Hello Folks,
As you might have guessed due to my lack of blogging activity, I've been very busy. This has kinda been pushed to the back burner while I focus on school and travelling on the weekends, but I have been keeping notes of what I do. I promise it will be updated and caught up, but possibly not until the semester is finished and I have time. As I type, I'm sitting in the British Library taking a break from paper-writing. I hope everyone will still be interested later!
Ash
Monday, November 8, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Rub-a-dub-dub!
This is to be a very quick summary of events that took place the weekend of Sept. 18 and 19th: my trip to Stonehenge, Salisbury and Bath!
Brooke, Alison and I decided to take advantage of the Travel Club that’s offered here at ISH, and signed up for a £55.00 2 day trip to the South. Basically, the weekend was action-packed, and we did an amazing amount for what we paid.
Saturday morning, we met the other travelers in the ISH parking lot to depart at 8 AM on the House’s Mercedes Minibus (not as exciting as it sounds). We met Mark, our tour guide and driver, and got underway coffees in hand. The drive to Stonehenge was slightly terrifying (on the motorway, with lots of clunking noises coming from underneath us), but only took about an hour and 45 minutes. When we got close to the site, traffic started to back up. Eventually, we came over a small hill and could see Stonehenge sticking out of the plain below us, looking very small and surreal. We actually had to drive right past it to get to the parking lot, which to me is a totally bizarre concept: cars alongside an ancient and mysterious stone monument. Everyone piled out of the bus, and walked down to the tourist centre to get our audio guides, and then we were free to wander around for about an hour. I very quickly lost interest in my guide, and took a million photos instead of listening to it. The weather and light conditions were perfect: a few clouds and sun that made the grass look extremely green, and I got some really good shots (posted on Facebook of course).
After the hour was up, we headed back to the minibus and off to Salisbury. This was a big change from London. We walked through the old part of the town to get to the cathedral, and it was amazing the difference in scale and architectural style of the buildings. Salisbury didn’t have to deal with bomb damage and rebuilding, so it gave off a much older vibe. The street names helped this as well; they were all called things like “Oatmeal Street” and “Butcher Street.”
I was almost bouncing with excitement by the time we got to the cathedral. It’s one of the largest and best preserved in England, has the tallest spire of any in the UK, and has one of the only surviving cloisters. We had a tour around the whole interior, and our guide, Alison, informed us that she’d been educated at Cambridge, fancy that! The tour was really interesting, and all kinds of fascinating tidbits were pointed out to us, including the “bumping stone,” a stone in the ambulatory near the altar with an indentation in it where choirboys have been initiated (by having their heads “gently” tapped against the stone) for centuries. After seeing the world’s oldest working clock, and the best preserved copy of the 4 remaining Magna Cartas, the three of us headed outside to sit on the green and enjoy the sun for a bit before meeting the group in town and walking to the bus.
We took another short ride to get to Bath, on some very hilly and curvy and terrifyingish roads, stopping on a hill that overlooked the city to take pictures. You could see exactly how planned and uniform all the buildings and streets are, owing back to Bath’s fashionable nature in the Georgian period, which involved large scale design. Upon arriving in the city, we checked in to our hostel, the White Stag, left our bags in the rooms, and met Mark again to walk into the downtown area. This is dominated by Bath Abbey, a really well-preserved gothic church that is adjacent to the Roman Baths. Because Bath is a touristy destination, most of the downtown area is catered towards pedestrians, and there are lovely shopping streets, and squares to sit in. Our favourite place was the main square, with the Abbey, baths, shops and an arcade bordering it. There are lots of street musicians performing at any given time, and we sat and listened to two guys with dredlocks playing Chinese instruments called Hangs (they looked like giant pots) for quite a while.
Before going to meet the rest of our group for dinner, Alison, Brooke and I decided to follow Mark’s advice and cross Pulteny Bridge (designed to look like the Ponte Vecchio, with shops on it) to Pulteny Street, one of the most prestigious in Bath. We arrived in a small circus and took some pictures of the beautiful row houses. While this was happening, a man wearing a sea captain’s hat appeared beside me and asked if I knew how old the buildings were. I replied that they were from the Georgian period, and he then informed me that they were built in 1793, the “year of the French Revolution,” and that he had learned a lot about it from youtube. He then suggested that you can find out all kinds of things on youtube, including some highly inappropriate material, which he informed us of. None of us knew what to say, and looked at each other with our mouths open. We thanked him and walked away a few steps, turned around, and found that he had disappeared. Bizarre experiences ladies and gentlemen.
After some exploration, we met the group back in the middle of town at the oldest house in Bath, Sally Lunn’s. The house has been in use as a bakery since the early 18th century, and is now a restaurant as well. The meal was included in our fee, so we all chose from a set menu, and paid extra for wine. We had to wait quite a while for our food, but it was very welcome once it arrived. I had a Sally Lunn bun (a big airy bun with crispy crust) with garlic butter to start, and then steak with béarnaise sauce, potatoes, and fresh veggies, which was delightful. We got to know some more people on the trip at dinner as well, and felt very multicultural. There were 2 girls from Turkey, one from Lebanon, another 2 from Thailand, a couple from Cuba, a guy from Malaysia, another from the US, one more from China, and us, the three Canadian musketeers.
Following dinner, a bunch of us decided to go to a pub, since everything is so much cheaper than in London, so we walked down the street to one, ordered a few pitchers of Pimm’s to share and had a delightful time before heading back to the hostel.
The hostel itself was pretty good, despite the massive struggle we all had with getting our fitted sheets to stay on the mattress. Everything was clean, and secure, and we had a shared breakfast provided in a small kitchen in the morning.
We met outside at 9 to walk back to the downtown for our thermal spa (oh yes) session at 9:30. We arrived at Thermae on time, and everyone was given a wristband with a chip in it to be used for the highly advanced lockering system, and to get in and out of the spa. After we were changed, we had 2 hours to spend doing whatever we liked on the 4 levels of awesomeness. The three of us decided to start at the bottom, in the “Artemis” pool, which is fed with natural 46ºC water from the thermal spring that gave Bath its name. This was pretty much the most delightful pool I’ve ever been in, and we spent some time just floating around counting our lucky stars. After that pool, we moved up a floor to the steam rooms. There were 4 glass-enclosed rooms within a larger room equipped with a large shower from the ceiling in the middle to cool people off. Each individual room smelled like something different, and we went in them all: Lavender, Eucalyptus and Mint, Frankincense, and Peppermint (which was a little too much). But the absolute highlight of this whole spa adventure was the rooftop pool, which is exactly as amazing as it sounds. Again, it was thermal, but on the roof of the spa, overlooking all of Bath on both sides. And, since it was Sunday morning, all the church bells were ringing while we lounged in the water and looked over the city. Incredible.
We were all thoroughly relaxed after this experience, but since we had some time before meeting at the Roman Baths for a tour in the afternoon, the three of us headed to the Jane Austen Centre’s Regency Tea Room for some lunch. It just so happened that there was also a Jane Austen conference in town, so there were all kinds of people walking around in costume to add to the ambiance. Lunch, or should I say High Tea was amazing. All three of us ordered different kinds of tea, mine was called Empress of Peking, but got cheese and cucumber sandwiches, and warm scones with clotted cream and jam. It was quite the experience eating this delicious food in the middle of Bath, after a thermal spa session, while being watched by a portrait of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy that was hanging on the wall…
We walked back to the Roman Baths after our tea for a self guided tour with an audio guide. The exhibits and guide were absolutely fascinating, as I didn’t realize the wealth of artifacts that have come out of the site. We had about an hour and 45 minutes to take ourselves through, but I wish I’d had more time. The Great Bath itself, as you can see in my pictures is quite an interesting shade of green, and it was really cool to see the water bubbling up from underground in the King’s Bath, and flowing into it. You could feel how old everything was, and for a poor sheltered Canadian generally surrounded by buildings less than 20 years old, it was amazing.
After the Baths, we met the minibus to tour around some other parts of the city, including the Circus, and Royal Crescent, took a few group photos, and headed back to the motorway home. This is where things stop being exciting, so I’ll just end on this note, since I’ve written far too much already!
I’m slowly catching up!
Brooke, Alison and I decided to take advantage of the Travel Club that’s offered here at ISH, and signed up for a £55.00 2 day trip to the South. Basically, the weekend was action-packed, and we did an amazing amount for what we paid.
Saturday morning, we met the other travelers in the ISH parking lot to depart at 8 AM on the House’s Mercedes Minibus (not as exciting as it sounds). We met Mark, our tour guide and driver, and got underway coffees in hand. The drive to Stonehenge was slightly terrifying (on the motorway, with lots of clunking noises coming from underneath us), but only took about an hour and 45 minutes. When we got close to the site, traffic started to back up. Eventually, we came over a small hill and could see Stonehenge sticking out of the plain below us, looking very small and surreal. We actually had to drive right past it to get to the parking lot, which to me is a totally bizarre concept: cars alongside an ancient and mysterious stone monument. Everyone piled out of the bus, and walked down to the tourist centre to get our audio guides, and then we were free to wander around for about an hour. I very quickly lost interest in my guide, and took a million photos instead of listening to it. The weather and light conditions were perfect: a few clouds and sun that made the grass look extremely green, and I got some really good shots (posted on Facebook of course).
After the hour was up, we headed back to the minibus and off to Salisbury. This was a big change from London. We walked through the old part of the town to get to the cathedral, and it was amazing the difference in scale and architectural style of the buildings. Salisbury didn’t have to deal with bomb damage and rebuilding, so it gave off a much older vibe. The street names helped this as well; they were all called things like “Oatmeal Street” and “Butcher Street.”
I was almost bouncing with excitement by the time we got to the cathedral. It’s one of the largest and best preserved in England, has the tallest spire of any in the UK, and has one of the only surviving cloisters. We had a tour around the whole interior, and our guide, Alison, informed us that she’d been educated at Cambridge, fancy that! The tour was really interesting, and all kinds of fascinating tidbits were pointed out to us, including the “bumping stone,” a stone in the ambulatory near the altar with an indentation in it where choirboys have been initiated (by having their heads “gently” tapped against the stone) for centuries. After seeing the world’s oldest working clock, and the best preserved copy of the 4 remaining Magna Cartas, the three of us headed outside to sit on the green and enjoy the sun for a bit before meeting the group in town and walking to the bus.
We took another short ride to get to Bath, on some very hilly and curvy and terrifyingish roads, stopping on a hill that overlooked the city to take pictures. You could see exactly how planned and uniform all the buildings and streets are, owing back to Bath’s fashionable nature in the Georgian period, which involved large scale design. Upon arriving in the city, we checked in to our hostel, the White Stag, left our bags in the rooms, and met Mark again to walk into the downtown area. This is dominated by Bath Abbey, a really well-preserved gothic church that is adjacent to the Roman Baths. Because Bath is a touristy destination, most of the downtown area is catered towards pedestrians, and there are lovely shopping streets, and squares to sit in. Our favourite place was the main square, with the Abbey, baths, shops and an arcade bordering it. There are lots of street musicians performing at any given time, and we sat and listened to two guys with dredlocks playing Chinese instruments called Hangs (they looked like giant pots) for quite a while.
Before going to meet the rest of our group for dinner, Alison, Brooke and I decided to follow Mark’s advice and cross Pulteny Bridge (designed to look like the Ponte Vecchio, with shops on it) to Pulteny Street, one of the most prestigious in Bath. We arrived in a small circus and took some pictures of the beautiful row houses. While this was happening, a man wearing a sea captain’s hat appeared beside me and asked if I knew how old the buildings were. I replied that they were from the Georgian period, and he then informed me that they were built in 1793, the “year of the French Revolution,” and that he had learned a lot about it from youtube. He then suggested that you can find out all kinds of things on youtube, including some highly inappropriate material, which he informed us of. None of us knew what to say, and looked at each other with our mouths open. We thanked him and walked away a few steps, turned around, and found that he had disappeared. Bizarre experiences ladies and gentlemen.
After some exploration, we met the group back in the middle of town at the oldest house in Bath, Sally Lunn’s. The house has been in use as a bakery since the early 18th century, and is now a restaurant as well. The meal was included in our fee, so we all chose from a set menu, and paid extra for wine. We had to wait quite a while for our food, but it was very welcome once it arrived. I had a Sally Lunn bun (a big airy bun with crispy crust) with garlic butter to start, and then steak with béarnaise sauce, potatoes, and fresh veggies, which was delightful. We got to know some more people on the trip at dinner as well, and felt very multicultural. There were 2 girls from Turkey, one from Lebanon, another 2 from Thailand, a couple from Cuba, a guy from Malaysia, another from the US, one more from China, and us, the three Canadian musketeers.
Following dinner, a bunch of us decided to go to a pub, since everything is so much cheaper than in London, so we walked down the street to one, ordered a few pitchers of Pimm’s to share and had a delightful time before heading back to the hostel.
The hostel itself was pretty good, despite the massive struggle we all had with getting our fitted sheets to stay on the mattress. Everything was clean, and secure, and we had a shared breakfast provided in a small kitchen in the morning.
We met outside at 9 to walk back to the downtown for our thermal spa (oh yes) session at 9:30. We arrived at Thermae on time, and everyone was given a wristband with a chip in it to be used for the highly advanced lockering system, and to get in and out of the spa. After we were changed, we had 2 hours to spend doing whatever we liked on the 4 levels of awesomeness. The three of us decided to start at the bottom, in the “Artemis” pool, which is fed with natural 46ºC water from the thermal spring that gave Bath its name. This was pretty much the most delightful pool I’ve ever been in, and we spent some time just floating around counting our lucky stars. After that pool, we moved up a floor to the steam rooms. There were 4 glass-enclosed rooms within a larger room equipped with a large shower from the ceiling in the middle to cool people off. Each individual room smelled like something different, and we went in them all: Lavender, Eucalyptus and Mint, Frankincense, and Peppermint (which was a little too much). But the absolute highlight of this whole spa adventure was the rooftop pool, which is exactly as amazing as it sounds. Again, it was thermal, but on the roof of the spa, overlooking all of Bath on both sides. And, since it was Sunday morning, all the church bells were ringing while we lounged in the water and looked over the city. Incredible.
We were all thoroughly relaxed after this experience, but since we had some time before meeting at the Roman Baths for a tour in the afternoon, the three of us headed to the Jane Austen Centre’s Regency Tea Room for some lunch. It just so happened that there was also a Jane Austen conference in town, so there were all kinds of people walking around in costume to add to the ambiance. Lunch, or should I say High Tea was amazing. All three of us ordered different kinds of tea, mine was called Empress of Peking, but got cheese and cucumber sandwiches, and warm scones with clotted cream and jam. It was quite the experience eating this delicious food in the middle of Bath, after a thermal spa session, while being watched by a portrait of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy that was hanging on the wall…
We walked back to the Roman Baths after our tea for a self guided tour with an audio guide. The exhibits and guide were absolutely fascinating, as I didn’t realize the wealth of artifacts that have come out of the site. We had about an hour and 45 minutes to take ourselves through, but I wish I’d had more time. The Great Bath itself, as you can see in my pictures is quite an interesting shade of green, and it was really cool to see the water bubbling up from underground in the King’s Bath, and flowing into it. You could feel how old everything was, and for a poor sheltered Canadian generally surrounded by buildings less than 20 years old, it was amazing.
After the Baths, we met the minibus to tour around some other parts of the city, including the Circus, and Royal Crescent, took a few group photos, and headed back to the motorway home. This is where things stop being exciting, so I’ll just end on this note, since I’ve written far too much already!
I’m slowly catching up!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Mondo, Mondo, Mondo!
Ok Folks, here’s the deal. I have been neglecting my usual practice of writing down point-form notes of things I’ve done each day for the past week, so what I’m going to do is just highlight some fun things I’ve done, even thought I have no idea what I did when. It may be a bit jumbled, or I may start remembering things chronologically as I start writing it down. So, here goes.
This past week (Sept. 13-17) was the first real week of class. I had lectures in Music, Urban Studies (which is gonna be cool), Art History (more on that later) and Historical Biography. Everything is going to be amazing, and looking at my iCal master schedule of requirements for this semester is like a joke compared to what I’m used to. No more 17 papers due in a 6 week time frame for me, no sir! I really like the English profs I have, and of course I knew Karen, our prof from Guelph beforehand. For Music, I have Sinead Pratschke, who is adorable and really passionate, and it comes through in her teaching. Urban Studies is Geertje Kreutziger, an insanely qualified and lovely lady who has worked with some top architects on huge projects in London, and Art History is Terry Sladden. Terry requires his own explanation: he is easily one of the best art history lecturers I’ve had, has a wealth of information stored in his head, and sometimes tries to hard to get it all out that he’s forced to squint his eyes and touch his forehead (yeah). He’s also the fastest moving man I’ve ever seen in my life (more later).
As far as non-scheduled activities, one day, I don’t remember which, Brooke, Alison, Katy, Kerri, and I headed down to the insanity which is Oxford Street (after having tried a few other places) to attempt to hunt down bathing suits for Brooke and Alison in preparation for our trip to Bath that coming weekend. Eventually, we were half successful, with Brooke finding one, so the two of us took off to the National Gallery, which I’d been itching to go in, while the other girls kept shopping. (I did get some shopping in as well, spending a lot of time in H&M to find something nice to wear to meet Tom’s parents… ha ha).
So, Brooke and I headed up the stairs of the Gallery after watching a man fit himself through a tennis racket and threaten a child with a machete in order to get people to put money in his hat (not seriously). We were both starved, and went into the café first where we discovered the most fantastic array of delightful desserts (google Peyton & Byrne). I had an amazing bacon and egg salad sandwich on chewy bread, some Pellegrino Limonada, and a slice of Lemon Curd Tart… amazing. After the food, the only thing better was actually getting to walk up the stairs in the foyer, opening the heavy doors, and walking into what can only be described as “Heaven for Ashleigh.” I basically went into art history sensory overload and wandered around with my mouth hanging open. The others soon left me to hang out with my friends on the walls and went off to the modern galleries, which was alright with me. Basically I got to see Tintoretto, Velázquez, Caravaggio, Duccio, Correggio, Pontormo (Jenna, if you’re reading this, all I could think of was “Punchy Pontormo”), and then, possibly best of all, the room containing Van Eyck’s Man in a Red Turban and The Arnolfini Portrait. I did have to wait for a group to leave the room so that I could go in on my own and spend some quality time with the paintings, and while I was sitting in the adjacent gallery, I observed a very interesting event. A young guy (possibly Italian) was looking at a piece of a predella of some kind, leaning over the chain, and almost touching the surface of the painting with the edge of his map. A female page walked over, and asked him to step back, at which point he said something rude and pretended to be unable to speak English. Seeing this, a large male page walked over, had words with him, asked him to leave that room, and looking over seeing myself and another man watching the whole thing go down, called him a very typically English insult rhyming with “tanker,” complete with hand gesture. Anyway, after the Van Eyck room, I made my way to Vermeer, living the dream, and seeing both Young Lady Seated at a Virginal and Lady Standing at a Virginal At this point, I had to stop going through galleries for risk of putting myself into an art-history induced coma, so I made my way outside into Trafalgar Square and called Tom for a bit. This was a very strange feeling, which I even remarked to him: never in a thousand years did I picture myself sitting under Nelson’s Column in front of the National Gallery in London, talking on the phone to my English boyfriend…. Ha ha!
After a much too short conversation, I headed back to meet the other people, and we left as a group to go to Shakespeare’s Globe, as we joined the theatre class for the night to see a production of the Merry Wives of Windsor. Before the play started, we attended a lecture by one of the top Shakespeare scholars in the country. Unfortunately, I can’t say I took much away from it, as I had a really difficult time following what he was talking about, and ended up nodding off through the whole thing, shame on me.
Our tickets for the play were as groundlings, to get the full experience (and cheapest admission), and of course, as soon as we stepped into the Globe and found spots to stand close to the stage, it started to pour rain. The acting was absolutely incredible despite the weather, and at times me having a hard time hearing because of the drops hitting my hood. The actors really engaged the audience, made everyone laugh, and even made allusions to the rain when they had to do things like water plants onstage. Even though the experience was amazing, by the intermission, Brooke and I were so wet and cold that we decided (I know, I know) to go home rather than spend another hour and a half in the frigid weather with wet feet. We ran across the very windy Millennium Bridge made it home, had hot showers, put on slippers and had some tea!
As for some other things that happened within this span of a week, I visited the outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and then headed back over the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern with the rest of my art history class. Actually I should say “ran” over, because Terry, our prof is the fastest man I have ever seen in my life. We regularly lose him because he’s darting around all over the place, and crossing the street with disregard for cars and double deckers. This first day, we literally had to jog to keep up with him. After running (again) through the Tate to look at several pieces that Terry talked about (Lichtenstein’s Whaam!, Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and Bacon’s Triptych, August 1972 included), we took a catamaran on a cruise down the Thames to the Tate Britain: Tate to Tate. Being on the river was amazing, because we could see the cityscape without a million tourists in the way! Once there, we went into the Chelsea School of Art and Design’s art supply store (extremely dangerous for me) to get some things for our major project, an art history journal. This is not real work for me… ha ha!
I also went to the British Library with some of the other people in my class on Friday to get my Reader’s Card. It was quite the process to register, have ID checked, make a proposal of research intentions, and have my picture taken for my card, but you are officially reading the blog of Reader # 902829! Going through the catalogue and ordering books was also a bit of a task, but I managed to get through it, and successfully order books to the Humanities Reading Room on level one. Being in the library itself is an amazing experience. As soon as you walk into the Reading Room (after placing all your belongings in a clear plastic bag for inspection) you immediately feel like an academic. All you can see are rows and rows of mahogany desks with polished brass lamps and important looking people sitting at them. When you go to the circulation desk to pick up materials, they ask for your desk number, and then if you have any additional orders that become available while you’re sitting there, an indication light on the desk itself comes on to notify you. It’s all very civilized.
On that note, I’ve also decided who I’ll be writing about for my 4th year Biographical Studies course: Lady Jane Grey. She was queen for 9 days between Edward VI and Mary Tudor, and ended up being executed for high treason after she was deposed. I can get my hands on original 16th century documents concerning her from the library’s manuscript collection, so I’m pretty excited!
Anyway, I think this is enough for one post. You guys are likely going into information overload, so I’ll finish this one off. My trip to Stonehenge, Salisbury and Bath is next!
A.
This past week (Sept. 13-17) was the first real week of class. I had lectures in Music, Urban Studies (which is gonna be cool), Art History (more on that later) and Historical Biography. Everything is going to be amazing, and looking at my iCal master schedule of requirements for this semester is like a joke compared to what I’m used to. No more 17 papers due in a 6 week time frame for me, no sir! I really like the English profs I have, and of course I knew Karen, our prof from Guelph beforehand. For Music, I have Sinead Pratschke, who is adorable and really passionate, and it comes through in her teaching. Urban Studies is Geertje Kreutziger, an insanely qualified and lovely lady who has worked with some top architects on huge projects in London, and Art History is Terry Sladden. Terry requires his own explanation: he is easily one of the best art history lecturers I’ve had, has a wealth of information stored in his head, and sometimes tries to hard to get it all out that he’s forced to squint his eyes and touch his forehead (yeah). He’s also the fastest moving man I’ve ever seen in my life (more later).
As far as non-scheduled activities, one day, I don’t remember which, Brooke, Alison, Katy, Kerri, and I headed down to the insanity which is Oxford Street (after having tried a few other places) to attempt to hunt down bathing suits for Brooke and Alison in preparation for our trip to Bath that coming weekend. Eventually, we were half successful, with Brooke finding one, so the two of us took off to the National Gallery, which I’d been itching to go in, while the other girls kept shopping. (I did get some shopping in as well, spending a lot of time in H&M to find something nice to wear to meet Tom’s parents… ha ha).
So, Brooke and I headed up the stairs of the Gallery after watching a man fit himself through a tennis racket and threaten a child with a machete in order to get people to put money in his hat (not seriously). We were both starved, and went into the café first where we discovered the most fantastic array of delightful desserts (google Peyton & Byrne). I had an amazing bacon and egg salad sandwich on chewy bread, some Pellegrino Limonada, and a slice of Lemon Curd Tart… amazing. After the food, the only thing better was actually getting to walk up the stairs in the foyer, opening the heavy doors, and walking into what can only be described as “Heaven for Ashleigh.” I basically went into art history sensory overload and wandered around with my mouth hanging open. The others soon left me to hang out with my friends on the walls and went off to the modern galleries, which was alright with me. Basically I got to see Tintoretto, Velázquez, Caravaggio, Duccio, Correggio, Pontormo (Jenna, if you’re reading this, all I could think of was “Punchy Pontormo”), and then, possibly best of all, the room containing Van Eyck’s Man in a Red Turban and The Arnolfini Portrait. I did have to wait for a group to leave the room so that I could go in on my own and spend some quality time with the paintings, and while I was sitting in the adjacent gallery, I observed a very interesting event. A young guy (possibly Italian) was looking at a piece of a predella of some kind, leaning over the chain, and almost touching the surface of the painting with the edge of his map. A female page walked over, and asked him to step back, at which point he said something rude and pretended to be unable to speak English. Seeing this, a large male page walked over, had words with him, asked him to leave that room, and looking over seeing myself and another man watching the whole thing go down, called him a very typically English insult rhyming with “tanker,” complete with hand gesture. Anyway, after the Van Eyck room, I made my way to Vermeer, living the dream, and seeing both Young Lady Seated at a Virginal and Lady Standing at a Virginal At this point, I had to stop going through galleries for risk of putting myself into an art-history induced coma, so I made my way outside into Trafalgar Square and called Tom for a bit. This was a very strange feeling, which I even remarked to him: never in a thousand years did I picture myself sitting under Nelson’s Column in front of the National Gallery in London, talking on the phone to my English boyfriend…. Ha ha!
After a much too short conversation, I headed back to meet the other people, and we left as a group to go to Shakespeare’s Globe, as we joined the theatre class for the night to see a production of the Merry Wives of Windsor. Before the play started, we attended a lecture by one of the top Shakespeare scholars in the country. Unfortunately, I can’t say I took much away from it, as I had a really difficult time following what he was talking about, and ended up nodding off through the whole thing, shame on me.
Our tickets for the play were as groundlings, to get the full experience (and cheapest admission), and of course, as soon as we stepped into the Globe and found spots to stand close to the stage, it started to pour rain. The acting was absolutely incredible despite the weather, and at times me having a hard time hearing because of the drops hitting my hood. The actors really engaged the audience, made everyone laugh, and even made allusions to the rain when they had to do things like water plants onstage. Even though the experience was amazing, by the intermission, Brooke and I were so wet and cold that we decided (I know, I know) to go home rather than spend another hour and a half in the frigid weather with wet feet. We ran across the very windy Millennium Bridge made it home, had hot showers, put on slippers and had some tea!
As for some other things that happened within this span of a week, I visited the outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and then headed back over the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern with the rest of my art history class. Actually I should say “ran” over, because Terry, our prof is the fastest man I have ever seen in my life. We regularly lose him because he’s darting around all over the place, and crossing the street with disregard for cars and double deckers. This first day, we literally had to jog to keep up with him. After running (again) through the Tate to look at several pieces that Terry talked about (Lichtenstein’s Whaam!, Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and Bacon’s Triptych, August 1972 included), we took a catamaran on a cruise down the Thames to the Tate Britain: Tate to Tate. Being on the river was amazing, because we could see the cityscape without a million tourists in the way! Once there, we went into the Chelsea School of Art and Design’s art supply store (extremely dangerous for me) to get some things for our major project, an art history journal. This is not real work for me… ha ha!
I also went to the British Library with some of the other people in my class on Friday to get my Reader’s Card. It was quite the process to register, have ID checked, make a proposal of research intentions, and have my picture taken for my card, but you are officially reading the blog of Reader # 902829! Going through the catalogue and ordering books was also a bit of a task, but I managed to get through it, and successfully order books to the Humanities Reading Room on level one. Being in the library itself is an amazing experience. As soon as you walk into the Reading Room (after placing all your belongings in a clear plastic bag for inspection) you immediately feel like an academic. All you can see are rows and rows of mahogany desks with polished brass lamps and important looking people sitting at them. When you go to the circulation desk to pick up materials, they ask for your desk number, and then if you have any additional orders that become available while you’re sitting there, an indication light on the desk itself comes on to notify you. It’s all very civilized.
On that note, I’ve also decided who I’ll be writing about for my 4th year Biographical Studies course: Lady Jane Grey. She was queen for 9 days between Edward VI and Mary Tudor, and ended up being executed for high treason after she was deposed. I can get my hands on original 16th century documents concerning her from the library’s manuscript collection, so I’m pretty excited!
Anyway, I think this is enough for one post. You guys are likely going into information overload, so I’ll finish this one off. My trip to Stonehenge, Salisbury and Bath is next!
A.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Everybody's Living for the Weekend
Well, after a very exciting beginning to the weekend, Saturday was a lot slower. It pretty much consisted of sleeping in, tidying up my room, and then dealing with the unimaginable horror of not having working internet. I spent the afternoon trying to make mine work, but to no avail, and as it turned out, the internet would soon fail for the entire building. Inconvenient.
Sunday held a little more activity, as the Jack the Ripper walking tour for the whole Guelph group, which had been postponed because of the tube strike was rescheduled for that evening. We were asked to meet at the Tower Hill station, and Brooke, Alison and I decided to head down early to take in some of the Thames River Festival. All along the waterfront were little market and food stands (and girls selling flower wreaths for your head), so we browsed a little and then settled in a park near City Hall to eat dinner and listen to a really fantastic Middle Eastern band. After chilling for a little while, and taking in the scenery of Tower Bridge right above us, we headed across it (!!) without any large boats coming through (we would have to wait for it to raise and lower). I took a whole bunch of photos like a tourist, and when we got to the other side, took even more of the Tower of London. Along the road there were also several little carts with guys selling the most fantastic smelling roasted, candied peanuts, which I am bent and determined to eat a lot of before I leave London.
We met the group, largely assembled by the time we got there, at Tower Hill, and waited with Karen and our guide for a few more people. A few of the girls on the trip took the opportunity to come over and find out all the juicy details of my personal life (“Who was that super-hot tall guy you were with?” Etc.) which was adorable and quite amusing, and then we set off. Our guide was absolutely fabulous. He took us to a slightly creepy back alley to begin with, stood on a box and then proceeded to set the stage of what the East End of London was like in the 1880s: full of doss houses, alcohol, and prostitutes. One of the first places we stopped was the so-called “Prostitute’s Church,” where women would frequently gather to meet clients, and where one of Jack the Ripper’s victims was last seen, talking to a man. We moved on to Mitre Square next, the actual site where one of the women was found, and then moved through the still-existing North Passage; the only way out of the square, and likely the route that Jack used to escape, thoroughly creeped out by the voice acting our guide was doing. We stopped a few other places, including the site of the doss houses where Mary Kelly, the last and most famous victim lived, and was killed, some preserved streets, and the Ten Bells Pub, which was the local for the neighbourhood at the time. The whole tour was really interesting and creepy, and after it was over, we all pretty much wanted to stay flocked around Karen. As a group we decided to head back down to the river to see the fireworks display scheduled for 9:45, so we all moved in a mob towards the Liverpool Street tube station. On the way, we were heckled by some drunk guys who thought that “Yanks and Canadians are all the same” and that I looked “angry,” after having been warned by our guide that people were a little “rough” in the area. Interesting indeed.
We got down to the river near Embankment station just in time, and saw what I can honestly say was the most amazing fireworks display I’ll probably ever see in my life. Rockets were being launched from about 9 barges in the middle of the Thames, and each volley of explosions was like the finale at Disneyworld. I took about 200 pictures, since it doesn’t get much better than spectacular fireworks with St. Paul’s, and double deckers crossing London Bridge in the background…
Thoroughly dazzled after all the pretty, the girls and I, along with Sharmylae, Paisley and Anna decided to head to a pub. We wandered around for a bit, found a place called The Sherlock Holmes, decided it was perfect, and went it. The pub itself was lovely, although we missed the kitchen service, except for the group of obnoxious and extremely LOUD Americans. We think Michigan. Everyone was irritated, and it’s really no wonder that tourists get reputations. After that pub, we went to find food in Trafalgar Square, had delicious nachos, and then unfortunately discovered that even though it wasn’t quite cut off time, the Tube was closed. So, we were adventuresome, and got on a bus to Warren Street station (thank goodness for my Oyster card), and walked home from there!
I’m trying to play catch up now, so expect mondo-posts in the very near future. I’m currently sitting on a train on my way to see Tom, so we’ll see what I get done in the next little bit!
Sunday held a little more activity, as the Jack the Ripper walking tour for the whole Guelph group, which had been postponed because of the tube strike was rescheduled for that evening. We were asked to meet at the Tower Hill station, and Brooke, Alison and I decided to head down early to take in some of the Thames River Festival. All along the waterfront were little market and food stands (and girls selling flower wreaths for your head), so we browsed a little and then settled in a park near City Hall to eat dinner and listen to a really fantastic Middle Eastern band. After chilling for a little while, and taking in the scenery of Tower Bridge right above us, we headed across it (!!) without any large boats coming through (we would have to wait for it to raise and lower). I took a whole bunch of photos like a tourist, and when we got to the other side, took even more of the Tower of London. Along the road there were also several little carts with guys selling the most fantastic smelling roasted, candied peanuts, which I am bent and determined to eat a lot of before I leave London.
We met the group, largely assembled by the time we got there, at Tower Hill, and waited with Karen and our guide for a few more people. A few of the girls on the trip took the opportunity to come over and find out all the juicy details of my personal life (“Who was that super-hot tall guy you were with?” Etc.) which was adorable and quite amusing, and then we set off. Our guide was absolutely fabulous. He took us to a slightly creepy back alley to begin with, stood on a box and then proceeded to set the stage of what the East End of London was like in the 1880s: full of doss houses, alcohol, and prostitutes. One of the first places we stopped was the so-called “Prostitute’s Church,” where women would frequently gather to meet clients, and where one of Jack the Ripper’s victims was last seen, talking to a man. We moved on to Mitre Square next, the actual site where one of the women was found, and then moved through the still-existing North Passage; the only way out of the square, and likely the route that Jack used to escape, thoroughly creeped out by the voice acting our guide was doing. We stopped a few other places, including the site of the doss houses where Mary Kelly, the last and most famous victim lived, and was killed, some preserved streets, and the Ten Bells Pub, which was the local for the neighbourhood at the time. The whole tour was really interesting and creepy, and after it was over, we all pretty much wanted to stay flocked around Karen. As a group we decided to head back down to the river to see the fireworks display scheduled for 9:45, so we all moved in a mob towards the Liverpool Street tube station. On the way, we were heckled by some drunk guys who thought that “Yanks and Canadians are all the same” and that I looked “angry,” after having been warned by our guide that people were a little “rough” in the area. Interesting indeed.
We got down to the river near Embankment station just in time, and saw what I can honestly say was the most amazing fireworks display I’ll probably ever see in my life. Rockets were being launched from about 9 barges in the middle of the Thames, and each volley of explosions was like the finale at Disneyworld. I took about 200 pictures, since it doesn’t get much better than spectacular fireworks with St. Paul’s, and double deckers crossing London Bridge in the background…
Thoroughly dazzled after all the pretty, the girls and I, along with Sharmylae, Paisley and Anna decided to head to a pub. We wandered around for a bit, found a place called The Sherlock Holmes, decided it was perfect, and went it. The pub itself was lovely, although we missed the kitchen service, except for the group of obnoxious and extremely LOUD Americans. We think Michigan. Everyone was irritated, and it’s really no wonder that tourists get reputations. After that pub, we went to find food in Trafalgar Square, had delicious nachos, and then unfortunately discovered that even though it wasn’t quite cut off time, the Tube was closed. So, we were adventuresome, and got on a bus to Warren Street station (thank goodness for my Oyster card), and walked home from there!
I’m trying to play catch up now, so expect mondo-posts in the very near future. I’m currently sitting on a train on my way to see Tom, so we’ll see what I get done in the next little bit!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Parking Attendant Fail
As the title of this post suggests, Friday was in interesting day to say the least. I’ll set the stage for you: The day of the long-awaited “first date” Muse concert, Tom and I are both really tired from all the running around the city, but excited about leaving for Wembley for the concert. Upon arriving at the ISH parking lot, where his car had been for the past few days, paying the man, retrieving the keys, and loading in, we were ready to go at noon. Until the car wouldn’t start, and instead made a series of alarming clicking sounds, and beeped. My first panicked thought was that even though I’d assured Tom he could park his car in safety in the lot, that someone had stolen parts out of it. This wasn’t the case, but you all know how I think. The parking attendant, who was standing nearby, didn’t seem to know what to do about the situation. It sounded to my limited knowledge like a dead battery, but the attendant didn’t think so, and there was a whole lot of discussion, pointing, and banging around of things at the front end of the car that I stayed out of. After narrowing the options down to battery or starter, Tom and the attendant, along with another guy who I think drives the ISH Travel Club bus I’ll be on in a few days (I’m slightly alarmed), found some jumper cables and hooked them up. The jump didn’t work, and at this point, we got very concerned. The attendant apparently was not aware of where we could find a mechanic, and neither were the people at the front desk inside, so more banging ensued while I tried to find something on my phone. Somewhere near this point in time, a man in a suit (I think an ISH executive of some kind) walked by, asked what was going on, looked at the jumper cables, and informed the parking attendant that they were too small. He miraculously found some, hooked them up, and everything came up roses, much to mine, and I think more Tom’s, intense relief. We basically have deduced that driving in London is a terrible, terrible idea not to be repeated ever again.
After this bit of excitement, we finally got on our way to the hotel Tom had booked for himself for the night of the concert, before we knew that I was able to have guests at ISH. It was near South Ruislip, one of the furthest Tube stations out on the edge of the city (for reference). I got to be map girl, and was faced with the intense pressure of not getting us lost, which, I must say with some pride, I succeeded at. Driving was slightly insane, but manageable since I didn’t have to do it, and felt really odd since I was sitting on the left hand side without a steering wheel. Tom checked in when we arrived, we grabbed something to eat, got ready, and headed over to the Tube (100 m from the hotel!) to figure out the train situation that would get us directly to Wembley. Luckily, there was a direct overground line that we got cheap tickets for. The alternative would have been to travel all the way down the Central line to Notting Hill Gate, then the Circle line with a transfer at Edgware Road to Baker Street on the Bakerloo line, and from there up to Wembley Central. Not fun.
We arrived at the stadium, and were instantly lured by the smell of cheeseburgers coming from stands along the way. So, we shared one (I knowwww) while walking to our gate, were forced to devour it before going in, and then finally made it to our seats in time for Lily Allen to start her opening set. She was much better live than I thought she would be, and I think I’m a fan now.
When Muse came on stage, everyone basically went insane. In a place as big as Wembley Stadium, it was a big deal. They sounded amazing, and definitely lived up to what I’d heard about being better live than they sound on their records. The stage and show aspect was also really cool, with all kinds of projections and screens on the giant spaceship-looking set. Of course people in our section only started standing up to see and dance better, so we ended up standing the whole time, but that only made it easier for me to people watch. A man 3 rows down from us, probably about 60, balding, and dressed in a button down Oxford, was my favourite to watch, almost to the point of distraction. He rocked out harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, and even drummed in the air.
The finale of the concert was the best part, although it was difficult to choose one because all of it was amazing. Matt Bellamy walked out for the final set in this fantastic light suit and sunglasses that changed colour to play, and then a giant UFO balloon floated out over the crowd on the floor. At a certain point in the song, an acrobat à la Cirque du Soleil dropped down out of it and flipped around over everyone’s heads, getting close enough almost to touch them… super cool. Then a whole bunch of giant balloon eyeballs were launched into the crowd that popped into clouds of glitter. These things amuse me, and the whole show was pretty much amazing. After we were sure they weren’t going to come out for an encore again, the trek to get back to the hotel commenced. The people at Wembley are extremely good at organizing people into lines, and the massive crowd heading towards the trains were very quickly divided up by destination. After Tom and I arrived on the platform, we got on the wrong train, but luckily realized it and jumped off before it was ready to leave. After a much too short train ride back, it was time to say goodbye (for a few weeks anyway), and I just made it onto the Tube home before it closed for the night. Overall, I would say that this three day long date, filled with a variety of very different events, and culminating in the concert was a huge success, and I think Tom is pretty fantastic for taking me on it! :)
After this bit of excitement, we finally got on our way to the hotel Tom had booked for himself for the night of the concert, before we knew that I was able to have guests at ISH. It was near South Ruislip, one of the furthest Tube stations out on the edge of the city (for reference). I got to be map girl, and was faced with the intense pressure of not getting us lost, which, I must say with some pride, I succeeded at. Driving was slightly insane, but manageable since I didn’t have to do it, and felt really odd since I was sitting on the left hand side without a steering wheel. Tom checked in when we arrived, we grabbed something to eat, got ready, and headed over to the Tube (100 m from the hotel!) to figure out the train situation that would get us directly to Wembley. Luckily, there was a direct overground line that we got cheap tickets for. The alternative would have been to travel all the way down the Central line to Notting Hill Gate, then the Circle line with a transfer at Edgware Road to Baker Street on the Bakerloo line, and from there up to Wembley Central. Not fun.
We arrived at the stadium, and were instantly lured by the smell of cheeseburgers coming from stands along the way. So, we shared one (I knowwww) while walking to our gate, were forced to devour it before going in, and then finally made it to our seats in time for Lily Allen to start her opening set. She was much better live than I thought she would be, and I think I’m a fan now.
When Muse came on stage, everyone basically went insane. In a place as big as Wembley Stadium, it was a big deal. They sounded amazing, and definitely lived up to what I’d heard about being better live than they sound on their records. The stage and show aspect was also really cool, with all kinds of projections and screens on the giant spaceship-looking set. Of course people in our section only started standing up to see and dance better, so we ended up standing the whole time, but that only made it easier for me to people watch. A man 3 rows down from us, probably about 60, balding, and dressed in a button down Oxford, was my favourite to watch, almost to the point of distraction. He rocked out harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, and even drummed in the air.
The finale of the concert was the best part, although it was difficult to choose one because all of it was amazing. Matt Bellamy walked out for the final set in this fantastic light suit and sunglasses that changed colour to play, and then a giant UFO balloon floated out over the crowd on the floor. At a certain point in the song, an acrobat à la Cirque du Soleil dropped down out of it and flipped around over everyone’s heads, getting close enough almost to touch them… super cool. Then a whole bunch of giant balloon eyeballs were launched into the crowd that popped into clouds of glitter. These things amuse me, and the whole show was pretty much amazing. After we were sure they weren’t going to come out for an encore again, the trek to get back to the hotel commenced. The people at Wembley are extremely good at organizing people into lines, and the massive crowd heading towards the trains were very quickly divided up by destination. After Tom and I arrived on the platform, we got on the wrong train, but luckily realized it and jumped off before it was ready to leave. After a much too short train ride back, it was time to say goodbye (for a few weeks anyway), and I just made it onto the Tube home before it closed for the night. Overall, I would say that this three day long date, filled with a variety of very different events, and culminating in the concert was a huge success, and I think Tom is pretty fantastic for taking me on it! :)
Catch Up Time!
Alright, I think that due to my extreme lateness in posting about last week, I’m going on a posting spree and get through a few days in one.
So! Here’s a quick rundown:
Thursday!
Basically everyone was exhausted after the opera, and the roommates and I, as well as Tom, slept in. After rousting ourselves out of bed with some difficulty, the two of us decided to go find a restaurant called Yo Sushi, because I knew there was a location near where my classroom is on Marchmont Street, and because Tom loves Yo Sushi (and now so do I). We meandered over there, about a 20 minute walk, found it, and sat down for what could be classed as an official first date. Yo Sushi is really cool: basically, the food goes around a conveyor belt beside the tables on little plates colour-coded by price. There are also taps for still and sparkling water set into the booths, which was ceaselessly amusing for me. So, I had miso, edamame, and chicken gyoza (dumplings), while Tom ate some actual sushi and pepper squid, which I actually tried. Everything was delicious, and the company couldn’t have been better.
After lunch, I dragged him with me to our class tour of the British Library, which incited some glances and whispers from the rest of the group, who had very little idea who he was. While in the Library, Karen explained to us the process for getting a Reader’s Card, the book delivery system, and what is and isn’t allowed in the various Reading Rooms and Rare Books Rooms. Protocol is pretty strict: you have to lock up your belongings, and place things you want to take in inside a clear plastic bag to be inspected on entry and exit. I can’t wait to actually start researching!
We took some time in the Library, and then Karen took us on a walk to the classroom building, the Wellcome Library, which specializes on the history of science and medicine, and then to the University of London’s Student Union building (we can become members if we want). Poor Tom had to tag along the entire time, and so I think was pretty happy to come back to MTH while I went to my first class.
Alison and I both had Music, so we went together, not knowing what to expect. Our professor’s name is Sinead Pratshke, a singer who used to work at the Royal Opera House (hence our tickets of the night before). We got our outline, and I was delighted to discover that most of the performances we’re attending during the semester are classical: Mozart, Brahms, Sibelius, etc. But we also get to go to a few really interesting jazz shows, and hear the RAF Band in concert (!!). The class was really good, comprised of a kind of overview of the transition between classical composition and the sonata style to early romanticism to get us ready for the very short notice concert we were to attend that night at the Royal Albert Hall. There were extra tickets, so I scavved one for Tom so I wouldn’t have to abandon him for the second evening in a row. Some other people who were going to drop the class offered their tickets to others, so Brooke and Jono came with us as well. I managed not to get my head stuck in the Tube doors this time, and we made our way down.
We were sitting a lot higher up in the Royal Albert than the Opera House, but this just provided a really good view of the orchestra again. The performance we were at was one in the series of BBC Proms that run annually through the summer with the BBC Philharmonic, and was broadcast live onto the radio. We heard Schubert’s Symphony No.8 in B minor, 'Unfinished,' Schumann’s Introduction and Allegro appassionato in G major, Op.92, Robin Holloway (a modern composer’s) Reliquary: Scenes from the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, and finally Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor in 4 movements, which were all absolutely amazing. Even though “some people” “don’t like classical music that much,” there was very little yawning from beside me, and only a small amount of giggling at the conductor who looked a little like he was doing the robot.
Post-concert, and me almost wiping out down the stairs (thank goodness Tom caught me), everyone was starving, so we went to Pizza Express (which is actually kinda fancy) right after getting off the Tube home for sake of easiness. This turned out to be a slightly bad decision, as we had one of the worst waitresses of all time. She didn’t like us, and we didn’t really like her, but the pasta I had was much needed, as well as the nice cold Coke. After dinner, we pretty much came back to the room exhausted (despite the Coke), and everyone crashed for the night.
So! Here’s a quick rundown:
Thursday!
Basically everyone was exhausted after the opera, and the roommates and I, as well as Tom, slept in. After rousting ourselves out of bed with some difficulty, the two of us decided to go find a restaurant called Yo Sushi, because I knew there was a location near where my classroom is on Marchmont Street, and because Tom loves Yo Sushi (and now so do I). We meandered over there, about a 20 minute walk, found it, and sat down for what could be classed as an official first date. Yo Sushi is really cool: basically, the food goes around a conveyor belt beside the tables on little plates colour-coded by price. There are also taps for still and sparkling water set into the booths, which was ceaselessly amusing for me. So, I had miso, edamame, and chicken gyoza (dumplings), while Tom ate some actual sushi and pepper squid, which I actually tried. Everything was delicious, and the company couldn’t have been better.
After lunch, I dragged him with me to our class tour of the British Library, which incited some glances and whispers from the rest of the group, who had very little idea who he was. While in the Library, Karen explained to us the process for getting a Reader’s Card, the book delivery system, and what is and isn’t allowed in the various Reading Rooms and Rare Books Rooms. Protocol is pretty strict: you have to lock up your belongings, and place things you want to take in inside a clear plastic bag to be inspected on entry and exit. I can’t wait to actually start researching!
We took some time in the Library, and then Karen took us on a walk to the classroom building, the Wellcome Library, which specializes on the history of science and medicine, and then to the University of London’s Student Union building (we can become members if we want). Poor Tom had to tag along the entire time, and so I think was pretty happy to come back to MTH while I went to my first class.
Alison and I both had Music, so we went together, not knowing what to expect. Our professor’s name is Sinead Pratshke, a singer who used to work at the Royal Opera House (hence our tickets of the night before). We got our outline, and I was delighted to discover that most of the performances we’re attending during the semester are classical: Mozart, Brahms, Sibelius, etc. But we also get to go to a few really interesting jazz shows, and hear the RAF Band in concert (!!). The class was really good, comprised of a kind of overview of the transition between classical composition and the sonata style to early romanticism to get us ready for the very short notice concert we were to attend that night at the Royal Albert Hall. There were extra tickets, so I scavved one for Tom so I wouldn’t have to abandon him for the second evening in a row. Some other people who were going to drop the class offered their tickets to others, so Brooke and Jono came with us as well. I managed not to get my head stuck in the Tube doors this time, and we made our way down.
We were sitting a lot higher up in the Royal Albert than the Opera House, but this just provided a really good view of the orchestra again. The performance we were at was one in the series of BBC Proms that run annually through the summer with the BBC Philharmonic, and was broadcast live onto the radio. We heard Schubert’s Symphony No.8 in B minor, 'Unfinished,' Schumann’s Introduction and Allegro appassionato in G major, Op.92, Robin Holloway (a modern composer’s) Reliquary: Scenes from the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, and finally Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor in 4 movements, which were all absolutely amazing. Even though “some people” “don’t like classical music that much,” there was very little yawning from beside me, and only a small amount of giggling at the conductor who looked a little like he was doing the robot.
Post-concert, and me almost wiping out down the stairs (thank goodness Tom caught me), everyone was starving, so we went to Pizza Express (which is actually kinda fancy) right after getting off the Tube home for sake of easiness. This turned out to be a slightly bad decision, as we had one of the worst waitresses of all time. She didn’t like us, and we didn’t really like her, but the pasta I had was much needed, as well as the nice cold Coke. After dinner, we pretty much came back to the room exhausted (despite the Coke), and everyone crashed for the night.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Maintenance
Please pardon me guys, I'm working on getting all caught up. I get a little long winded, you know me... and then I don't have enough time for another post before bed. Stay tuned tho!
<3 A.
<3 A.
Go Time!
Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday! Pretty much a day full of intense excitement, and some stress.
For those of you who know what’s going on, the reason for this is obvious, but for those who don’t, here’s a quick run down. Basically, about a month and a half ago, I met someone online, and we’ve been talking since then. His name is Tom (go creep Facebook here), and though at first I thought he wasn’t all that interested in talking to me, apparently I was incredibly wrong. He lives near Sheffield, about 2.5 hours north of London, and shortly after he found out I was coming to London for 4 months, he asked me to go on a date and I was more than happy to say yes to such a gloriously good-looking individual. This first date was supposed to be the Muse concert at Wembley Stadium on Sept. 10, Friday night, but since I’m allowed to have guests at the ISH, we decided that getting to know each other in person for a bit would be a good idea before going to a massive noisy concert where awkwardness would likely ensue. So, Tom drove down from Sheffield on Wednesday morning for a visit, which ended up being both extremely stressful and then extremely excellent.
The fun began the night before, with roommate girly chat and preparations, including getting both Brooke and Alison’s written permission to allow him to stay in our room, tidying up, etc. In the morning, I got constant updates of where he was on the road so that I’d know when to walk over to the ISH main building’s (very small) parking lot to meet him. At about 3 miles away, I walked over to wait… and then things got interesting. Somehow, the road directions led him wrong, and he ended up down Marylebone Street, which turns into Euston, way past the residence. I attempted to guide him back based on my limited knowledge, and owing to that and my inability to wrap my head around turning directions and the fact that these crazy people drive on the other side of the road, I think I got him more lost. To add to the excitement, my phone was dying, so I ran up to Jono’s room to see if I could access a map to find Tom. After much quick thinking, slight panicking, and locating of tiny little streets (thank goodness for GoogleMaps), I managed to get him back to Great Portland Street Station, right across from the ISH, and then ran downstairs to attempt to find him outside. A little like Where’s Waldo, but more rewarding at the end. I ran around the corner, and found him sitting in his car, in a very small side alley beside a Pizza Express, and, well, the rest is history. (I’ll spare you all the mushy details).
After Tom and I got to know each other, talked, and chilled with the roommates for the afternoon, the girls and I got ready to go to the first required musical performance, which was open to everyone: a full dress rehearsal of Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte at the Royal Opera House. The poor boy had to stay behind and keep himself occupied in my room with magazines, my laptop, and some ramen, but considering what happened next, it was probably a good thing he didn’t come along to witness my embarrassment.
Alison, Brooke and I got all dressed up and in heels, being very excited about the opera, (I wore the grey dress Jen), and headed to the Tube to make it down in time. In our rush, we had to run to catch a Tube train that was waiting in the station when we got to the bottom of the stairs. (Keep in mind here that the Tube doors are curved, not like the TTC). So we pushed ahead to catch it, along with a whole bunch of other people, when the door closing alarm started beeping. Because of the crush, my feet were inside the carriage, but my head was not. I am now aware that when they say “Obstructing the doors can be dangerous,” they mean it. Basically, I got into a fight with the Tube door and won… walking away with only a slightly bruised hip, cheekbone, and a large black mark on the side of my face. The people laughing at me made it that much better, but we made it to the opera on time! I know, I’m pretty much a selfless heroine… sorta.
When we got to the Opera House, we met our instructor, Sinead, who used to work there, and were handed tickets for the Grand Tier, which I was completely not expecting. We made our way up to that level, and were directed towards a series of private boxes on Stage Right. The box I was in, Number 38, was directly across from the Royal Box (marked by a gilded crown over top), and we later found out that during the regular season, our seats would cost £800 per. The Opera House itself was amazing, all red and gold and lit up, and everything you’d expect. I was half waiting for the theme from Phantom to start, and black figures to appear running around the top catwalk, but I also have a highly active imagination.
The opera was also incredible, (here’s a link to the wiki for a synopsis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Così_fan_tutte ), and because of our seats, we could look directly down into the orchestra to watch the excitement going on. The plot was modernized to place the characters in the 20th century, with amazing, and slightly hilarious costumes (when it came to the disguises). There was even a Nokia ringtone played on a pianoforte to fit into the plot.
I came home blisters ahoy, and basically just relaxed, talked to the fam and hung out with Tom for the rest of the night. All in all an absolutely fabulous day, with lots more to come I think…
For those of you who know what’s going on, the reason for this is obvious, but for those who don’t, here’s a quick run down. Basically, about a month and a half ago, I met someone online, and we’ve been talking since then. His name is Tom (go creep Facebook here), and though at first I thought he wasn’t all that interested in talking to me, apparently I was incredibly wrong. He lives near Sheffield, about 2.5 hours north of London, and shortly after he found out I was coming to London for 4 months, he asked me to go on a date and I was more than happy to say yes to such a gloriously good-looking individual. This first date was supposed to be the Muse concert at Wembley Stadium on Sept. 10, Friday night, but since I’m allowed to have guests at the ISH, we decided that getting to know each other in person for a bit would be a good idea before going to a massive noisy concert where awkwardness would likely ensue. So, Tom drove down from Sheffield on Wednesday morning for a visit, which ended up being both extremely stressful and then extremely excellent.
The fun began the night before, with roommate girly chat and preparations, including getting both Brooke and Alison’s written permission to allow him to stay in our room, tidying up, etc. In the morning, I got constant updates of where he was on the road so that I’d know when to walk over to the ISH main building’s (very small) parking lot to meet him. At about 3 miles away, I walked over to wait… and then things got interesting. Somehow, the road directions led him wrong, and he ended up down Marylebone Street, which turns into Euston, way past the residence. I attempted to guide him back based on my limited knowledge, and owing to that and my inability to wrap my head around turning directions and the fact that these crazy people drive on the other side of the road, I think I got him more lost. To add to the excitement, my phone was dying, so I ran up to Jono’s room to see if I could access a map to find Tom. After much quick thinking, slight panicking, and locating of tiny little streets (thank goodness for GoogleMaps), I managed to get him back to Great Portland Street Station, right across from the ISH, and then ran downstairs to attempt to find him outside. A little like Where’s Waldo, but more rewarding at the end. I ran around the corner, and found him sitting in his car, in a very small side alley beside a Pizza Express, and, well, the rest is history. (I’ll spare you all the mushy details).
After Tom and I got to know each other, talked, and chilled with the roommates for the afternoon, the girls and I got ready to go to the first required musical performance, which was open to everyone: a full dress rehearsal of Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte at the Royal Opera House. The poor boy had to stay behind and keep himself occupied in my room with magazines, my laptop, and some ramen, but considering what happened next, it was probably a good thing he didn’t come along to witness my embarrassment.
Alison, Brooke and I got all dressed up and in heels, being very excited about the opera, (I wore the grey dress Jen), and headed to the Tube to make it down in time. In our rush, we had to run to catch a Tube train that was waiting in the station when we got to the bottom of the stairs. (Keep in mind here that the Tube doors are curved, not like the TTC). So we pushed ahead to catch it, along with a whole bunch of other people, when the door closing alarm started beeping. Because of the crush, my feet were inside the carriage, but my head was not. I am now aware that when they say “Obstructing the doors can be dangerous,” they mean it. Basically, I got into a fight with the Tube door and won… walking away with only a slightly bruised hip, cheekbone, and a large black mark on the side of my face. The people laughing at me made it that much better, but we made it to the opera on time! I know, I’m pretty much a selfless heroine… sorta.
When we got to the Opera House, we met our instructor, Sinead, who used to work there, and were handed tickets for the Grand Tier, which I was completely not expecting. We made our way up to that level, and were directed towards a series of private boxes on Stage Right. The box I was in, Number 38, was directly across from the Royal Box (marked by a gilded crown over top), and we later found out that during the regular season, our seats would cost £800 per. The Opera House itself was amazing, all red and gold and lit up, and everything you’d expect. I was half waiting for the theme from Phantom to start, and black figures to appear running around the top catwalk, but I also have a highly active imagination.
The opera was also incredible, (here’s a link to the wiki for a synopsis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Così_fan_tutte ), and because of our seats, we could look directly down into the orchestra to watch the excitement going on. The plot was modernized to place the characters in the 20th century, with amazing, and slightly hilarious costumes (when it came to the disguises). There was even a Nokia ringtone played on a pianoforte to fit into the plot.
I came home blisters ahoy, and basically just relaxed, talked to the fam and hung out with Tom for the rest of the night. All in all an absolutely fabulous day, with lots more to come I think…
Tourist Day
Dear Friends,
I apologize for the long neglected blog! I have no excuses other than that I’ve been extremely busy over the past few days.
I’ll pick up where I left off, and describe Tuesday, or as I like to call it, “Obnoxious Tourist Day.” Jono, Brooke and I decided to take in some of the classic London sights, and so, armed with cameras and Canadian accents, we headed down to Trafalgar Square on the Tube. If you look at the photos, you’ll see the massive Lions at the base of Nelson’s Column, which stands in the middle of the square in front of the façade of the National Gallery (it was physically painful for me not to go inside). After wandering around snapping pictures, we headed to Canada House – the Canadian High Commission – on the square and took some more sitting on the steps with the lovely bronze maple leaf doors.
After, we headed through the Admiralty Arch, down The Mall along St. James’s Park towards Buckingham Palace, which felt really surreal. The Mall is tree lined, so it was difficult to see the building before we came out into the Queen’s Gardens, and then our view was dominated by the massive (and lovely) Victoria Memorial which is on a kind of traffic island in the middle of an oval. We were rebels and hopped over a low fence to run across to the memorial and up the steps to be able to see all of Buckingham well. Surprisingly, the front façade is smaller than I thought it would be, with the bulk of the building being behind it and out of view. Apparently I looked like a competent and non-threatening photographer walking around with my camera around my neck, because a few girls asked me to take photos for them before we walked down to the gates to creep on the palace guards. There were only two of them on patrol outside, and unfortunately we had missed the changing of the guard at 11, but I still got a decent photo of one of them as he was doing his turn. I’m going to try to go back one day to see the change, because according to Jono, it’s quite the experience.
The three of us walked back through St. James’s Park and down to Westminster Abbey, where I had a minor geek out, taking a billion pictures of the architectural details (crockets, lancets, rosettes, crockets, colonnades, clerestories, crockets, buttresses, gargoyles, and more crockets). We didn’t go in, because even for a student, admission is £12, but there are certain times that people can get in for free, so that’s something for another day. The Houses of Parliament are right behind the Abbey, so as soon as we rounded the apse, I was rewarded with an eyeful of delightful English Perpendicular Neo-Gothic architecture. The Houses are gigantic, and actually a little overwhelming to look at with all the detail hitting your eye at once. Brooke and I snapped a bunch of pictures, while Jon wandered off to speak to a page about something political. As I was walking down to the south end of the building to get better photos of the Victoria Tower and an equestrian statue of Richard the Lionheart, an couple of American ladies walked by me and I got this little tidbit: “Who was it that killed Braveheart?” “I think it was that guy… (pointing at the statue, which is clearly inscribed on the base).” I lol-ed a little bit.
While we were wandering around, we were treated to our first real taste of English weather. It started to rain, then rained harder, and harder. We managed to make it into a tiny little Boots (drugstore with snacks), with me psychotically trying to protect my camera under my cardigan, and I finally bought an umbrella (houndstooth of course). We also got some sandwiches, and found a step in the Westminster tube station to sit and eat them. When we came back out to take some pictures of the clock tower (Big Ben is the bell) the rain had mostly stopped, but then started again, go figure!
We got on the tube at Westminster station and went to Knightsbridge (I love my oyster card) to poke around in Harrods, which was quite the experience. We went into the “Rooms of Luxury” which were basically all kinds of top designer bags, and jewellery and perfume. Most of the people wandering around were tourists who couldn’t afford much more than a keychain (like me), but there were also a lot of very wealthy Saudi Arabian women all dolled up under their robes who were serious shoppers. Highlights of Harrods included: getting lost on the 4th floor, the room of massive fossils for sale (£24,000 for trilobites anyone?), being called “madam” while looking at stockings, and seeing a lower end watch for sale for £134,000.
The interior design in the store was also really interesting. The central escalator area is called the Egyptian Hall and everything is lotus pillars and statues of pharaohs. At the bottom, there’s a memorial for Dodi Al-Fayed and Princess Diana, since Dodi’s family owned the store until very recently. There was a wine glass with Diana’s lipstick on the edge, and then the ring that was supposedly given to her for their engagement along with photos of the two of them. There were lots of people around taking photos of it.
So, all of this tourist-ing made for a long day, and knowing that a tube strike was supposed to begin disrupting service around 5pm, Jon, Brooke and I headed up to the pub we were meeting our professor at for the evening, the Lord John Russell, right across the street from where our classroom is. All of our class mingled with each other, and then Jon made friends with two Aussie rules football players who were in London as part of a tour of Europe. Brooke, Alison and I also went over to talk to them, which ended up being a hilariously good decision. These two had been walking from pub to pub all day, and so were pretty intoxicated and amusing, asking about Canadian weather, and if moving to Ohio was a good idea. (We told them it wasn’t). Towards the end of the evening, we were getting pretty hungry, and groups started to split off to different places to eat. We told the Australians that it was time to go, and one of them decided that he needed to give Alison his email address, which resulted in his inability to focus hard enough to write his own name on a beer mat. He tried to get his buddy to do it for him, which ended in more confusion, so Sharmylae, one of the other girls on our trip wrote it out as he dictated, and his friend made fun of him for being “mostly illiterate.” I was laughing so hard at this point that I had to turn around so they couldn’t see the tears… interesting indeed. So, we left the pub, walked down Marchmont Street, and found a cheap place for fish and chips, which was exactly what I needed. Then, because of the tube strike, we took a taxi back to our residence, and called it a night after a very busy day! Ahh!
I apologize for the long neglected blog! I have no excuses other than that I’ve been extremely busy over the past few days.
I’ll pick up where I left off, and describe Tuesday, or as I like to call it, “Obnoxious Tourist Day.” Jono, Brooke and I decided to take in some of the classic London sights, and so, armed with cameras and Canadian accents, we headed down to Trafalgar Square on the Tube. If you look at the photos, you’ll see the massive Lions at the base of Nelson’s Column, which stands in the middle of the square in front of the façade of the National Gallery (it was physically painful for me not to go inside). After wandering around snapping pictures, we headed to Canada House – the Canadian High Commission – on the square and took some more sitting on the steps with the lovely bronze maple leaf doors.
After, we headed through the Admiralty Arch, down The Mall along St. James’s Park towards Buckingham Palace, which felt really surreal. The Mall is tree lined, so it was difficult to see the building before we came out into the Queen’s Gardens, and then our view was dominated by the massive (and lovely) Victoria Memorial which is on a kind of traffic island in the middle of an oval. We were rebels and hopped over a low fence to run across to the memorial and up the steps to be able to see all of Buckingham well. Surprisingly, the front façade is smaller than I thought it would be, with the bulk of the building being behind it and out of view. Apparently I looked like a competent and non-threatening photographer walking around with my camera around my neck, because a few girls asked me to take photos for them before we walked down to the gates to creep on the palace guards. There were only two of them on patrol outside, and unfortunately we had missed the changing of the guard at 11, but I still got a decent photo of one of them as he was doing his turn. I’m going to try to go back one day to see the change, because according to Jono, it’s quite the experience.
The three of us walked back through St. James’s Park and down to Westminster Abbey, where I had a minor geek out, taking a billion pictures of the architectural details (crockets, lancets, rosettes, crockets, colonnades, clerestories, crockets, buttresses, gargoyles, and more crockets). We didn’t go in, because even for a student, admission is £12, but there are certain times that people can get in for free, so that’s something for another day. The Houses of Parliament are right behind the Abbey, so as soon as we rounded the apse, I was rewarded with an eyeful of delightful English Perpendicular Neo-Gothic architecture. The Houses are gigantic, and actually a little overwhelming to look at with all the detail hitting your eye at once. Brooke and I snapped a bunch of pictures, while Jon wandered off to speak to a page about something political. As I was walking down to the south end of the building to get better photos of the Victoria Tower and an equestrian statue of Richard the Lionheart, an couple of American ladies walked by me and I got this little tidbit: “Who was it that killed Braveheart?” “I think it was that guy… (pointing at the statue, which is clearly inscribed on the base).” I lol-ed a little bit.
While we were wandering around, we were treated to our first real taste of English weather. It started to rain, then rained harder, and harder. We managed to make it into a tiny little Boots (drugstore with snacks), with me psychotically trying to protect my camera under my cardigan, and I finally bought an umbrella (houndstooth of course). We also got some sandwiches, and found a step in the Westminster tube station to sit and eat them. When we came back out to take some pictures of the clock tower (Big Ben is the bell) the rain had mostly stopped, but then started again, go figure!
We got on the tube at Westminster station and went to Knightsbridge (I love my oyster card) to poke around in Harrods, which was quite the experience. We went into the “Rooms of Luxury” which were basically all kinds of top designer bags, and jewellery and perfume. Most of the people wandering around were tourists who couldn’t afford much more than a keychain (like me), but there were also a lot of very wealthy Saudi Arabian women all dolled up under their robes who were serious shoppers. Highlights of Harrods included: getting lost on the 4th floor, the room of massive fossils for sale (£24,000 for trilobites anyone?), being called “madam” while looking at stockings, and seeing a lower end watch for sale for £134,000.
The interior design in the store was also really interesting. The central escalator area is called the Egyptian Hall and everything is lotus pillars and statues of pharaohs. At the bottom, there’s a memorial for Dodi Al-Fayed and Princess Diana, since Dodi’s family owned the store until very recently. There was a wine glass with Diana’s lipstick on the edge, and then the ring that was supposedly given to her for their engagement along with photos of the two of them. There were lots of people around taking photos of it.
So, all of this tourist-ing made for a long day, and knowing that a tube strike was supposed to begin disrupting service around 5pm, Jon, Brooke and I headed up to the pub we were meeting our professor at for the evening, the Lord John Russell, right across the street from where our classroom is. All of our class mingled with each other, and then Jon made friends with two Aussie rules football players who were in London as part of a tour of Europe. Brooke, Alison and I also went over to talk to them, which ended up being a hilariously good decision. These two had been walking from pub to pub all day, and so were pretty intoxicated and amusing, asking about Canadian weather, and if moving to Ohio was a good idea. (We told them it wasn’t). Towards the end of the evening, we were getting pretty hungry, and groups started to split off to different places to eat. We told the Australians that it was time to go, and one of them decided that he needed to give Alison his email address, which resulted in his inability to focus hard enough to write his own name on a beer mat. He tried to get his buddy to do it for him, which ended in more confusion, so Sharmylae, one of the other girls on our trip wrote it out as he dictated, and his friend made fun of him for being “mostly illiterate.” I was laughing so hard at this point that I had to turn around so they couldn’t see the tears… interesting indeed. So, we left the pub, walked down Marchmont Street, and found a cheap place for fish and chips, which was exactly what I needed. Then, because of the tube strike, we took a taxi back to our residence, and called it a night after a very busy day! Ahh!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The Crown and Sceptre
Sunday! Today was a much lazier day for a little change of pace. Alison got up early this morning to go to the Cotswalds with her family, so Brooke and I slept in. Again. We thought we had the jetlag defeated, but this may not be as much the case as we thought.
We spent the early afternoon lounging around and chatting, and I watched a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother (stop bothering me to watch it now friends). Jonathan got back from visiting Zurich today, and so he came to our room to visit, and we decided to go in search of a pub to have a real dinner. Brooke and I were craving an actual meal since we hadn't really had one since the "food" on the plane.
The three of us walked down Great Portland for a little while, as we'd all seen some cute places on our way to Oxford street the days before. We turned off onto a side street where there were a few pubs and Italian trattorias, and settled on a place called The Crown and Sceptre. Jon and I had decided on Fish and Chips since I haven't had any yet (the horror!), but since we were a little late getting there, about 6:30, all the fish was gone. The three of us ended up ordering the same Sunday Roast: pork loin with "Kentish Apple and Sage" sauce, roasties, mash, green beans, grilled leeks, a Yorkshire pudding, and lots of gravy. Brooke and I also each got a pint of Stella, and Jon was a weenie getting a half of Leffe.
To say that our meal was delicious would be an understatement. We were all starving and stick-to-your-ribs food definitely hit the spot! The atmosphere in the pub was also delightful. Everything was dark wood, with a pressed-tin ceiling painted a glossy black and low lighting.
After enjoying our food and discussing some travel plans, we headed back up Great Portland, and stopped at a Tesco Express for some much needed groceries. Each of us got some essentials: milk, juice, yogurt, fruit, veggies, hummus (as well as Boursin at £1.30 and some Ryvita for me), and then we made the trek back down Marylebone to the room.
The rest of the evening has been fairly relaxed. Jon came back, and Alison arrived home shortly after so we just chatted until it was time for me to participate in Aden's 3rd Birthday celebration via Skype. Apparently my mother is able to tell I haven't been sleeping well on this little mattress by the "darkness of the circles" under my eyes. Fabulous. Perhaps a trip up the Bakerloo Line to IKEA for a mattress pad is in order for tomorrow, depending on the status of the Tube Strike that's currently going on.
Tomorrow should be an adventure! Orientation, some sightseeing like real tourists, and meeting our professor are all on the agenda!
<3
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Oxford Circus Indeed
Today was quite eventful!
Alison, Brooke and I decided that we were going to get mobile phones today, so after some discussion about plans and companies, we set off. (We are going to have very toned legs from all of this walking on uneven paving stones!) Brooke unfortunately lost her digital camera somewhere en route, so we stopped in an electronics store to pick her up a new one before heading to Oxford Street for phones. The guy who helped her get a camera struck up conversation, and apparently has friends in Canada, and has been to Gravenhurst and Barrie of all places. We talked to him for a little while until it was sufficiently awkward, and then continued on our way.
After a few minor detours, we walked all the way down Great Portland Street to Oxford, which was insanity. Going to a main shopping street on a Saturday may not have been the best plan of attack, however, we now know where to shop. In the small portion of the street we walked down, there was an H&M, Urban Outfitters, Top Shop, Selfridges, Aldo, Mango, Zara, and a million other stores. The cell phone stores were on the other side of Oxford Circus from where we were, so we got the experience of trying to cross the circus with hundreds of other people and about 30 double deckers. Add in several thousand taxis, bike rickshaws and actual bikes and you'll have some idea. I'll take my camera next time to capture the insanity.
So I got a really cheap phone at a shop called 3. Basically for £30 I got the phone (a little cute thing), a free SIM card, and a top up which allows for 200 minutes to non-3 phones, free calling to 3 phones, 500 texts, internet use, free MSN and skype. It's also only 3p/min to call home! It doesn't get much better than that folks. Forget Rogers...
Brooke got her phone at Orange, and Alison got hers at T-Mobile, so we're all different just to make things good and complicated... ha ha!
We walked down another street off of Oxford, promptly decided it was far too expensive for poor students, and went to another café for a lunch of salami, arugula (apparently called "rocket" here) and chili mayo paninis, which were just delightful.
After lunch we headed back to the Circus Tube station so Brooke and I could get our oyster cards. They're basically a reloadable smart card that you wave in front of readers to get on the Tube. The card knows how many times you've been on in a day and the fare decreases each time you use it, so you don't end up paying more than is fair. It's a pretty good system. So I had my first Tube ride down the Bakerloo line from Oxford Circus to Regent's Park, just down Marylebone Road from residence.
We stopped to get some veggies and snacks at the dining hall, and then headed back to the room after a very busy day, where I now sit, veggies devoured, catching up on blog posts.
You people had better be reading them.... ha ha!
<3
Alison, Brooke and I decided that we were going to get mobile phones today, so after some discussion about plans and companies, we set off. (We are going to have very toned legs from all of this walking on uneven paving stones!) Brooke unfortunately lost her digital camera somewhere en route, so we stopped in an electronics store to pick her up a new one before heading to Oxford Street for phones. The guy who helped her get a camera struck up conversation, and apparently has friends in Canada, and has been to Gravenhurst and Barrie of all places. We talked to him for a little while until it was sufficiently awkward, and then continued on our way.
After a few minor detours, we walked all the way down Great Portland Street to Oxford, which was insanity. Going to a main shopping street on a Saturday may not have been the best plan of attack, however, we now know where to shop. In the small portion of the street we walked down, there was an H&M, Urban Outfitters, Top Shop, Selfridges, Aldo, Mango, Zara, and a million other stores. The cell phone stores were on the other side of Oxford Circus from where we were, so we got the experience of trying to cross the circus with hundreds of other people and about 30 double deckers. Add in several thousand taxis, bike rickshaws and actual bikes and you'll have some idea. I'll take my camera next time to capture the insanity.
So I got a really cheap phone at a shop called 3. Basically for £30 I got the phone (a little cute thing), a free SIM card, and a top up which allows for 200 minutes to non-3 phones, free calling to 3 phones, 500 texts, internet use, free MSN and skype. It's also only 3p/min to call home! It doesn't get much better than that folks. Forget Rogers...
Brooke got her phone at Orange, and Alison got hers at T-Mobile, so we're all different just to make things good and complicated... ha ha!
We walked down another street off of Oxford, promptly decided it was far too expensive for poor students, and went to another café for a lunch of salami, arugula (apparently called "rocket" here) and chili mayo paninis, which were just delightful.
After lunch we headed back to the Circus Tube station so Brooke and I could get our oyster cards. They're basically a reloadable smart card that you wave in front of readers to get on the Tube. The card knows how many times you've been on in a day and the fare decreases each time you use it, so you don't end up paying more than is fair. It's a pretty good system. So I had my first Tube ride down the Bakerloo line from Oxford Circus to Regent's Park, just down Marylebone Road from residence.
We stopped to get some veggies and snacks at the dining hall, and then headed back to the room after a very busy day, where I now sit, veggies devoured, catching up on blog posts.
You people had better be reading them.... ha ha!
<3
Day Two (Because I'll Think of Creative Titles Later)
Jet lag allowed me to sleep for about 16 hours without feeling guilty in any way, so Day 2 got underway in mid afternoon. Brooke and I decided to go exploring around our area while Alison was out with her parents, and we ended up walking down Euston Road to St. Pancras Station and the British Library, 15-20 mins away.
The library had a really interesting exhibition on in their gallery space called Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art that explored the various uses of maps from about 1200 AD to the present, so of course, being history students we went in. The individual maps were divided into galleries based on the places they would have been displayed: school rooms, merchant's houses, rooms of state, etc. Some were absolutely beautifully detailed woodcuts, and others were painted on parchment or etched. There were quite a few of the New World, so we had a good time looking at the progression of what Europeans thought Canada looked like over the centuries. One of the most amusing maps was a piece of British propaganda that showed the importance of the tea trade. Over Canada there were captions like "Lumbermen need their tea" and "Eskimos find that tea helps them cope with the bitter cold of the North."
After moving through the galleries (and painfully for me, passing the stairs leading to the Treasures of the British Library gallery) we went into the shop to browse and each ended up picking mugs to have tea in our room. Mine has a detail from one of the carpet pages in the Lindisfarne Gospels (8th Century) (!), and Brooke's has a quote from Mansfield Park with a silhouette of Jane Austen on it. I also got a journal with the Chi-Rho from Lindisfarne on the cover. Nerding out I know..
We left the library and decided to see if we could find the British Museum, and took a little detour on some side streets, inadvertently finding the pub we're going to for orientation on Monday. It's really close to where our main classroom will be, and the area is lovely. We made it to the museum after consulting a trusty map, and just kind of gawked at it from the outside.
There's an exhibition opening soon featuring an Egyptian Book of the Dead, so that's pretty exciting!
We made our way back in the direction of our residence on Tottenham Court Road, which is packed with electronics shops, pubs and little cafés. Since it was Friday night, there were a million people in each pub, and we could tell where they were by the crowds drinking on the sidewalk... ha ha!
By this time we were pretty hungry, so we ate in a café called Cilantro. I had spaghetti because I was starving, and a fountain Cherry Coke (Yes.). We also found this absolutely adorable store called Paperchase, which is basically a giant stationary/card/notebook shop. I know where I'll be shopping for postcards now! I bought myself a sketchbook there for art history, and then we pretty much called it a day and came back to the room.
Alison was back by the time we got home, so we had girly chats and discussed plans before bed!
Deeeeeelightful!
The library had a really interesting exhibition on in their gallery space called Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art that explored the various uses of maps from about 1200 AD to the present, so of course, being history students we went in. The individual maps were divided into galleries based on the places they would have been displayed: school rooms, merchant's houses, rooms of state, etc. Some were absolutely beautifully detailed woodcuts, and others were painted on parchment or etched. There were quite a few of the New World, so we had a good time looking at the progression of what Europeans thought Canada looked like over the centuries. One of the most amusing maps was a piece of British propaganda that showed the importance of the tea trade. Over Canada there were captions like "Lumbermen need their tea" and "Eskimos find that tea helps them cope with the bitter cold of the North."
After moving through the galleries (and painfully for me, passing the stairs leading to the Treasures of the British Library gallery) we went into the shop to browse and each ended up picking mugs to have tea in our room. Mine has a detail from one of the carpet pages in the Lindisfarne Gospels (8th Century) (!), and Brooke's has a quote from Mansfield Park with a silhouette of Jane Austen on it. I also got a journal with the Chi-Rho from Lindisfarne on the cover. Nerding out I know..
We left the library and decided to see if we could find the British Museum, and took a little detour on some side streets, inadvertently finding the pub we're going to for orientation on Monday. It's really close to where our main classroom will be, and the area is lovely. We made it to the museum after consulting a trusty map, and just kind of gawked at it from the outside.
There's an exhibition opening soon featuring an Egyptian Book of the Dead, so that's pretty exciting!
We made our way back in the direction of our residence on Tottenham Court Road, which is packed with electronics shops, pubs and little cafés. Since it was Friday night, there were a million people in each pub, and we could tell where they were by the crowds drinking on the sidewalk... ha ha!
By this time we were pretty hungry, so we ate in a café called Cilantro. I had spaghetti because I was starving, and a fountain Cherry Coke (Yes.). We also found this absolutely adorable store called Paperchase, which is basically a giant stationary/card/notebook shop. I know where I'll be shopping for postcards now! I bought myself a sketchbook there for art history, and then we pretty much called it a day and came back to the room.
Alison was back by the time we got home, so we had girly chats and discussed plans before bed!
Deeeeeelightful!
Day One
Well, I'm finally getting around to blogging about my first few days in London. To say it's been a little hectic would be a understatement, but I think I'm over the jet lag enough now to get it all down.
Brooke and I met at the Air Transat area in Terminal 3 at Pearson on Wednesday evening, and were immediately very happy that we'd checked in online, because it meant we could skip the massive line of people and go into a much shorter one. The man at the desk was very nice and ignored our overweight luggage and my slightly oversized carry on, a pleasant surprise.
After some relaxation time with our families, we headed to security, which seemed a little lax. No full body scans needed!
Even after boarding the plane (last) and sitting in our tiny little seats, it didn't hit me that we were really going. I guess that came from waiting for 6 months for it to finally be the day! The flight over was as to be expected from a budget airline... pretty squishy with slightly icky food. I had "chicken" and rice with a little cucumber and tomato salad, roll, 2 Bite Brownies and 100mL of white wine. Despite the wine I didn't sleep at all, and mostly just looked out the window or tried to rest my eyes.
I got to see the Northern Lights however, while we were somewhere above Northern Quebec/Labrador.
We were served breakfast at 3:30 AM Eastern Time, with the sun already up and shining in the windows of the plane. I don't think I've ever been so excited for orange juice and tea in my entire life.
Shortly after breakfast we hit the Irish coast, and I spent the rest of the flight looking out the window enjoying the view. Approaching Gatwick was really nice, because it was sunny and we could see everything really clearly, although it seemed like the plane was going to land in a field of sheep because I couldn't see any of the airport from my side.
Getting through and out of the airport was interesting to say the least. I was questioned at immigration and had to show my documentation to a slightly intimidating officer, and then we had an anxious moment when it looked like Brooke's luggage wasn't going to come up the belt. We eventually got everything tho, and struggled with our luggage through the terminal to the Gatwick Express train to Victoria Station. The half hour train ride was when Brooke and I got to see our first close up look at England, but I don't think it really hit us, even when we crossed the Thames and saw the London Eye coming into Victoria.
We took a Black Cab to our residence, which was very exciting, and surprisingly inexpensive!
We checked in at the main desk of the ISH, and found out that in fact, our room was located in Mary Trevelyan Hall, another 10 minute walk away, dragging 60 lbs of luggage each. Despite this building being slightly older and more rundown than the main one, our room is larger than I expected with 3 beds, desks, wardrobes, mini fridges and a washstand. The best part is the massive window that looks out onto Regent's Park.
After unpacking a little, and determined to stay awake until an acceptable bed time, we went exploring and ended up on Baker Street. We went to Boots for toiletries, and then a Tesco Express (small grocery store for essentials) for a few snacks. My day was made a little when I found "McDougall Brand" Flour... ha ha, and bought myself a pot of custard. We also walked along Marylebone High Street, which has some really cute little shops. On the way back to our room, we stopped into the main building for dinner in the dining hall, where I had some very welcome mashed potatoes with gravy.
Upon arriving back in the room and deciding that a shower was in order, I made the unfortunate discovery that despite what I thought, linen service is not included in our accommodation. Brooke was lovely enough to let me use a very small microfibre towel that she had... so that was what I dried off with after my shower. Interesting.
I made it to 10:30 pm (5:30 Eastern) after having been awake for about 32 hours, and then promptly passed out.
And so the first day ended.
Brooke and I met at the Air Transat area in Terminal 3 at Pearson on Wednesday evening, and were immediately very happy that we'd checked in online, because it meant we could skip the massive line of people and go into a much shorter one. The man at the desk was very nice and ignored our overweight luggage and my slightly oversized carry on, a pleasant surprise.
After some relaxation time with our families, we headed to security, which seemed a little lax. No full body scans needed!
Even after boarding the plane (last) and sitting in our tiny little seats, it didn't hit me that we were really going. I guess that came from waiting for 6 months for it to finally be the day! The flight over was as to be expected from a budget airline... pretty squishy with slightly icky food. I had "chicken" and rice with a little cucumber and tomato salad, roll, 2 Bite Brownies and 100mL of white wine. Despite the wine I didn't sleep at all, and mostly just looked out the window or tried to rest my eyes.
I got to see the Northern Lights however, while we were somewhere above Northern Quebec/Labrador.
We were served breakfast at 3:30 AM Eastern Time, with the sun already up and shining in the windows of the plane. I don't think I've ever been so excited for orange juice and tea in my entire life.
Shortly after breakfast we hit the Irish coast, and I spent the rest of the flight looking out the window enjoying the view. Approaching Gatwick was really nice, because it was sunny and we could see everything really clearly, although it seemed like the plane was going to land in a field of sheep because I couldn't see any of the airport from my side.
Getting through and out of the airport was interesting to say the least. I was questioned at immigration and had to show my documentation to a slightly intimidating officer, and then we had an anxious moment when it looked like Brooke's luggage wasn't going to come up the belt. We eventually got everything tho, and struggled with our luggage through the terminal to the Gatwick Express train to Victoria Station. The half hour train ride was when Brooke and I got to see our first close up look at England, but I don't think it really hit us, even when we crossed the Thames and saw the London Eye coming into Victoria.
We took a Black Cab to our residence, which was very exciting, and surprisingly inexpensive!
We checked in at the main desk of the ISH, and found out that in fact, our room was located in Mary Trevelyan Hall, another 10 minute walk away, dragging 60 lbs of luggage each. Despite this building being slightly older and more rundown than the main one, our room is larger than I expected with 3 beds, desks, wardrobes, mini fridges and a washstand. The best part is the massive window that looks out onto Regent's Park.
After unpacking a little, and determined to stay awake until an acceptable bed time, we went exploring and ended up on Baker Street. We went to Boots for toiletries, and then a Tesco Express (small grocery store for essentials) for a few snacks. My day was made a little when I found "McDougall Brand" Flour... ha ha, and bought myself a pot of custard. We also walked along Marylebone High Street, which has some really cute little shops. On the way back to our room, we stopped into the main building for dinner in the dining hall, where I had some very welcome mashed potatoes with gravy.
Upon arriving back in the room and deciding that a shower was in order, I made the unfortunate discovery that despite what I thought, linen service is not included in our accommodation. Brooke was lovely enough to let me use a very small microfibre towel that she had... so that was what I dried off with after my shower. Interesting.
I made it to 10:30 pm (5:30 Eastern) after having been awake for about 32 hours, and then promptly passed out.
And so the first day ended.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Today is the Day
Well, I'm leaving today!
After a stop in Guelph for goodbyes I'm heading to Pearson to meet Brooke, my flying buddy/roommate. As long as I get through security without my bags being rejected or crying, I'll be on the plane by 10pm, and arriving in London in the morning.I'll update once I'm there and let everyone know that I've arrived!
Farewell Canada!
After a stop in Guelph for goodbyes I'm heading to Pearson to meet Brooke, my flying buddy/roommate. As long as I get through security without my bags being rejected or crying, I'll be on the plane by 10pm, and arriving in London in the morning.I'll update once I'm there and let everyone know that I've arrived!
Farewell Canada!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
One More Month! (Ish)
Well, it's getting closer now. I've officially received my Letter of Introduction to present to customs, and my schedule, which is fantastic. Things are falling into place now, and I even bought 100 GBP at the bank yesterday because of the excellent exchange rate!
Hooray!
Monday, June 14, 2010
It's Official
Well Hello Everyone!
I decided to be obnoxious and try out the blogging world, thinking it would be the best way to keep the (very limited number of) interested people informed about my trip to London. I don't leave until September, but I'm sure those of you reading this know how I like to prepare way before I need to. There won't be much here in the way of posting during the rest of the summer unless something really exciting happens, but I thought I'd give it a go now.
My ticket is officially booked, and I fly out of Pearson at 9:55pm on September 1st with Brooke, a friend who's also going on the London semester.
The more preparations are made, and the more days pass, the more excited and anxious I get!
Hopefully you people will bear with my annoying posting of trivial details in the months to come...
Ash
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