birth of Venus among other priceless pieces in the vast collection. And of course we couldn’t miss dropping in on The David in the Galleria D’Accademia, which was more breathtaking then any of us could have imagine.
Aside from the almost endless sightseeing we did, Florence is where I really began to get a taste of the true Italian lifestyle. Venice is special, but it is also quite different from the rest of the country, so it wasn’t until we went further south that we really felt like we were in Italy. Above all else, this meant food! We treated ourselves almost daily to gelato, and fabulous pasta dinner’s every night. There was always room for pizza, or a sweet pastry from a café. We sampled the famous Tuscan wine, and limoncello liquor, a personal favorite of mine. It’s safe to say we gorged ourselves, although from all the walking we did I’d say we deserved it. They certainly know how to live the good life there. Everyone was friendly, especially the men. Everyone warned me that the Italian’s love blondes, but I still wasn’t prepared for the amount of attention I got. I didn’t mind, they were non-threatening and oh-so cute. With my broken Italian and my naturally friendly nature, I made quite a few new friends. Oh, how I loved Italy!
My favorite moment of the entire Italy trip actually didn’t involve cute boys or food (shocking, yes). Our last morning in Florence we happened to wander into the Basilica di San Marco (a different Basilica di San Marco of course), near the train station. There I used my limited, but surprisingly functional, Italian skills to strike up a conversation with an adorable elderly Italian priest. He was thrilled that we were Americans, showed us the American flag pin he keeps attached to his vestments and enthusiastically told me about his trip to visit family in New Jersey, “un paese bello!” Although Julia and Manishi had no clue what he was saying and I only a limited amount, he told us a great deal about the history of the Basilica and about Florence. Finally, he asked me to teach him “Buon Natale” in English, and with a “Merry Christmas” we were off to catch our train. After several days of extreme tourism, it was nice to have a personal moment of understanding. I think moments of true connection like this are what traveling is really all about.

Finally, Venice

2006-12-24T02:57:00.000Z

There hasn’t been much from me lately because I’ve been quite busy, first dealing with finals and then traveling. Won’t bore you with all the gory academic detail, pulling an all-nighter is essentially the same no matter what continent you are on. Instead I will skip right to the good stuff, my trip to Italy! I was only there for a week yet I saw so much (and took an amazing amount of pictures, 500+!) that I will split the posts up by city, starting with the city of my dreams: Venice.
Venice is the number one place I have always wanted to visit, ever since I was captivated by a pictorial in National Geographic at age ten. It has always held an aura of romance, mystery and exoticism in my mind, and it did no disappoint. A misty aqua fog surrounded the city during our time there. It was freezing and drizzly but that only emphasized the uniqueness of the canal city with its beautiful architecture, breath-taking churches and winding streets. We spent a lot of time just wandering the twisty side streets and bridges. This is the number one thing everyone tells you to do in Venice: get as lost as possible. Turning each corner we were presented with a stunning postcard picture, it took a lot of restrain not to photograph everything. It was almost unreal.
When we finally found ourselves among the slippery streets, we gravitated to La Piazza San Marco. By far the most famous point in the city, La Piazza is basically a giant square populated by extremely bold (and frightening pigeons) and dominated by the Basilica de San Marco. Built during the middle ages, the basilica was breathtaking inside and out. It is a mixture of European and Byzantine architecture with opulent marble floors and glittering mosaic ceilings. It was my favorite of all the churches I’ve seen this semester (including the Vatican).
In the afternoon, when we finished glutting ourselves on the mysteries of the city, we took a ferry to the Venetian island of Murano. The tiny village, just a fifteen minute boat ride from mainland Venice, is legendary for its glass blowing industry. The local’s techniques are passed down from father to son, and result in the most exquisite glass vases, figures and jewelry in every color and shape imaginable. We were able to watch a live glassblowing demonstration and spent several hours perusing the dozens of glass shops. The windows held everything from glass jewelry to intricate glass nativity scenes.
From Murano, and the rest of the area, it was clear that Venice’s number one industry by far is tourism. It’s an understandable issue, with a city so unique, but it does mar the picturesque effect somewhat. The winding Venetian streets are crowded with souvenir shops, all selling pretty much the same exact merchandise. As we were there in December, the crowds were thin, but I can only imagine how zoo-like the place must be in the summer. Even so, Venice, like all of Italy I found, was everything I had hoped while still more then I could conceivably have ever imagined.

A Visitor from Home

2006-12-05T14:54:00.000Z

This past week has been a hectic one, but fun, primarily because my mom came all the way across the Atlantic to see me! It was so exciting to see someone from "my old life" and show them all the things I have been up to here. We did a lot of fun sightseeing including:

- taking in the christmas lights on Oxford and Regents streets

- Checking out the British Museum, yet again for me. Never get tired of that place. Got to show mom the fabulous Reading Room and look at all the fun mummies which I missed my first time there.

- Went to the Museum of London. I'd never heard of this one before, but it was pretty cool, I would recomend it. It traces the history of London, starting in prehistoric times and leading all the way up through modern day. It was really interesting, especially having spent the past three months here getting to know the city, to see it's evolution and the ways it has changed and evolved as a physical place.

- Went to the Victoria and Albert Museum (we just went museum crazy this week)! I was pretty impressed by this one, it is an absolutly gigantic decorative arts museum. My internship this past summer was at a decorative arts museum so I had some interest in what they had to show. I loved this modern glass chandelier that was in the lobby, it is made out of hundreds of blown glass piecs all strung together. I also really enjoyed their Canova sculptures, he is one of my favorites, and the exhibit they had on fashion. By the way I love the fact that, like DC, all of the museums I have mentioned were completly free. I just wish I had more time to explore them all...

- Went to the Charles Dicken's House Museum which I have been meaning to check out ever since I got here. It is literally a block away from my house. It is a house where Dicken's lived when he wrote Nicholas Nicholby and Oliver Twist, and it is now a museum about his life. He was an interesting guy that Dickens, he was a prolific writer, social activist and performer. He had 9 children, was a notorious flirt and at 50 something years old he left his wife for an 18 year old actress. Men...

- Went to not one but two West End musicals. I love musicals, I just can't help myself. This week I was lucky enough to see two! We got cheap TKTS booth tickets for Guys and Dolls starring the famous stage actor Patrick Swayze as Nathan Detroit. It wasn't bad, but Patrick left a little something to be desired I thought. His New York accent was not very good, not nearly as good as the one most of the brits pulled off.

Then Monday night we got tickets to see Evita! My mama spoils me, she knows my unstoppable (and inexplicable) love for Andrew Lloyd Webber. What can I say, the man knows how to do a musical! It was a really impressive production and I loved it. I remember seeing the movie when it came out in theaters and this was so much better. Thanks mom! now if i could just figure out a way to see Phantom of the Opera before I leave...

Over the weekend we went out to High Wycombe and spent time with my Aunt. That was a nice little vacation from the hustle and bustle of London. We did what I always do when I'm with that side of my family-shop! We hit up all the thrift stores in town (quite a lot suprisingly) a cute street market and ASDA, the british Walmart. It was a lot of fun, I also spent time reading and paper writing. Oh and watching british tv. I soooo wish I had a television here, I am missing so much! hilarious talk shows, absurd quiz shows and Strictly Come Dancing, the british Dancing wiht the Stars. And my new favorite East Enders. This is a class british soap opera about the East End of London. It was so much smarter then American soap operas (ie things actually happened) yet so much more devious. Truly brilliant.

So it was a fun week, but now it is super hard work time. I have around 10,000 words to write by the 15th, and beleive it or not I have it light compared to some!

Scotland Adventures

2006-11-27T19:56:00.000Z

This past weekend I took the train up north to finally see some more of Great Britain. I made some friends earlier this semester up at St. Andrews so I decided to go visit them. I am part Scottish so I was really excited to finally go see some of my native homeland, and I wasn't dissapointed. Scotland is beautiful and interesting and I hope I have a chance to return when I have more time. (which would be...when?)

First I took the train to Edinburgh, one of Scotland's bigger cities, and met up with my friend Susan. She is an Emory friend who happened to be visiting her Scottish relatives for Thanksgiving. I was so excited to see her and have her show me the sites of Edinburgh! I really lucked out that afternoon, it was brilliantly sunny, although very cold (my entire trip could probably be summed up as very, very, cold). It was friday and the city was just putting up it's christmas lights, there was this cute little carnival going on downtown outside the train station. This is a picture of the carnival in front of the very large and gothic monument to Sir Walter Scott.
I was only in Edinburgh for an afternoon, not nearly enough. We had lunch (while I caught up on all the Emory news) poked around a street fair and then went up the Edinburgh castle. It is a hulking mass high on the hill, huge and dominating. We did a whirlwind tour, climbing to the top for the view, peeking into the church and the WWI memorial and stopping briefly to hear a knight speak on scottish fighting techniques (basically act tough and kick everyone's butt). It was a pretty impressive castle, reminded me a bit of Dover Castle. It get's dark even earlier there then here, the sun started to set aroung three! We did a little but of shopping on Princes Street, the high street and then hugged our goodbyes. She hopped on the bus back to her grandparents and I was off to St. Andrews.
I was very excited to see St. Andrews after hearing all about it from Jason and others. It is one of the oldest universities in the UK and home of the first golf course ever! It is a very cute little town, very very small. The entire town consists of about three streets. Still it is very much a college town, it has the highest concentration of pubs of anywhere in the UK! I could tell that they party hard there, I think they have to if only to keep warm! I was able to sample some Scottish pubs (quite similar to English ones) and some Scottish whiskey of course. Fun stuff.
Aside from the bars and the golfing, St. Andrews is known for the great castle and cathedral ruins. As you should know by now I love old things, especially cemetaries and ruins, so this was right up my alley. The castle is from the thirteenth century and only small parts remain. I didn't pay to go inside, I walked around the outside and took pictures. I think most of what was there could be seen from the outside anyways. I especially loved the cathedral ruins dating from the tenth to the sixteenth century. It was once Scotland's largest building, now there are only a few pieces left standing. They are perched on this cliff overlooking the North Sea. It was windy and near dusk when I went which made it very, very chilly but the view, the sea and the sky were spectacular. There is a large cemetary all around where the cathedral once was so I spent some time waundering around in there as well. The ruins were beautiful against the dusky sky, it was all very romantic to see. And I took a lot a lot of pictures, I am becoming a picture taking addict.

The one thing I will probably remember most about Scotland was how incredibly nice the people were. I don't mean my friends at St. Andrews (although they are very nice and fun) but the actual Scottish people. They were all so friendly, especially compared to the English! I ran into some trouble on my way back home and I don't know what I would have done without their help. Basically I needed to take a bus and two seperate trains to get home. The bus dropped me off at the train station at Leuchars (the closest station to St. Andrews) at which point I discovered that the station was actually closed for the day due to construction! There was a bus taking passengers to the next station but I missed it by about 30 seconds, the next one wouldn't be there until 1:30. I needed to take that train to get into Edinburgh to take my second train home at 2 pm, there was no way I could wait that long. I happened to meet another student from St. Andrews who had missed the bus and we tried to figure out what to do. Suddenly a man approached us, I think he may have been a professor and asked if we needed help. When we told him what had happened he offered to drive us himself to the next train station so we could catch the train! He had just gotten his wife onto the bus and felt bad for us being stranded there. It was so incredibly nice of him I was totally taken aback. And thanks to him I was able to actually make it home thank goodness. I am definatly a fan of the scottish. I snapped this picture out the window of the train as we were leaving Scotland. What a beautiful welcoming place it was.
My mother is flying in tomorrow morning, how exciting! We will do some sightseeing and other fun things but then it's really going to be time to really work hard- only three weeks to go!

Being a tourist

2006-11-23T16:49:00.000Z

So as you know I've been spending quite a bit of time traveling around Europe. This has been fantastic but as a result I haven't spent nearly as much time as I would like actually seeing the sights of London! I know Bloomsbury pretty well because that is where I go to school. I've been to the markets, the globe, soho, and a few other cool sights on my daily waunderings and social engagements. But I really haven't spent a whole lot of time doing London sightseeing. This past weekend I was actually IN london for a change so I decided to be a typical London tourist for a day! I set off on my own (sometimes I am a better tourist flying solo I've discovered) and headed for the most tourist-y part of town- Westminster.

I was following a Wesminster guided walk from my Rick Steves tour book (I recomend him-he's a smart guy). So I started at the tube, walked over the Wesminster Bridge while contemplating Wordsworth, then checked out Big Ben and Parliment. Would you beleive I've been here for two months and this was the first time I've seen Big Ben up close?

Then I headed for Wesminster's most famous attraction- Westminster Abbey! I'd actually been here on my family London trip years ago, but I remembered loving it and wanting to go back. I'm so glad I did. It was even more awe-inspring then I remembered and I can definatly appreciate it more knowing what I now do about English history and literature. They won't let you take pictures inside but the huge cathedral is basically crammed with monuments and memorials to all the greats of England. It is where most of the royals and other really important figures are buried, including Queen Elizabeth, Edward the Confessor (who built the church around 1100) and Geoffrey Chaucer. In a lot of ways it is an indoor graveyard, but with stained glass and unbeleivable gothic architecture. I spent a good three hours waundering around, reading the monuments and reflecting. When I left at 2:30 the choir had come in to sing the Evensong service, so I got to hear some of that which was really beautiful as well.
Part of the reason I am a very good solo tourist is that I tend to go on random flights of fancy when something catches my eye. I was originally planning to walk to Trafalger Square and go to the National Gallery, but instead somehow waundered into St. James's park, one of the luscious parks London possesses. The sun was just starting to go down (the sun starts to set around 3:30 here remember) and it reflected brilliantly on the brightly changing leaves. St. James has a huge lake in the center and is known for it's waterfowl. There were dozens and dozens of ducks, pigeons and geese waundering the sidewalks, along with Londoners enjoying what was left of the beautiful day. I ended up walking all the way through the park and ended up at Buckingham Palace. The palace was not on my list of things to see because it is really not that pretty or interesting on the outside. Even so I walked around, took a few pictures (I now have literally hundreds and hundreds of pictures from this trip) and then slowly wound my way to Piccadilly Circus- also not a very interesting place, but kind of pretty since they have put up the christmas lights.

All in all it was a productive sightseeing day. Crossed a couple big things off my list of things to do before i leave in just about three weeks (saaad)! Hopefully when my mom comes we will do some more sightseeing!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Budapest Pictures

2006-11-22T22:33:00.000Z

Okay clearly I am never going to get around to writing about Budapest. This is unfortunate as it is my favorite city I've visited in Europe! I've been pouring all my writing effort into essays on things like "money as a social currency in Thackeray's Vanity Fair." This weekend I'm going to Scotland so I will have new adventure to write about. In the meantime here are some Budapest pictures at least:

This is the City Park, absolutly beautiful with the leaves changing...

Anonymous, the greatest scribe in Hungarian history. He is the Magyars primary source of knowledge about the history of the Hungarian people. Obviously they know nothing about him (leading us to question if he was even a man at all?). Scholars visit his statue and rub his pencil for good luck. So far it hasn't helped me much!

This is St. Stephen's Basilica, an enormous Catholic church. It took almost 100 years to build (partly because it collapsed a couple of times. We walked all the way to the top of the dome where there is an amazing 360 view of all of Pest. Inside of the church they also have the mummified hand of St. Stephen, Hungarys first king and patron saint. it was gross.

Heroe's Square, a monument to the great leaders of Hungary. Apparently there were a lot. During communist times this entire edifice was covered with a giant picture of Marx. Like many beautiful things in this country, it managed to endure.

Fisherman's Bastion, not actually a fortress but a very pretty piece of architecture hanging off of Buda Castle with again, beautiful views

The Gellert Baths. Hungary is known for it's famous thermal bath houses. Only half of our group was brave enough to test them out. Fortunatly I was one of the brave ones. Although it involved seeing many, many more naked Hungarian women then I ever really wanted to, the baths were wonderful and cheap to boot. You can get a 30 minute full body massage for the equivalent of 15 american dollars. but when they say full body, rest assured, the mean full body...

I have seen a LOT of churches on this trip and St. Matthias in Buda Castle was one of the most unique. It has existed on that spot for almost a thousand years. At one point Hungary was overtaken by Muslim forces and the church was changed into a mosque, only to eventuall be changed back. As a result it has a gorgeous east-meets-west motif. It is amazing how many of these churches managed to endure through so many invasions. It's amazing how the Hungarians managed to keep their culture intact even after 4 major occupations (the muslims, the austrians, the nazis and the soviets).

As with most of the places I've been the pictures really don't do Budapest justice. It was a beautiful, modern, golden city with such a rich history. Okay I sound like a travel brochure I know, but it was awesome.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Rest assured I have plans. They may not do Thanksgiving in britain but I know enough Americans that the holiday won't go totally unobserved. Then Friday I am off to Scotland!

Night at the Theater

2006-11-15T16:36:00.000Z

Whew, halfway through those epic trip posts. It is taking me almost as many days to write them as it did to actually go on the trip! Thanks if you actually read all this, and hopefully it isn't too boring for you!
It's back to life as usual here at UCL, which is, of course, not at all usual in any form. Tuesday night I went to see the play Bent, starring Alan Cummings. If you don't know, Alan Cummings is a Scottish actor who was Nightcrawler in X-men and has been in tons of other movies, usually as kind of quirky offbeat roles. The play was about homosexuality in Nazi Germany, as you can imagine it was very intense and sad but very, very good. This is actually the second play I've seen in London, the first was Galileo by Brecht at the National Theater. This one was more interesting to me personally. I was really impressed and moved by it. Pretty much everyone in the audience was sobbing afterwards, it was that powerful. Afterwards we waited at the stage door for Alan Cummings (my friend insisted). Apparently waiting around stage doors isn't as prevalent in the UK, we were almost the only ones back there. We did manage to catch him and meet him, he was extremely nice and had a very cute dog named Honey. The picture is ,of course, Alan trying to get his dog to pose for Stef's camera (the dog seemed kind of confused). On our way back home we saw the Queen's motorcade- she was apparenlty on her way home from the James Bond premere. Two brushes with stardom in one night! I also took these pictures of Trafalgar Square at night:

It's getting dark now around 4 pm which is depressing but I try to make the most of the few daylight hours we have. I have less then a month in London to go which saddens me to end. I'm trying to make a list of important things to see and do before I leave. This is complicated by intense busyness. Next weekend I will be in Scotland, the weekend after that my Mother will be here and we will be in High Wykham. Hopefully when she is in town we will do some major sightseeing though. School is keeping me crazy busy, it's getting to be crunch time so I am expecting some not-so-fun late nights. I am constantly torn between doing school work and doing something in London. I just can't decide which is more important. This weekend I am actually in town for a change so I'm going to play tourist hopefully and knock a few things off my to-do list!

Praha Part Two

2006-11-11T19:21:00.000Z

Even though Prague was subjected to a double whammy of destructive occupations, first the Nazis then the Soviets, there are still an amazing amount of churches and synagogues perfectly preserved. The churches have far outlasted the faith of the people- this city is something like 86% atheist, but they have the most beautiful religious buildings. The most impressive in my opinion was Saint Vitus Cathedral. St. Vitus is actually in the center part of Prague Castle, one of the biggest castles in the entire world. It was kind of cold and rainy so I didn't see most of the castle, just the cathedral with it's amazing stain-glass windows which were glowing despite the pouring rain. I actually saw several different beautiful churchs in Prague, all roman catholic and Renaissance or Baroque in style. They shared similar painted ceilings, huge frescoes and gold gilding. I haven't been to Rome (yet) but these were the most beautiful churches I've seen thus far.

Europe is of course full of grand churches, but what is unique to Prague is the pefectly preserved Jewish Quarter of the city called Josefov. Almost all the Jews in the city were wiped out by Hitler (I think there are about 600 left in the city today) but he left the buildings just as they were. Sickenly, he meant them to serve as a museum of the "extinct race." The lucky thing is that all these synagogues are still there, you can visit them all for one price, including the oldest synagogue in Europe (it is confusingly called the Old-New synagogue) and a really elaborate Spanish synagogue. My favorite part of the Jewish Quarter was the Old Jewish cemetary (Europe's oldest jewish cemetary). Yes, I have a thing for cemetaries. Yes, I know that is weird. I just really like them okay? What made this one interesting was the unique arrangment of tombstones. The cemetary has been around for so many years that people have been buried in layers one over top of one another, which has cause odd rippling and sinking in the ground. As a result the tombstones are extremely crowded together, leaning against each other, on top of each other, sinking into the ground, just general chaos. It's a little hard to describe but very interesting to see.
Other cool things I saw in Prague included the Charles Bridge. This is a medeval bridge which crosses the Vlatva river and has these amazingly huge religious statues dominating it, such as the one on the right. We went there are sunset and watched the sky change from gray to pink to purple, blue and black. Very beautiful and very romantic. I also really enjoyed waundering the old quarter of town. I happened upon some very cool shops and this cute outdoor market selling fruit, food and souveniers. Prague was a very pretty city, it fit exactly into my ideas of Old Europe. Still, after four days in the city I felt like I'd pretty much seen all of it and I was ready to move on.
Coming up: Budapest- aka the best city in the entire world (except maybe london)!

The Eastern Bloc: Praha Part One

2006-11-11T19:20:00.000Z

This past week was Reading Week at University College London, a time for students to catch up on the massive amounts of work the professors pile on us. Or, if you are an American, time to go on a European vacation! Which is exactly what three of my awesome London friends and I did, spending our week in Prague and Budapest. I will warn you guys that this is going to be a several part story because we did an absurd amount this week.
We arrived in Prague early Saturday (note on future travels: flights/trains before 9am are simply not feasible). I was really excited for Prague because so many people have told me about it and because I had never been anywhere so far east. Both Hungary and the Czech Republic were of course part of the Soviet Bloc until 17 years ago. I wasn't sure what to respect in that regard, but I think Prague has changed dramatically since then. Everything I learned in IB twentieth century topics came rushing back to me this week. This picture is me with a giant statue of Vladimir Lenin at the cities Communist Museum. It was an interesting study in contrasts that that museum was located above a McDonalds and next to a casino. A fast changing place indeed. Wenceslas Square, the large central boulevard in Nove Mesto (translated as "New Town" although it's actually about 600 years old) has seen 4 revolutions in the past 100 years. That is a lot of murder, violence and suicide in one place. Everything is peaceful now though and it is a major shopping area actually.
Of Course Prague has a history stretching way back past communism. The city is 1000 years old, and this can best be seen in Stare Mesto, the Old Town. This area is full of old buildings and churches remarkable preserved and still used. A dominant feature is the Astronomical Clock, a giant medieval clock which shows the time, the phase of the moon, the star sign and a variety of other important facts. It is quite beautiful and people crowd around it right before the hour to watch the various mechanical figures dance when it strikes the hour. My favorite part was a small dancing skeleton figure holding an hourglass- he is supposed to remind the citizens to be aware of their own mortality. Kind of dark but kind of cool too. Most of the Old Town is very touristy, full of restaurants and gift shops selling nesting dolls and tee shirts. Even so it is very pretty, especially when the sun comes out, as it only did one afternoon of our four day stay in Prague.
Prague is known as a party city but it also has some pretty cool shows at night as well. My favorite that we went to was an all marionette version of Don Giovanni. Puppets singing opera sounds kind of lame, and isn't for everyone, but it was actually pretty funny and well done. We also saw a black light show which was incredibly stange and trippy. Not really my thing, but if you like dancing eyeballs wearing powder wigs or a three foot tall red mouth singing yellow submarine, definatly worth checking out.

Coming up: Churches, Castles and Nazis!

2006-11-11T19:05:00.000Z

Oh and it wouldn't kill you people who are reading this to actually leave a comment once in awhile. I'd like to know I'm not just talking to myself here....

Guy Fawkes Fireworks

2006-11-11T18:58:00.000Z

I wanted to post these before I left on my trip but I forgot:

Theses are poor captures of the amazing fireworks spectacle I went to last Friday night. They were in honor of Guy Fawkes day, which wasn't technically until November 5th (Remember, remember the fifth of november) but which Londoners like to celebrate for as long as possible. I'm still hearing fireworks go off outside my window a week later.

Prepare youself for a mega couple of posts about my amazing vacation, coming soon....

Catching Up: Birthdays, Castles and Halloween, British Style

2006-11-01T21:43:00.000Z

Hey Guys!
Life has been busy these past two weeks, hence the lack of updates. I wish I could say I've been off jet-setting around, but primarily I've been doing a lot of school work and fun things like that.
Some exciting things have happened lately though- in particular I celebrated my 22nd birthday last Thursday. When I first decided to come here I admit I was worried about being forced to spend my birthday alone in a strange city. Fortunatly this was not the case and I was able to celebrate with about twenty of my closest friends at my favorite bar, The Rocket. I was actually impressed by how many people ended up coming, friends I've made over the past month and half in class, in my dorm and through the Emory programss. Here is a picture which unfortunatly came out rather blurry, although that sort of suited the mood of the night as my drink kept being refilled. We drank snakebites (half beer, half cider with a shot of black current liquor- my new favorite drink), hung out and danced into the late hours. It was a really great birthday and it made me feel really lucky to know so many really awesome people here.
On Saturday we had the last of our Emory day trips, to Broughton Castle, a Medevial castle in Oxfordshire. What made this trip different from the rest of the stately homes we've been to is that Lord and Lady Saye are actually still in residence in the house. They are friends with our trip coordinator Rachel, and thus we were granted a private off season tour of the house. It is huge and drafty and historic of course. Also unlike other tours we were actually allowed to take pictures inside the house. Here is a picture of one of Lord and Lady Sayes guest bedrooms, it is called the Kings Room because, well because that is where the King used to stay back in the day. It was a gorgeous room with this elaborate hand painted chinese wall paper. Everything in the house was rich and opulent and historic, it was so cool to actually be able to get up close and personal with it all (I even got to try on a medeval battle helmut and sword). At the end of the tour we actually got to meet the Lord and Lady, my first brush with the English aristocracy. They were incredibly nice and normal, although they had a very ugly dog. Incidentally the Saye's informal last name is Fiennes, they are actually relatives of Ralph and Joseph Fiennes. This beautiful castle has been used in the filming of several movies including Shakespeare in Love.
It's finally getting cold here.This week has been mostly about paper writing, which unfortunatly caused me to miss out on Halloween festivities. Contrary to popular beleif Halloween IS celebrated in England, just not to the full extent it is in America. I don't beleive Trick or Treating is in fashion, and I haven't seen much about haunted houses. As far as I can tell Halloween is mainly an excuse for young adults to go out and party while wearing crazy costumes. It's a shame I missed it to because I had a good costume too...
This friday I am going to see some early Guy Fawkes fireworks, then I am off to the continent. I am spending my reading week in Prague and Budapest, so prepare yourself for some (hopefully) awesome stories on my return...

Trip to the Continent Part Two: Amsterdam!

2006-10-23T13:38:00.001+01:00

I loved Amsterdam.
Everyone always talks about how Amsterdam is such a party town and so wild and crazy, and that is all true, but I never realized how extremely beautiful it is and how nice the people there are. Whereas with Brussels 4 hours was more then enough time, I didn't think two days in Amsterdam was nearly enough. I would live there if only I could learn to properly pronounce any dutch words.
We arrived around 8 in the evening on Friday night, just in time to witness some of Amstedam's famous nightlife. Our hostel was in Leidesplein, one of the happening nightlife districts, a bit further from the center of the city. We stayed at the Flying Pig Palace which I highly recomend if you are under 30 and traveling to Amsterdam. Very clean and nice and on a quiet street right across from Vondelpark (a really big and pretty park). Leidsplein is full of bars and clubs and of course coffeeshops. If you aren't hip to the Amsterdam lingo, coffeeshops are where you can buy and smoke pot. There is one on almost every street corner, some have different themes or funny names. They are mostly filled with tourists it seems. As a whole Amsterdam was full of tourists, we met many other traveling students (mostly Americans) which was interesting. They are so used to having American tourists there that everyone speaks English, which was a releif after Brussels. At the same time I think there were a lot of areas that were less touristy and more quantly european. It was a nice mix (the picture of the clubs above was takn just a couple of blocks from this picture of the canal if you can beleive it). Of course all throughout the trip I couldn't speak at all, I could only whisper and squeak due to some unfortunate sickness I've developed. Ava had to serve as my intepretor all weekend long.
Amsterdam is layed out kind of like a bullseye, with the Red Light District in the center and rings of canals leading outwards. We were on I think the outer rim of the fifth canal, the Singelgracht. It is not a very big city and it was easy for us to walk basically everywhere, although they have cute little trolleys running around as well. The canals were gorgeous to walk around; shady and residential in some places, in others filled with cute little stores.
Our first day we walked to Anne Frank's house, where her family hid from the Nazis for two years and where she wrote her famous diary. It was a very sad but interesting museum. Afterwards to cheer ourselves up we went on the Heineken experience tour. It was very fun, it cost 10 euros and there are several bars throughtout the tour where you can get a total of three free beers. We watched Heineken commercials through the ages, learned how beer is made (which i already knew-thanks dad!), and even got to experience what it is like to be a beer bottle (apparently it's very fun). At the end you get a free gift- ours was a metal heineken bottle opener in a beer can shaped tin. It was a very fun way to spend an afternoon. We also spent some time waundering the various canals and checking out the shops. Later, we were actually able to eat Mexican food! I was so excited, you can't get mexican food anywhere in London! that alone made the whole trip worthwhile.
On Sunday morning we went to the Van Gogh museum. They have over 200 Van Gogh pieces including some really famous ones like Sunflowers and The Potato Eaters. You can follow the pictures chronologically to see his progression as an artist- apparently all of his works were painted during a short ten year period before he killed himself. It was really fascinating. For lunch on Sunday we sampled one of the Netherland's delicacies, french fries smothered in mayoinasse. It was really gross, I'm not sure how they all aren't 1000 pounds there.
Unfortunatly Sunday afternoon we had to get back on the train for a 5 hours trip back home. I definatly need to go back to Amsterdam, there is a lot to see there that I missed the first time, and it is such a lovely city. This trip made me really excited for my next trip, coming up in just two weeks. Four of us crazy American girls will be touring Prague and Budapest for a week. Exciting!
But for now it's back to school work and all that fun stuff... I hope my voice comes back soon at least! Oh and I have many more interesting pictures of Europe, just not room on here to post them. So if you are interested in seeing more you can check out my shutterfly page:
http://syoder.shutterfly.com/action/

Trip to the Continent Part One: Brussels

2006-10-23T10:59:00.000+01:00

I've successfully completed my first voyage out of England! This weekend Ava and I went to Brussels and Amsterdam. It was a fun weekend although we had to overcome many obstacles such as STA messing up our train tickets and my having no voice all weekend (I still don't, when I talk its more like squeaking)!
Early, early Friday morning we caught the bus to Waterloo station. Unfortunately we missed our first Eurostar train because STA travel forgot to pay for our tickets (those jerks)! We were able to get on the next train at 7:30 am. Eurostar is very nice, trains always make me sleepy and I slept all the way. I missed going through the chunnel! We didn't really wake up until we reached Brussels, our first stop of the day.
We only had a few hours to spend so we took the underground straight to the Grand-Place, a beautiful square in downtown Brussels and essentially the only tourist attraction there. It is surrounded by very beautiful and ornate buildings. In particular the town hall looks like a soaring cathedral with hundreds of statues carved into it. All of the buildings in the area were beautiful and there was a small market selling unique little crafts.
The main reason we wanted to go to Brussels was to eat- and we were NOT disappointed! First picture up here is me with some Belgian white beer. It was delicious, kind of like Blue Moon but better. They sell beer pretty much everywhere in Brussels; we were shocked to stumble upon a beer vending machine at the train station! One thing that is great about Europe is that it is perfectly acceptable to have a beer or two with lunch-or before lunch. I've seen regular looking people walking down Tottenham Court Road in London sipping a beer at 10 am (also interesting is the lack of open container laws).
We didn't just come for beer though, we had quite an extravagant lunch that day. Because the dollar is much stronger against the euro then the pound we went all out. Ava had Belgian mussels, I had a nice juicy steak. We also had to sample the famous Belgian frites (French fries) which were pretty much exactly the same as American French fries. And of course the Belgian Waffles. You can buy them on almost any street corner, piping hot and with all sorts of different toppings. I got mine with dark chocolate on it- it was heavenly. I think I would go back to Belgium solely for another waffle.
Late in the afternoon we hopped back on the train, our bellies full of rich food and our backpacks stuffed with Belgian chocolate. I loved the food there but I am glad we only spent an afternoon. Once you've seen the Grand-Place and eaten your weight in chocolate, there isn't a whole lot else Brussels has to offer. The people there were kind of rude (perhaps it's the French influence) and the rest of the city is kind of generic. Brussels especially paled in comparison to Amsterdam, my new favorite city...
... To be Continued.

A weekend at the shore

2006-10-18T19:11:00.000+01:00

Sorry guys ,I am starting to fall behind in my updating. Life is getting in the way as they say. This week has been crazy busy with school work so I haven't had a single moment until just now to sit down and reflect on this past weekend.
All day Saturday and Sunday I was away on an Emory sponsored trip. We visited several stately homes in the Kent countryside and spent the night in Dover. It was great fun because I got to hang out with all my favorite Emory kids and to meet a bunch of the Emory people who are studying up at St. Andrews in Scotland.
On Saturday we visited Knole House which is a palatial home owned by English aristocrats. It was once the home of Vita Sackville West, Virginia Woolf's lover for whom she wrote Orlando. I haven't read Orlando yet(it is sitting on my shelf) but the house was amazing. It is called a calender house because it has 365 rooms, 52 staircases and 7 courtyards. We only saw a fraction of that, all decorated in unbeleivable opulence. My favorite part were the hundreds of free range deer which roam the property with basically no fear of human contact.
After Knole we visited Chartwell House, which was the private home of Winston Churchill. It is a very pretty, cozy little house with excellent views of the Kent countryside. The house had really beautiful gardens, you can see me sitting in one of them in the big picture on the left. I spent a long time taking slightly pretentious, but very pretty, pictures of the flowers and the grounds.
Later that evening we rolled into Dover. Dover is a seaside town, right on the English Channel (it's where the Chunnel starts I think). I'm told on a clear day you can see all the way to Europe. Unfortunatly we didn't have a clear day so France is still a mystery to me. I think I've mentioned before how these Emory excursions are entirely paid for by the school. This is is amazing. For this trip they rented out an entire bed & breakfast for the group. They also treated us to a fantastically boozy Chinese food feast that night. I've honestly never seen or eaten so much chinese food before in my life, it was pretty fantastic. Later that night we all went down to the beach. It was very cold but very pretty, you could see Dover Castle glimmering up on the hill, and on the horizon lights of I like to imagine (but what almost certainly was not) France.
Early the next morning we walked up to Dover Castle. Dover is this hulking medeival fortress, which has been known as the key to England because of it's inconquerability. It was absolutly huge, I think we only saw a small part of the whole place. We took a tour of the secret underground tunnels used in World War Two for defense. Despite the fact that our tourguide was clearly stoned, the tunnels were pretty creepy, and we may have actually seen a ghost! We were also able to go to the top of the Keep, that is the highest tower in the castle, and look down over Dover and the surrounding lands. Sadly, it was still too foggy to see France!
After a gross lunch of fish and chips (ick) we visited one last site, a beautiful historic mansion call Igtham Mote. It doesn't have a whole lot of significance other then it is really pretty and has a cool Mote running around it. I think I would like my house to have a mote. You can walk around the house which is decorated in a cool, 1930's style and is very, very big. Very pretty gardens again; I've seen more gardens in the past month then in my entire life, yet I don't seem to get tired of them. Finally the bus too the exhausted lot of us home. It was such a fun and interesting weekend and it is always nice to get outside of London and see the rest of England.
So my adventures continue this weekend in Brussels and Amsterdam. I am excited but also tired. Every day of this trip is exciting and crazy and different but also takes so much energy. In some ways it is good I am only here for a few months, I'm not sure I could keep up this pace much longer then that. Although do not get me wrong: life here is so much fun. Every day is a new adventure in learning and living and it is exhausting and demanding but I am loving every single minute of it.

Day 25: These are a few of my favorite things

2006-10-13T13:06:00.000+01:00

Here are the best things about London thus far:

Chocolate Digestives- actually all British junk food and candy is absolutly amazing. I especially like the chocolate bars with cadbury creme egg filling.
All the green space and beautiful squares where people hang out, read, and eat their lunch. Plus the fact that there are no leash laws in London so cute dogs frolic freely in the park
The accents ;-)
The fact that everything, the bus system, the trains, the underground, are computerized so you never have to talk to a human being ever.
* The sensational headlines on the newspapers, such as these which are advertising for a television movie about the assasination of George Bush. Seriously could you imagine a newspaper in American printing a front page like that? Also the celebrity gossip magazines and the fact that when you buy cosmo or vogue you get a free gift, like an umbrella or a hand bag
Reading fantastic books (like Great Expectations) mere blocks from where they were written
the fact there are so many young people here from soooo many different countries. Even living in DC I never saw diversity such as this
The weather. Up til now I've been super lucky with fantastic warm weather. I didn't even need a jacket to go outside today which I think is pretty unusual for October in London. They just had one of the warmest September's on record, it seems I do bring the sunshine wherever I go. Even when it rains it is still fantastic because it is London. Today I woke up to my first sighting of London Fog. Unfortunatly it didn't turn out that great because it was out my window and because, well because it is fog and fog doesn't photograph very well apparently. By the time I left the flat at noon the fog had cleared and turned into a bright sunshiney day. Like I said, I love the weather!

So that is all for now, I could go on. Maybe one day I will write a post about the things I do not like about London. I can certainly think of some (the UCL library, the fact that everything closes before midnight), but being an optimist I will just stick to loving London for now.

Coming up soon: Dover, and next weekend, Brussels and Amsterdam!

2006-10-09T16:07:00.000+01:00

"In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops"
- George Orwell, Bookshop Memories

Day 19: Oxford

2006-10-07T23:52:00.000+01:00

The thing that fascinates me about England, and Europe as a whole, is how old everything is. In the US something built 100, 200, 300 years ago is pretty old. Here that is practically new! I spent my Saturday at Oxford University which was established in the twelfth century- before America had even been conceived of by anyone but the Native Americans. It is the oldest university in the English speaking world. For almost a thousand years Oxford and Cambridge were the only universities in England (UCL was the third, founded in 1826). This is a picture of the Oxford Cathedral, the first and oldest Oxford building. This is where the monks first hung out and gave lectures on theology in the 1100's. This building is three times as old as America!
Oxford is less then an hour's train ride from London, the round trip cost us only ten pounds (thanks to my gift at finding deals). We took a tour of the University, which is absolutly gigantic. Oxford is set up very differently then most American schools. It consists of 39 different colleges which run pretty independently of each other under the umbrella organization of the University. Most of the colleges a closed off to anyone but students, so we could only see the outsides of the buildings. We could peer through the gates of the more famous ones like Trinity College and Christ Church College. Our tour did take us through Jesus College, which is only about 500 years old. It was beautiful, this is a picture of one of the courtyards. The colleges are each pretty small, around 500 people, and are responsible to the housing, feeding and education of the students. The University of London, which UCL is a part of, is set up similarly though on a much larger scale.
Everything in Oxford was richly beautiful. The buildings were dripping with rich little details like gargoyles, crests and grotesques. Nothing is modest, everything is extravagant. The Bodleian library is one of the largest in Britain and the original building, left, is from the middle ages. We also saw several spots which were used in the filming of the Harry Potter movies, although we couldn't get into Christ Church college where they film the great hall scenes.
My favorite part of Oxford was visiting the Eagle and Child pub, where CS Lewis and JR Tolkein would hang out together and read each other's works. We had lunch there (my friends are really good at humoring me) and sat by the fireplace, pretty much exactly where those two would have. A lot of famous writers are associated with Oxford including Lewis Carrol, Aldous Huxley, Oscar Wilde, WH Auden, Percy Byshe Shelley and John Donne. I also insisted we visit the giant bookstore on campus, which is over 6 miles in length I'm told. I picked up a copy of Alice and Wonderland, which I have been lusting after since my visit to the British Library. What better place to get one then where Carrol actually invented the story right?

Day 18: English major overload

2006-10-07T23:10:00.000+01:00

My first week of classes is over and I would say things are a bit intense. It is kind of unnerving going into a class without a clear idea of the format or the way things are run. Their teaching structure is definatly very different from what I'm used to. This was the first time I really felt like a foreigner; I can't even imagine what it must be like for my roomates who don't even have english as a first language. Nevertheless I think my classes should be pretty interesting and totally doable. My London in Literature class and my Anthropology of Religion class in particular seem pretty cool. I wasn't worried about the workd load at all until I met with my English tutor on Thursday. One of the "perks" of being an English major at UCL is that you get your own personal tutor who you write your essays for and who is basically in charge of your evaluations. This is only done at UCL, Cambridge and Oxford still. My tutor is very nice but the pace of this semester is definatly going to be intense- I have a paper due in less then two weeks on Great Expectations, which I haven't even read yet! Needless to say I picked up a copy on my way home from the meeting and am desperatly plowing through it. I guess I can't complain, this is what I get for going to a top university. Still, I am definatly a little stressed.
Friday I had no class so I went to the Globe theater, the reproduction Shakespeare era theater on the Thames. It looks very odd with its thatched roof nestled in between an office building and the Tate modern. We saw Anthony and Cleopatra which I'd never read but enjoyed. Cleopatra was played by Frances Barber who was totally amazing. For six pounds you can play the part of a 17th century groundling (also known as a poor person). You get to stand at the foot of the stage, exposed to the elements and watch the show. You can literally lean against the stage and the actors will come within inches of you. In my case Caesar himself spilled his drink on my head. Quite an honor. The Globe is an open air theater and our experience was intensified by pouring rain. We were all soaked despite our rain ponchos. After three plus hours of standing in the rain we were all pretty exhausted.
I'm starting to get a feel for the way this semester is going to run and I think it's going to be pretty intense. Intense reading load, intense work load, intense sightseeing goals, socialization and basically little sleep. I am definatly up for it though and optimistic as ever!

Day 15: I bet Jack the Ripper never had to worry about homework

2006-10-03T23:29:00.000+01:00

Today, October 2nd, was finally my first day of classes. It was a releif to actually be starting although it will be an effort to get back to work after so long. Today was actually very stressful for me. Somehow I have managed to start out on the first day behind of everyone else! The classes here are very different then I am used to. For my English classes there is a weekly lecture hour which is really just a one sided lecture on a certain subject. Then every other week I have a smaller seminar where we discuss a book in depth. The seminar's pick the books so I won't know what to but until I actually go to them. I do know that for my first seminars I have to read Tennyson for Victorian Lit and Daniel Defoe's Journal of A Plague Year for London in Lit. I'm excited for Defoe, less so for Tennyson. I think these classes will be exciting, especially London in Literature, but I am still nervous about staying on top of things. Tomorrow I have history which should be pretty low stress though.

Tonight I went on a Jack the Ripper historical walking tour, which was kind of cool. If you are ever in London you should look into going on a London Walks tour. They have dozens of different ones, Beatles London, Dicken's London, Haunted London etc. The Jack the Ripper one is conducted by this guy, Donald Rumbelow who is "internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper". He wrote the definitive book and even advises on movies, like the one starring Johnny Depp, From Hell. We walked all around the City, learned about Jack's various victims and his methodology. It was dark and creepy and none of my pictures came out very well except for this one of me in front of the Tower of London (which doesn't really have anything to do with Jack the Ripper). Anyways it was really cool and I definatly want to do more of these walking tours, especially because they are only five pounds!

Afterwards we went to this creepy looking pub, called The Ten Bells which was apparently used in the movie From Hell. I haven't seen it but the pub was pretty cool in a spooky Victorian way. No Johnny Depp sightings I'm sad to say, although a friend of my roomate apparently saw him at the Portabello Road Market last week! I will keep my eyes peeled for Johnny, or Hugh Grant, and will keep you updated...

Day 13: Henry VIII: lucky in real estate, unlucky in love

2006-10-01T23:47:00.000+01:00

Hi!
Today was another Emory event; an all day trip to Hampton Court Palace. The estate is located right on the Thames, about a 45 minute drive out of London. This is a beautiful palace built by Cardinal Wolsey, one of Henry VIII's chief advisors. Henry got jealous of its splendor and Wolsey was essentially forced to give Henry the palace as a gift (that's just the kind of king Henry was). Five of Henry's six wives spent time here before he got rid of them and it was also a home for Elizabeth I, James I and William and Mary most famously.
I must say it was a pretty impressive place as palace's go. The compound has over 300 rooms that would have housed Henry, his family, his courtiers and their families, his servants and his soldiers. It is just spectacularly huge. We of course didn't see it all, mainly Henry's entertaining rooms including a huge great hall and a room full of nothing but the antlers of various animals. One room is the haunted hallway where teenage Catherine Howard is said to have chased after Henry begging for mercy before she was sentenced to execution for her infidelity. I stood there awhile trying to pick up some supernatural vibes without success. There was an incredible chapel designed by Christopher Wren with a gold guilded ceiling. We also saw some of the private chambers, mostly belonging to the monarchs after Henry who used the palace. Apparently there used to be many many palaces lining the Thames, but most of them were knocked down to make way for housing developments and other more useful things. Could you imagine actually making the decision to knock down a palace and put up condominums? What a shame.
Unfortunatly they didnt allow photography inside the apartments, but I was able to photograph my favorite parts- the gorgeous grounds and gardens. When we first arrived it was pouring rain but by the end of the afternoon it was bright and sunny. London weather is the strangest I've ever seen, one minute it's pouring, the next it is sunny, the next it is sunny yet still somehow pouring rain. You pretty much just have to get used to getting wet. The oddly landscaped bushes and trees looked like something out of Alice in Wonderland. There were beautiful fountains and geese waundering around. There was a maze, which was actually original to the house. We waundered around in it, here is a picture of me lost. Eventually I found my way though. I wish I could post more pictures up here, this house was the most beautiful thing I've seen in London thus far. I really like Emory's study abroad program coordinator, Rachel, she is extremely knowledgable about everything we see. This trip made me very excited for the next Emory trip, an overnight to Dover two weeks from now.
Classes start tomorrow, very exciting! However I have no classes tomorrow so for me this mean catching up on sleep, laundry and grocery shopping. That may be the closest thing I've had to a normal day yet...

Day 12: Shopping til I drop (pretty much literally)

2006-09-30T11:23:00.000+01:00

So despite the extreme weakness of the dollar compared to the pound (a fact I am constantly aware of) London just has too much to offer for me not to go out shopping once in awhile. As predicted my book collection is steadily growing- and I haven't even gotten my reading list yet! This weekend I experienced two iconic London shopping experiences, which couldn't be more different from each other.
Friday afternoon me and the ladies went down to Harrods- the greatest department story on earth. I'm sure you all have heard of Harrods, it is the largest, most expensive, least practical store you will ever see in your life. They sell everything. Clothes, furniture, toys, tv, live animals, there is even an entire supermarket in there. Nobody actually shops there but it is a huge tourist attraction. It is incredibly opulent, this is a picture of the Egyptian Hall, the main entrance way. We spent a good three hours waundering around the story and marveling at everything they had. I didn't buy of course but we did purchase a creme brulee from one of the bakeries to split three ways. It tasted like luxury.

Today to even things out we went down to Notting Hill and the Portabello Road Market. Again I bet most of you have heard of Notting Hill, at least from the movie. I didn't get to see all of it because it was kind of rainy but the Portabello Road Market was amazing. Picture booths set up for essentially miles selling produce, sweets, clothings, jewerly and knick knacks. We spent 4 hours there and didnt even make it halfway through the mass of stalls. It was so exciting looking over the tables full of old books, mismatched tea cups, scarves, antique brooches, earrings, bags, stamps, watches etc. I will definatly be going back there. In fact if you are expecting a Christmas present from me it will most likely be from there. Today I bought an amber ring for ten pounds and a pretty blue scarf for five pounds. Certainly much cheaper then Harrods! I also had a delicicous lemon and sugar crepe and saw the travel bookstore where Hugh Grant's character works in the movie Notting Hill. Haven't seen Hugh Grant yet but I am working on it...
I am so exhausted. All of this constant activity is wearing me down. I will almost be releived when class starts on Tuesday and I will have a chance to sit still for awhile!

Day 10: Straddling two hemispheres

2006-09-30T10:10:00.000+01:00

Okay guys so I start writing these posts and then I get busy, so I don't always post them on the correct day- forgive me...
Today, Thursday I went to Greenwich which is a small city on the opposite side of the Thames. You can actually take the underground there but we took a boat cruise down the Thames which was really cool (and cheap, I totally recommend it). I took lots of cool pictures, like this one of Tower Bridge. Lots of people mistake this bride for London bridge b/c it is so pretty, but London Bridge is actually just a very plain, ugly bridge. Unfortunatly it was terribly cloudy all day so I'm not sure you get the full effect here. One of my goals this semester is to walk across the top part of Tower Bridge.
The main reason you have probably head of Greenwich is becuase they are ground zero for time zones. GMT- Greenwich Mean Time is the zero on the clock and all the time zones add on from there. This is partly b/c Greenwich is home of the Prime Meridian- the imaginary line that divides the eastern and western hemispheres and is zero latitude. It's kind of like 4 corners in the US, you can stand on this line and be in two hemispheres at once- which is what I'm doing in the picture here. This seems to attract a lot of japanese tourists. There is also the national observatory up there. It was Built by James II (i think) to appease the intelligentsia and discourage revolt. This is of course were astronomers figured out the idea of latitude and how that relates to time, this was very important in ship navigation and general world organization. The funny thing is when Cristopher Wren designed the building he forgot to put windows facing north and south, which made it impossible for the astronomers to use the building. They all made their great discoveries outside the work shed in the courtyard. The place isn't used anymore but it is still pretty cool to look around. Greenwich also as the National Maritime Museum (which I passed on) and the Queen's House, a summer palace where Queen Elizabeth used to hang out. There is a cute little market place- I bought silver earrings for two pounds, they are in the shape of a skull an crossbones of course. We also visited a Pie Shop. This isn't your American apple or pumpkin pie kind of place, their speciality was jellied eel pie. I passed on that one but had a nice hot cornish pastry. All the British seem to eat is bread, meat and cheese- my kind of place!

Day 9: John Donne was a looker, Virginia Woolf, not so much

2006-09-27T21:56:00.000+01:00

Hey Guys,

I spent a lot of time yesterday and today trying to get my schedule worked out and I think it is (hopefully) set. I'm taking two English classes- Victorian Literature and London in Literature, as well as an anthropology class- Anthropology of Religion, and a history class- Early Medeival European History. I'm not crazy about the history class, I really wanted to do Early Celtic History but it didn't fit with my schedule. At this point I am really just happy to be taking anything at all. And my schedule is pretty easy, no class monday, no class every other friday, so most of the time I'll have a four day weekend! Can't really complain about that.

Yesterday afternoon a friend and I went down to Oxford Street, which is the major high street in London, kind of like fifth avenue. The best thing about London (and I know I've said that multiple times already) is that all the stores offer student discounts, even the clothing stores! My favorite place we went was Topshop, which is this huge huge clothing store with jsut about everything imaginable. I mean, walls full of tights, mountains of purses, aisles of jewerly, and this was just on the accesories floor. I found this awesome umbrella with pirate skulls all over it, which I didn't buy sadly. I did buy really cute black shoes though! they were a splurge at 27 pounds (roughly fifty dollars) but totally worth it.
I used last night to catch up on my badly needed sleep. Was supposed to go to Bath but unfortunatly (due to my ineptness at ticket prices) it didn't work out. Instead dragged myself out of bed around 2 pm to go down to Leicester Square for lunch. Today I learned a valuble lesson: the british are not good at Mexican food. Such a shame, i miss my margaritas...
After this late lunch we waundered into the National Portrait Gallery which was much cooler then I expected it to be. Its name is pretty self explanatory, it houses portraits of many of the great rulers, thinkers and movers and shakers of England. I saw pictures I recognized from many years of history text books; Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Charles Darwin. My favorite portrait was John Donne, he was actually much cuter then I expected! Unfortunatly we only had a couple hours before closing so we didn't make it all the way through the twentiether century, we got cut off around the Bloomsbury Group (AKA famous people who lived in my neighborhood).
Will have to get back over there one of these days...

After that we say out in Trafalger Square for a short while. I am starting to become a nuisance to everyone I hang out with because of my insistance on acting like a total tourist, gawking and taking copious amounts of pictures wherever I go. I can't help it, I like things to be documented (hence this blog)! Trafalger Square is very pretty, it wasn't too crowded either which was great. I think this is where there used to be tons and tons of pigeons (?) but recenly they've gotten rid of them which is great because pigeons kind of scare me. In any case I can tell I need to spend lots more time downtown, I still have so much to see. Most of it will have to wait though, tomorrow I am again attempting to leave town- this time for Greenwich!

By the way, thanks to everyone who is reading this, I know there are a lot of you and I'm glad people actually care what I'm doing over here. It makes me so happy when people leave comments. Love you all!

Day 8: Emory Rocks

2006-09-26T10:35:00.000+01:00

When I was planning my trip to London the very very last thing I expected was to hang out with people from Emory. I didn't know any of them and my opinion of a lot of people from my school is not good. To my pleasant suprise I have been spending a lot of time with the Emory people who I've met here, and they are all pretty awesome. (Which is not to say I haven't met or hung out with people from other places, for example I have plans to go to Oxford with my roomate who is from the Phillipines).
Yesterday I was running around frantically trying to get my classes in order (with little success) when I ran into some cool people who invited me to the British Museum with them. I love the British Museum, it is amazing. It is stuffed full of unimaginable treasures from ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, ancient everywhere actually. And the place is enormous, I am not sure I will even be able to get through all of it during my time here. Luckily it is just a few blocks from my school, so I will be visiting quite a bit I think (lucky for me also that most of the british museums are free). Yesterday we really just made it through the headliners: the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and the Maosoleum of Helikoneses (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world actually!) I've seen all these things before but they are still amazing to me. And it also amazes me that they let you get so close to things and even take pictures. At the top here is a picture of me in front of a giant ancient mesopotamian horse man.
I haven't seen most of the museum but I did stumble onto what I am pretty sure will be my favorite room. The museums reading room is in the very center of the building and is this huge circular hall full of books. This is where they kept the national library until it was move into its own building. On the walls closest to the doors was a display showing all of the famous people who used to come here to read. It was essentially a whose who of British literature: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, Yeats, Shaw, Hughes, Kipling, Forster, Welles. When they were exiles living in London Lenin and Trotsky would hang out here. Needless to say I was impressed. I think it is possible for anyone to come here and study so hopefully at some point I will come down and read with the Greats.
In the evening there was an Emory sponsored dinner event. Emory has an on site coordinator who plans cultural and historical events for the students who are here. We have some trips to stately homes, an overnight to Dover, theater visits etc. And it is all payed for by Emory, so I intend to take advantage as much as possible. We got to the restaurant a good 45 minutes early so we decided to walk around a bit. This is why I love London so much, all we did was walk around the block and we saw:
- The oldest surviving church in London, Saint Bartholomeus which is in the picture. This is Greater St. Barts but there was also a Lesser St. Barts in the circle which was actually a hospital and a church
-A private party for what looked like an actual Lord, in full regalia.
- The square where William Wallace (the scottish guy, from Braveheart) was drawn and quarted almost a thousand years ago. It is also where they used to burn Catholics at the stake and do all manners of executions. There was this great little pub called the Hand and Shears: last ale before the executioners. Also saw this interesting piece of public graffiti, I think it is supposed to be the queen, I'm not quite sure what the message being sent is, I just thought it was cool.
Dinner was excellent. It was at an Italian restaurant called Carluccios. Like I said, it was payed for by Emory so everyone went full out. I had an appetizer, steak and gelato for dessert. And quite a bit of wine. Everyone had quite a bit of wine, which made things even friendlier. There are about 25 of us studying in London, I didn't get to meet everyone but most of the people I did were very nice. By the end of the night I had an invitation to a club, plans for later on tonight, a potential trip to Bath lined up for Thursday and very very tentative plans to go to Rome. After dinner a bunch of us went out to a pub, but we had to turn it in early, as everything closes around here by midnight. I am so excited though, for all the potential fun there is to be had here!!! I just know three months isn't going to be nearly enough...

Day 7: Leaving Town

2006-09-26T00:40:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow I will have officialy been in London for a week! It feels pretty good. Today a british person asked me for directions and I was actualltable to give them! definatly a milestone.... too bad after that I managed to get myself lost for a good 2o minutes before I found UCL.
The past couple days have been extremely stressful as I've been running around trying to get my classes in order. For each class I have to go to the department and talk to the office, and look at the schedules to make sure they don't conflict and try and see if there is enough space in the course. Every department works different and has weird rules and deadlines to keep track of-it is a lot of work! I have a tentative schedule mapped out and hopefully everything will go smoothly from now on...
On Sunday I went out to High Wycombe to visit my aunt. The thing I love most about the trains is that everything is computerized. You never have to talk to a real person! This is good for me, I don't really like talking to people I don't know. And it is incredibly simple, I was able to get myself out there and back with no trouble at all.
The train ride was nice, I tried to take pictures out of the window of the English countryside. It was a really warm day, and the sky was blue blue blue. In high Wycombe my aunt loaded me up with things for the kitchen, cleaning supplies and even a desk lamp. She works for the US army base so she took me down there. It was very strange, like being back in the US for a couple of hours. We went to the grocery store there and i bought some cheerios and velveeta mac and cheese, the comforts of home. For dinner she took me to TGI Fridays which was totally bizarre. It was American but still the waiters were all british and the menu was worded oddly, it was kind of disorienting. Later she packed me back on the train and I got to navigate the British transport system while carrying all my new things! Cramming onto the tube with all my bags for some reason made me feel like a true Londoner.

Day 6: Book Junkie

2006-09-24T10:31:00.000+01:00

Ooh I'm getting busier, it's getting harder to find time to sit down and write. This is a good thing I think, after all I didn't come to London to hang around in my room all day right?
Yesterday I slept in which was marvelous then walked up to the British Library which is only about 15 minutes from my dorm. On the way by I pass by Kings Cross Stations and the beautiful St. Pancreas Station, the building which looks like a castle in the picture. It is actually not a station anymore but is being turned into a Marriot hotel or something. Someone told me it was originally a hotel before it became a station but I am not sure about that.
The British Library was absolutly fantastic for a bibliophile like me. It is basically equivalent to the Library of Congress, with a copy of every book published in Britain. The really special part is the special collections they have on display in the "Treasure Room." Really amazing stuff, a first edition complete works of Shakespeare, Jane Austen's writing desk and written notes on Pride and Prejudice, the Magna Carta of course, and the oldest complete bible in existance from the fourth century. I spent several hours admiring everything. My favorite was the first copy of Alice and Wonderland, the one that Lewis Carrol hand wrote and illustrated to give to Alice. I also really liked their exhibit on the Beatles. They had lyrics scribbled on the backs of cocktail napkins and scraps of paper. I was able to see the very first conception of In My Life (it's very different) and Yesterday. They won't let you take pictures in the Treasures room so here is a picture of Isaac Newton outside of the library. I'm not sure why he is naked and bending over like that, it's rather compromising don't you think? Me new profile picture is me in the little cafe of the library, sitting in front of this huge, 5 story column of book cases surrounded by glass.
I can already tell that I am going to get in trouble in this city. I can't help it, I can't control myself. My one real vice is books. I've already passed by many many cute little book stores which I've resisted thus far. But it's only a matter of time before I stumble into a used book store and lose it. There are so so many, and I haven't even been to any of the street markets or the area known for it's book stores. My major problem is how am I going to get all these books home???
Later last night went out to eat at this English chain called Wagamama's. It is Japanese food mainly and was quite good. Then we went down to Soho and waundered around. I saw several transvestites, althoug they might have been prostitutes, it was unclear. Soho is very flashy, a little like New York but with sex shops crammed in next to the giant theaters where they are running Les Miserables and Mary Poppins. Saw some awesome gay pubs which I wish I'd taken pictures of. We ended up visiting a couple pubs, although not the gay ones, actually met some british people ( a good start) as well as some australians. The weird thing about London is everything winds down really early. The pubs all close at 11 and the tube stops running at 12:30 so nobody is really out too late it seems.
Today I am off to visit my Aunt in High Wycombe. If I can figure out the trains that is...

Day 4: Rain

2006-09-22T16:29:00.000+01:00

So I have been extremely lucky thus far, my first three days were really unusually warm and sunny. Total t-shirt weather, it was awesome. Today the weather caught up with me and I got to experience some actual london rain! I was excited to test out my new umbrella, I am sure after a couple days of this I won't be so thrilled though. Actualy as I am typing this the sun just came out and it is brilliant again! I love it.
The past couple days have been orientation, signing up for classes, meeting people and such. I am psyched because I got the two English classes I wanted: London in Literature and Victorian Literature. I am so excited for them! I still have to register for the others which is really confusing. Apparently classes do not start on the 25th, they start Oct 2nd. So that is a whole week where I am basically free. Maybe I will go on a trip. Also as of right now I only have class on Tuesdays and every other friday. That will change when i sign up for the other half of my classes but I am still aiming for long weekends so I can travel.
Anyways things are looking good, met some cool people. Went to my first pub, The Jeremy Bentham (whoo school spirit) and am going out tonight as well. Tomorrow maybe I willl actually get to see some of the London sights. I will leave you with this picture (which I actually took yesterday, hence no rain) of Tavistock Square near campus and UCL's most famous alumni: Mahatma Gandhi.

Day Two: Where is everybody?

2006-09-22T14:40:00.000+01:00

Not many people around in the dorm yet. As I have no one to hang out with and am too jetlagged for ambitious site seeing I decided to walk to UCL. Went out to investigate the park behind my dorm and found that there are indeed gravestones there. It’s so weird how the bushes are growing in front of them isn’t it? I haven’t figure out what exactly is going on back here but I will. Took a very circuitous route up to UCL. Saw several really interesting used book stores that I will probably spend too much money in. Can’t wait to go back and check those out. Also saw a sign for a book fair. This is not going to be good for my wallet. UCL campus was interesting. I’ve had the campus style school experience for three years and now it looks like I’m going to get to try out the city style school. Hopefully I will get the hang of things soon. Here is the main building of UCL and the main courtyard.

This one didn’t turn out so well but it is supposed to be Jeremy Bentham, the founder of UCL. For some reason he wanted his skeleton to be put on display, fully clothed. They styled a wax head for him because people kept trying to steal the real one. The British are so strange: what other society would keep the headless corpse of a well respected man on display in a university hallway?

Okay 1 roommate has arrived. It is a boy… a 25 year old Italian man named Andrea actually. This is interesting…

Day One: Finally Here!

2006-09-22T14:25:00.000+01:00

After months and months of planning and plotting, researching, whining and generally driving everyone nuts I am finally here in London! It’s hard to believe it, even though I am sitting here, looking out my window at the backwards traffic. It might be the fact that I haven’t slept in something like 32 hours but everything seems a bit surreal.
Took a redeye out of Dulles Monday night (I am still confused about what happens to those five hours I lost over the Atlantic) and arrived at Heathrow bright and early, 6:30 am. From the plane I could see the sun rising over London to illuminate Tower Bridge and Big Ben. This was a sharp contrast with the next six hours which were spent hanging around Heathrow waiting for the rest of my minicab group to arrive. Finally made it to my dorm around 1. Langton Close is in this quant little neighborhood within walking distance of King’s Cross Station and UCL. The best part is the lush little park that serves as it’s backyard.
That is the view from the kitchen of my hall. If you look in the center you can see these strange stones structures which sort of resemble graves. I went down to check it out but the writing had long been rubbed away so I couldn’t determine their purpose. I suspect they are graves and that my backyard is actually a cemetery. I’m already convinced my hall is haunted. All night I’ve been hearing this strange singing. It is almost certainly the wind but it makes me wish I wasn’t the only person to have already moved in! Oh and my room is on the fifth floor (which is actually the sixth floor). The elevators are out of service today so I got to lug my heavy, heavy suitcases up all these stairs ------>

Because after that my feet weren’t feeling nearly as sore as my arms were I went out exploring the neighborhood. Wandered around several cute parks, by Kings Cross Station and down to Russel Square. Stumbled upon an organic supermarket which would put Whole Foods to shame. Decided to stalk up on delicious British snack food. For some reason this won't let me post the picture of snack food. But I bought something called a “Meaty 6 pack” of crisps. It has bacon, chicken and lamb flavored potato chips! I can not for the life of my fathom why that does not exist in the United States. I also bought chocolate digestives (biscuits, not nearly as medicinal as they sound). I have already consumed an unhealthy amount of those. For breakfast tomorrow I’ve got something called Crunchy Nut Bars. Haven’t had one yet but the package claims that they are “ludicrously tasty” so I look forward to it!
On the agenda for tomorrow: Scoping out the UCL campus, possibly spending some time at the British Library which is high on my list of places to go. Also important is finding some way to get connected to the internet so I can post this!