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.
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