Roman Holiday Part One- Ancient City

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…

A Visitor from Home

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!

Night at the Theater

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!

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

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 12: Shopping til I drop (pretty much literally)

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!