Marianne in London

roadtrip ireland part 2: roots, rocks, and roisin

2009-08-22T21:16:00.013+01:00

sunday morning, after a tour of the kilkenny castle, which as far as we could tell was home to some irish traitors who kept siding with the English king and doing things like smuggling the future king charles II into france, we skipped town.

i should mention, however, that before doing this, we discovered that the irish aren't into football or rugby as much as they are obsessed with hurling. it took us a while to translate hurling from an irish accent to an american accent and for a while thought we were talking about curling. and were even more confused when it was explained that the championships were happening in the middle of the summer. eventually we figured out that the kilkenny team was already guaranteed a slot in the finals and that tipperary would be playing limerick on sunday. as we were driving through both kilkenny and tipperary, we got a lot of updates on this match. but still have no clue what is involved with hurling.

anyway. so we started driving northwest, making for lorrha. it was there that we were to trace our roots in the form of redwood castle, home to the MacEgan clan!
it was a pretty cool place. in the 60s, a local egan had fixed the place up from the ivy-covered cow shelter that it had become, and before he died, he would even live there for a few months of the year, opening it up to tourists at other times.
the clan used to be lawyers and were known by at least one historian as "birds in the forest of wisdom," which katie and i quite liked.

after we were done at our castle, our google directions had us heading to galway. instead, we decided to make a few pitstops on the way. first, we figured we would go to the burren. being the prepared travelers that we obviously are, despite the fact that we were going on a road trip, we did not take this as a sign that we should acquire a map of the country. i mean, google maps counts right? luckily the car rental people had our back and had given us one. on this map, there was about a square inch area which had only two unnumbered roads running through it, which crossed in the middle at the town of carron. across this space, there was written "the burren." so, we set off from the castle with little idea of where we were going and even less of what we were looking for, vaguely driving toward this space.

as usual, we found some ruins along the way and stopped to look.
as we wound our way toward the burren, we got more and more lost

until eventually we were driving on "roads" with grass growing in the middle and cows unfenced on the side of the road. which is totally a big deal. we started following signs for something called "the burren way" thinking this looked hopeful. turns out this is actually a hiking trail. because the burren is actually a national park. important things that would have been useful to know. it didn't help that we had sor of been playing the "this would make a great horror film setting" game. or that it looked like it might rain. or that we were half convinced the car was going to get a flat tire or break and axel or something.
eventually, we started doing switchbacks up a hill and ended up here!

after stopping to ask for some directions from an irish family with approximately eight children, all in tow, we escaped. and couldn't get out there fast enough.

next stop: the cliffs of moher.
this drive was relatively straightforward. despite not being any better labeled on our handy map, it was at least a distinct site, rather than an area. we got there, relatively no problem and found these beautiful cliffs where ireland stops and the atlantic starts.

after the cliffs, we realized that we had been in the car for close to eight hours. it was time to high tail it to galway.

as we made our way down the R roads, we began fantasizing about what the N road that we would eventually reach would hold for us. reasonably wide lanes? painted lines? a shoulder on the edge of the road? maybe even lights! no, that might be too much to ask. this wasn't sarcasm. this was earnest hope. a few hours on the R roads and we were ready to take anything that we could get. eventually, we made it to galway, where we settled into our second unusually awesome hotel, the most notable feature of which was the ceilings that were so high the crown molding was three feet thick.

we had dinner at a little place that we found that seemed suitably organic and therefore vegetarian friendly. our waitress gave us the suggestion that we should head to a bar a few blocks away. she was sure that even though it was a sunday, things would be lively. the only problem with this suggestion was that we could not, for the life of us, figure what the name of the bar was! katie had heard "rasheen dove" and i had heard "russian duck". although we asked a few times hoping to get the name right, we were completely baffled. we tried to follow her directions to no avail. we went back the way we came. we consulted the map. we got distracted when we noticed the "tourist landmark" of the spanish arch. expecting something along the lines of the arc d'triumph, or even the marble arch, we were highly disappointed to find out it was just a part of a former shipping warehouse (or at least, i was). more a hallway than an arch. although technically an arch shape. we settled on another bar. we asked around. we retried. and we succeeded.
the actual name was the "roisin dubh" and we hadn't been able to figure out what the woman was saying because she was saying something in gaelic. we still aren't sure what it means but suspect it has something to do with a rose. there was a sweet band playing though and the woman was right, we had a good time.

the next morning, we ran by the cathedral and through the university. after showers but before free breakfast, we documented the size of our bathroom.
then we hit the road for dublin.
we had a 2pm appointment to make!

roadtrip ireland part 1: cars, castles, and concerts

2009-08-22T14:40:00.020+01:00

last saturday, following my parent's heading back home in time for my mom to have her first day of the school, katie and i also headed west. but not quite as far. we hopped a plane from london to dublin to start our weekend roadtrip around the country! when we arrived in ireland, we were greeted by a less-than-optimistic customs worker, who basically informed us that we were a) crazy b) probably going to die and c) dumb for planning to undertake this route (roughly). we ignored her and continued on to the car rental office, mostly undaunted, but gently reassuring each other that europeans probably just didn't appreciate the american concept of the roadtrip.
twenty minutes, a threat of uninsurance, and three clockwise roundabouts later, we found ourselves on the road in ireland heading south to kilkenny!

katie drove

on the left

while i photo-documented the landscape, which was beautiful
we started out on a major highway (an M class road) which then led to a "dual carriageway" (an N class road) and eventually we ended up on a narrow two lane road winding through the countryside slash farms (an R class road). it took us a while to understand the differences.
the analogous miami roads would be that an M is like I-95, an N is like bird road without intersections, and a R is like a road in homestead/the everglades. only with no shoulder and usually a fence immediately next to it. but all three feature livestock. just with it closer to you on the Ns and Rs.

as we wound our way southwest to kilkenny, we acknowledged any and all semi-ruined churches and castles either by yelling RUINS! or by getting out of the car and taking pictures

ruins for sale!

eventually, we made it to kilkenny much faster than the customs lady claimed we would despite a rather extended detour due to a school parade or something.
there, we found an amazing hotel
with giant rooms

the other (bigger) bed isn't pictured. neither is the ceiling.

the restored kilkenny castle

and the kilkenny arts festival, which had the town all abuzz

we walked around and got some food at a himalayan restaurant which was quite tasty. after dinner we were completely stuffed and decided to take a walk to see the oldest abbey in the town, from the 9th century. we got there and found that it wasn't accessible because it was on the property of a diageo brewery. oh well.

instead, we headed toward the second oldest one, the st. canice cathedral. as we got closer to it, we heard some music so we went to see what was going on. there as a table set up at the door selling tickets and the woman told us that as part of the festival, some bands were playing including low, who i didn't really know but katie was pretty excited about possibly seeing. we asked about tickets and she said 25euro. that seemed a little steep, so we turned around to go. but seeing this, she said, well we do have two tickets here that you can have for free (i guess someone was going to pick them up and never did?). however it happened, we ended up in a 12th century cathedral listening to low. and it was amazing. although i must admit that i might have fallen asleep at some points because it was cool and dark and the music was beautiful and gentle and i was tired.

after the show, we went to a bar or two and then headed to bed.
the next morning, we went for a run, had complementary breakfast in the old castle stables, and toured the kilkenny castle before heading out to see a castle of our own...

these days

2009-08-14T01:01:00.007+01:00

the past few days have been a complete whirlwind. since last week, i've been to three other countries, seen three and a half blockmates, three family members, three family friends, made three new friends, and had one accidental run-in with a professor.

for the folks watching at home, here's the not-so-instant replay

friday 7 aug
-planned to wake up at 6. finally hear my alarm at 7:30.
-rush out the door to make my flight to amsterdam. miraculously get there with time to spare
-meet with up noor
-head to the anne frank house, which was really moving
-then head to the rijksmuseum for some dutch history + art. fun fact: rembrandt was actually his first name. i still don't know his last name.
-walk through the tulip market, where they sell not just flowers, but also bulbs:

-meet up with charlie, moira, joe, and kira (just meeting the last three for the first time)
-get dinner
-cannot figure out where nick is (apparently his texts weren't coming through) and hang out in a bar near the hotel, where we said we'd meet him
-noor and i head to bed while the others go back out and actually randomly run into nick wandering around the neighborhood but i guess refusing to admit that he was lost

saturday 8 aug
-wake up and have breakfast at the hotel then head out for the day
-go to the i amsterdam sign and proceed to take approximately 102830182 unnecessary pictures

-van gogh museum--super cool. we really liked the van gogh stuff obviously but were pleasantly surprised by some of the other stuff they had there. noor and i especially liked this one by Redon
-lunch with noor charlie and nick was followed by an awesome tour of the old heineken brewery
-we all hung out in the park playing cards for a little bit
-noor, charlie, nick, and i headed to the train station to go to brussels
-after a hilarious train ride we arrive in brussels and go to charlie's apartment where charlie made us dinner!
-then we had a slumber party!

sunday 9 aug
-woke up in time to catch the train back to amsterdam in time to catch my plane back to london
-met up with my parents who had just arrived that morning and katie who had gotten in on friday
-checked into my new room at the dorms
-dinner with the family
-settle in

monday 10 aug
-woke up and ran with katie
-showered, repacked, met up with our parents at westminster abbey
-headed to kings cross where we just barely made the last off-peak train to edinburgh
-got to edinburgh around 8, checked into our hotel there, arriving just in time to catch the sunset

-picked a place from the guidebook which had apparently closed but ended up have a great meal anyway
-katie and i went out for a drink then headed back to the hotel for bed

tuesday 11 aug
-morning run to arthur's seat with katie
-saw my dad off to glasgow where he had a meeting
-katie, mom, and i headed to the edinburgh castle, which was really cool. saw the one o'clock gun go off and saw the crown jewels of scotland which were pretty cool
-navigated through the crowds there for the fringe festival to eat lunch at the elephant house, where jk rowling started harry potter. castle views included.
-emergency stop at ye olde scottish christmas shop
-met dad back at the station
-dinner
-back to the train station again to catch the last train to london
-head home to bed

wednesday 12 aug
-wake up, run, bathe
-meet up with everyone at st. paul's. see the crypt, eat lunch down there, head to the dome with katie.
-i left them to head to the wellcome to wrap up a few things and took about a million pictures of pages in books to be read later
-dinner in notting hill gate with the family, connie, and rusty who was in town at the start of his own eurotrip adventure with noor--a good time was had by all. especially when the waiters brought the 2nd round of limoncello.
-connie took rusty, katie, and i to a club that she knew about and it was super fun

thursday 13 aug
-this morning (ah! all that was only yesterday??) woke up and got ready and headed to paddington
-took to the train to oxford to meet up with katie's friend james and his family. james finished his PhD at harvard last year and is dating a friend of hers.
-we get off the train and head to a pub for lunch where we run into a professor that i had last semester who was running the summer school program in oxford. strangely enough, he also knew james and couldn't figure out how we knew each other. i had also been in amsterdam with some of his students. and molly's roommate sonia had done the program two years ago. he was about to sit down at the table next to us and we ended up just joining the tables. it was a great lunch
-walked around oxford which is BEAUTIFUL. saw the museum of the history of science and walked around trinity college
-then we were whisked off by train back to reading where jenny's grandfather picked us up and took us back to their house
-had dinner with her grandparents at their club which was delicious. the club is in henley right by where the henley regatta finishes
-train back to london after a day that miraculously worked out.
-home!

tomorrow: long run, national gallery, proms?
saturday: ireland!

school's (almost) out!!

2009-08-06T19:53:00.003+01:00

today was our last day of class. we had powerpoint presentations yesterday. i did mine on the crinoline and it went pretty well. then today we sort of chatted with the class about what each of our papers are on. following that, anne took us out to a good bye lunch at a fancy place down the road from school.
my paper is almost totally finished. i have a full draft and just need to edit it! i'm also almost completely packed.

just in time because i leave at 10 tomorrow morning for amsterdam! it's been quite a production getting it all organized. i'll be meeting up with:
-noor, my roommate, who will be coming from D.C. and is in the air already!
-charlie, my blockmate, who will be coming from brussles
-nick, charlie's roommate, who will be coming from rotterdam
-sebastien, in winthrop, who lives in switzerland but i think is coming from pakistan? or just got back from pakistan? or something?
-moira, in winthrop, and two of her friends who have been on the summer school program in oxford
making plans with people in five different countries and four different time zones was pretty stressful but we did it!
and saturday night we're going to brussels and staying with charlie, then i head back to london sunday.

mk i'm really looking forward to the weekd! but i should go eat some dinner now

case of the mondays

2009-08-03T13:44:00.003+01:00

work work work

but saw tina yesterday! ate some kebabs and lazed about hyde park before sending her and griffin off to the airport. they flew back to ireland last night and they're on their way back to the states now. then she goes back to school on wednesday. (mom, she was excited to tell you that she saw me at church on sunday but then realized she was leaving before that. and you are too for that matter)

the kids who had gone got back from dublin. excited to hear their stories.

also, this is adorable.

people are also already starting their countdowns to getting home. it's strange to hear them talking about it because most of them are heading home on friday, but i still have a solid two weeks before i'm back in the states. i'm not really homesick or even necessarily ready (let alone anxious) to leave. but i think i will be when it's time.

back to the powerpoint.

the news from my [desk]

2009-08-01T15:21:00.007+01:00

fun thing: reading rare books that likely either don't exist anywhere else or haven't been opened in decades. good thing i think this is fun because this is pretty much the plan for the next three weeks. been in the british library for a good five hours now. i did see an original copy of the magna carta though! and have a couple draft-y pages of my paper going!

last night we had a picnic in hyde park with anne and jamie which was really nice. we were by the princess diana memorial fountain where kids can play so jamie took full advantage. for food, we had baguette, various deli meats, pate, salmon, 5 different cheeses, strawberries & cream, cherries, and madelines. and then elderflower water, lemonade and ginger beer to drink. it was delicious!

this morning, tina and her boyfriend got into london for the weekend and we're going to meet up tomorrow afternoon! so that should be exciting. and a nice break from the library...

this is also my last weekend in london--i'll be here til the 19th but will be on trips to amsterdam with some of the blockmates and dublin with katie! ah i can't believe how much i've done. or how much is still left to do.

lately

2009-07-30T10:43:00.004+01:00

i need to run to a meeting with my professor to talk about my projects BUT quickly:

-molly and madeline (and molly's sister abby) left yesterday. i miss them a lot already. we went paddleboating in hyde park and had a picnic for their last night
-summer school treated us to "all's well that ends well" last night. it was amazing. i was kind of concerned that i was going to fall asleep, but everyone ended up having a really good time. it was a great production with strange ways of inserting modernizing quirks. somehow, there was lingerie involved?
-i'm still working on figuring out these library systems. just when i think i have wellcome down, i realize i need to go to the british library and it's a whole new ballgame. ugh. but i'll get there. i do have five new library cards so far. souvenirs?
-we watched top gun the other night and even though i fell asleep for half of it. it's just so awesomely bad.

mk off to my meeting!

missing widener

2009-07-28T13:25:00.004+01:00

there is nothing like trying to figure out a new library system to make you feel really really dumb. as imposing as it can be, widener is at least familiar.

so far i have explored the wellcome library, the imperial college library, and the science musuem library. soon, i will get into the british library. that will be an adventure.

i just want my carrell...

and wireless internet would be nice too.

free concert fail and kew gardens

2009-07-26T00:07:00.015+01:00

so yesterday we went to the british museum.
there was a lot of really interesting stuff there but it was kind of strange because a lot of the plaques and pamphlets were sort of self-defensive about the right of the british to even have the objects, which gave an interesting spin to this amazing place. my favorite piece though was an (exclusively british) exhibit on pharmacology in the 20th century which laid out all the pills that a single person takes in his or her life. there was one each for a man and a woman. the man died when he was 76 and the woman was still alive at 82. looking at the drugs was a really interesting way to tell someone's story. for example, for the woman, it explained how such and such pills meant that she had carried pregnancies to term twice and these meant that she had had post-partem depression and those were her birth control and some others were when she lost a baby and then there was hormone replacement therapy, pills for obesity, chemotherapy, and anti-depressants. it was probably 20 feet long and it's really striking to see them all displayed like that. this was the best picture i could get of the actual pills although it doesn't quite get at the scale. but it was long. then last night we were supposed to go to a free concert. daniela and i were exhausted after the british museum though and had some stuff to do so we ended up heading out late and getting there after the time when they stopped guaranteeing entry. we waited in line for a bit but ended up just going home. it was kind of a bust but we didn't have anything invested in the concert anyway since we hadn't paid anything for the tickets, so it wasn't too big a deal.

then today, i went to kew gardens with molly, madeline, molly's sister abby, and becca's friend linda. it was so beautiful. here are some of my favorite pictures:

the palace of king george III where he spent the time when he was crazy
we were told to "mind the ghosts" on the 2nd floor

the waterlily greenhouse

some pretty girls by some pretty flowers

a shady grove

the hydrangeas were in bloom!

i apparently love hydrangeas...

it was a beautiful day

some ugly ducklings that will soon be swans!

the palm house

end of class

2009-07-23T16:50:00.001+01:00

yesterday marked the end of regular class, meaning that today i got to sleep in!
let's see... what happened this week?
monday oh yeah that was cambridge and we didn't get back til like 10:30pm
tuesday we got treated to amazing italian food and harry potter! which was really good
wednesday i went out with molly madeline linda and mike for chinese which was spicy
aaand yesterday, iTunes is doing this sweet thing where they hold concerts every night in the month of july and lottery off free tickets. i won tickets both for last night's show and tonight's show. last night was esser and graham coxon (who is apparently the guitarist for blur?) and tonight is a-ha and raemonn. so we went last night and it was pretty cool but the problem with a concert where everyone won free tickets is that everyone is kind of ambivalent about it and probably wouldn't have gone if it wasn't free so it's not as...energetic as other shows. for example, while we were waiting for graham to come on after esser finished, this guy and girl shove their way past us and a few minutes later come back again. the girl is standing right in front of us when she looks me in the eyes and yells "I JUST MET ESSER!!" i kind of gave her a blank stare and she continued "...you don't care do you?" and i was just like "nope...sorry..." and then she moved on. but maybe tonight's show will be better. if a-ha plays take on me.
ok i need to write a paper proposal today and then head to either the british museum or tate britain. hooray museum hopping!

punting on the cam

2009-07-20T22:37:00.013+01:00

today we headed to cambridge to continue our whirlwind tour of everything british. today's excursion was decidedly less academic than originally planned due to the unforeseen closure of museums on monday. who knew? so we had a looksee around the library at cambridge which was having a special exhibit on darwin (150th year since origins coinciding with the 800th year of the university=reason to party and by party i mean put together an exhibit in the room in the basement). they had a couple pretty cool things including a first edition of origins that darwin had sent to wallace in which wallace had crossed out every time darwin wrote "natural selection" and substituted "survival of the fittest" instead and then some sheets of the first draft manuscript of origin that had been given to darwin's kids as drawing paper and feature such scenes as "the battle of the fruits and vegetables" on the back. so that was neat.

then we had lunch with janet browne who is a harvard professor who is super duper into darwin and has basically made her entire career on studying his correspondences. she's doing research in cambridge for the summer. so we had a nice lunch at a little cafe where i had my first full english breakfast, only the vegetarian option which replaces black pudding (ew) with french fries (yum). after this delicious lunch we made the discovery that the museum was closed. so instead, we called up the punting place where we had made reservations for later in the afternoon, moved them 2 hours earlier, bought sodas and pastries, and headed to where our boats were!

punting was an adventure to say the least. there were 15 of us which meant that we had to go in 3 boats. but only 2 people (prof. durant and paul our TF) had ever punted before. i immediately volunteered to be in the non-experienced boat and it was AWESOME. we all traded off and did it and although it took each of us a few minutes we eventually got the hang of it and were even the first ones back to the dock at the end. but not without a few minor bumps into other boats. but no one fell off and we didn't have to use the emergency paddle! we basically went up the river cam along what is known as "the backs." there are the backs of 8 of the cambridge colleges which face onto the river on either side. they are among the oldest ones and are really beautiful.

nick prays while mike gets a less-than-a-minute tutorial in punting.
and we're off!

i give it a go next. mike is totally not clutching the gunnels for dear life...

the views of two of the colleges. on the left was st. john's and i'm not sure what was on the right
we basically had no clue what we were going by but would knowledgeably repeat any tidbit we heard from passing tour guides. highly effective.

gunneling up for chelsea buns!

nick is a superior tour guide while maxwell expertly navigates the bridges.
we overheard that the bridge in this picture is called the bridge of sighs because students supposedly need to walk through it to get to where they take their exams. or something.

sometimes, things got stressful. like when those kids in the boat on the left couldn't figure out how to go straight and resorted to palming their way along the bank.

things on the other end of the boat (and the river) were much more peaceful.

afterward, in celebration of surviving, i made a new friend with an old dog on the docks!

after all this we headed to the pub next door for fish and chips for dinner just to round out the typically british day. and then, just for good measure, a few of us headed to the eagle before hopping the train back to london. the eagle was an air force hang out for both brits and americans during world war II and has lots of cool memorabilia and stickers and graffiti from that time (although i didn't see any 82nd airborne stuff in there), but more significantly for me anyway, was also the pub where watson and crick announced that they had discovered the secret to life! pretty cool.
now it's a little after 11 and i have to do some reading. normal class tomorrow but no afternoon excursion (phew!) but we are going to see harry potter!!

bristol and bath

2009-07-19T19:32:00.013+01:00

this weekend we headed to bristol and bath and it was a very different experience than our trip to scotland to say the least.
first, we were heading there in order to see some of the engineering feats of isambard kingdom brunel (don't say those Victorians didn't know how to name people). the two major ones that we saw were the clifton suspension bridge and the ss great britain. there was a whole series of random things throughout the city that burnel did but these in particular were pretty amazing.
second, while edinburgh was a quaint town which was very much in touch with its past both culturally and architecturally, bristol was a much more industrial city and therefore suffered a lot of damage during world war II. the result is that much of the city is now much more modern apartment complexes built during the 70s and 80s taking up the river front property that had been car parks and half-destroyed buildings following the war. basically, it seems to have a lot of identity issues that edinburgh didn't have to deal with. for example, bristol has the largest surviving georgian square in england (where the first american consolate was located) a few hundred yards away from a giant tacky condo building that was build 10 years ago but already has 2x4s holding up the balconies on half the units.
third, because it's on the west coast, bristol is hit with all the weather coming off the atlantic much sooner than london. and thus is a lot rainier and generally miserable.
finally, i spent most of the weekend sick with a cold (NOT swine flu) and in my bed. saturday was our first morning without having to set an alarm in like two weeks and i took full advantage, staying in bed until the languid hour of 10 am and then getting back in for an hour and a half at 11:30.
with that as a preface, here are some pictures from bristol:

the ss great britain, which was the largest iron ship with a propeller built at the time
the whole bottom is rusty so they have to keep it dry to prevent further deterioration so it's in a dry dock with a glass casing around it and dehumidifiers which is really cool because you can walk around all underneath it!this is a view of the ship from within the dry dock, looking at the front of it. there are holes in it at some places where the rust has completely worn through the 150 year old iron. it didn't help that the boat spent probably 50 years of that time festooned off various islands.
on board the boat, we experienced life like a passenger would. one of the cabins featured someone who had to be quarantined. me too.
afterward, we headed to the park to try and see cabot tower but after hiking up a hill, we only discovered that it was closed for renovations. for all you cabot kids who might be reading this, john cabot is a big deal in bristol but i can't remember why exactly. something to do with fish trade in america in the 15th or 16th century and a wooden galleon named matthew. that's all i got for you.

overall, bath is a much better place than bristol. this is generally attributed to the fact that bath wasn't really bombed during the blitz, which is a generally positive development for any city. there wasn't too much stuff related to the course there but we had a good time going to high tea in the roman baths and hanging out around the city. we even attempted to watch a cricket game but it's a horrible spectator sport for the uninitiated. noor has since enlightened me on the rules and i think that i might vaguely sort of understand what the goal may be now. perhaps.

waiting in line for high tea in the roman baths. jamie, the four year old son of both our professors, was getting bored. he and i became friends when i literally paid him all the one and two pence coins in my wallet. i said i would "keep him posted" if i got any more and he responded "ok! you better post them to me!" he was also playing with a toy of the saber-toothed tiger from ice age and anne, his mom, asked if he knew what "saber" meant. he answered "it means to eat something slowly so you enjoy it" even though he had actually defined "savor" we were all really impressed.

anyway, high tea is amazing. more scones and pastries than you can eat. actually. but we were so hungry we didn't exactly savor it.

romans were here. there were a lot of "when in rome..." jokes, which is unusual due to the fact that we were not, in fact, in rome.

us, by the river avon

cricket, which we could only determine to be "baseball's drunk cousin" half the words on the scoreboard literally mean nothing to me.
eventually we made our way to the royal crescent which we assume is where the rich/elite/royal people hung out. we were too tired to figure this out at this point, as proven by this photo.

after an epic fight with the elements saturday night, this morning we headed back to relatively dry london. spent the train ride doing some awesome lsat prep. then most of the afternoon napping and doing reading. also got in a quick run and a group dinner.
tomorrow we're heading out bright and early to cambridge for darwin, picnicking, punting!

westward, ho

2009-07-16T08:57:00.006+01:00

heading to bristol in a few minutes but quickly:
went to the of montreal concert the other night. it was awesome
made risotto for team summer school last night. probably the heartiest risotto ever made there was so much stuff in it. but they really liked it so that was cool.
we finally figured out to split up the readings for class and then discuss them--definitely more productive than attempting to skim over 100 pages post dinner.
this week is pretty hectic sandwiched between two trips so not too much has happened. but we did go on a field trip to the wellcome library on tuesday and it was super cool. there was some stuff there which should be really good for my thesis and i officially have a reader's card. i'm going to see how many i can rack up. so far, if you include my widener carrel card, i have 3 library cards in my wallet and there is definitely at least one more coming if not more.
(is that a lame goal?)
ok shower time.
but here are some videos from the concert:

bedlam

2009-07-14T01:48:00.002+01:00

went for a run around regent's park last night--beautiful beautiful area. we were going to try to get tickets for the importance of being earnest which is playing in the outdoor theater there now but they ended up being sold out. just as well because this ended up being a long day as it was.
maybe as a break from the weekend which was pretty exhausting, we didn't have class today but did have a field trip out to bethlam royal hospital, aka bedlam. it was founded in 1247 and is the oldest functioning psychiatric hospital. although it used to be pretty ridiculous in there (visitors would/could just come in and wander around looking at the crazy people until the 1770s) hence the evolution of the word "bedlam", it's now a good, modern hospital.
the awesome part was when we got to look through the old case books from the 1890s. there were some really neat things including letters to and from patients in the hospital. one was a letter from a delusional girl to her deaf mother wondering if God would forgive her. it was pretty crazy to be reading this very personal thing from over a hundred years ago which was just tucked in a giant book as another piece of evidence regarding her sanity or lack thereof.
we also poked around the museum which was smaller than my bedroom (take your pick of bedrooms--home, winthrop, or london it was smaller than each of them. literally) and then headed home.
spent the afternoon dealing with getting my computer fixed and reacquainting myself with the internet which is a brilliant brilliant thing. i made some risotto for molly and i then came back to do work. some school-blogging and some reading then some not-school-blogging.
but now, some sleep!

edinburgh--harry potter theme weekend

2009-07-14T01:28:00.013+01:00

edinburgh is probably my new favorite city. while i don't have the time or energy to go into the whole thing right now, it is amazingly quaint, beautiful, and full of so much history and pride. other thing it's full of: harry potter references. awesome. some pictures:

platform 9 and 3/4 at kings cross is actually between platforms 8 and 9

view from half way up arthur's seat, my new favorite place ever

falling rocks are pretty funny

university of edinburgh on our historical walking tour.

we were standing below where darwin would've had anatomy lecture during his short time there

in greyfriar's cemetary
the group outside the gates to the school where JK Rowling's kids went which inspired Hogwarts

where JK wrote the first chapters!
we had coffee here. and used the bathroom for good measure.

i thought daddy would enjoy the fact that they are apparently big on sailor jerry in scotland.
(they also had 10 cane)

botanic gardens lily pad pond--super cool.

on top of arthur's seat with the edinburgh castle in the background
our hostel was just below the castle and also had a sweet view of it. but not this sweet.

part of the world record largest collection of whiskey bottles
these ones are shaped like books in order to look like they belong on your shelf
there were also chess sets, little dogs, eagles, and about 300 others

a 360 of the view from the top of arthur's seat. it was pretty windy so maybe turn down the volume
in the middle there, i zoom in on the edinburgh castle which we could see from our hostel. and it finishes on the other peak of the park which i climbed half way up before turning around

back(b)logging

2009-07-14T01:14:00.009+01:00

it's pretty late and i need to head to bed but i wanted to include some pictures from crossness pumping station last week, which is a victorian sewage pump house opened in 1865 and is pretty awesome. it's in disrepair now but they are in the process of restoring it and got one of the four 3-story engines up and running. there's a video of the place in action. also, nicole and i got to turn the one restored engine on which was cool because prince charles also did that a few years ago when they re-opened it!

(speaking of things that are up and running: my internet. somehow, i managed to delete my computer's ability to have an IP address. but the computer help people got everything back together so that's good.)

so, crossness:

wall featuring a lot of names for the toilet. tehe
this was in a prominent place in the museum area.

we also went to westminister abbey after this for evensong. i think i mentioned this but it was really cool. and while we were in there there was the first thunderstorm which really added to the effect of being in a gloomy old chuch!
on wednesday we went to the hunterian museum which is in the royal college of surgeons london. basically it was a giant collection of every kind of diseased body part or creature in i think 3,000 jars throughout two floors. it was really amazing to see. there was also a history of surgery thing with all sorts of pictures of people before/during/after surgery which was gruesome but cool as well.
later that night we met up with charlie who was visiting from brussels. he had read about john snow one of his classes so we went out there and then took some dumb pictures afterwards. they seemed necessary at the time.

no pump--no water--no cholera

thursday--headed to edinburgh!

the internet sucks but edinburgh rocks

2009-07-12T17:20:00.003+01:00

so my internet is apparently still broken. which means it was unlikely actually related to excessive downloading and more of an actual IT problem. that sucks.

thing that doesn't suck: EDINBURGH
i want to move there. it's amazing. (minus the part where they only get like 5 hours of daylight in winter...but whatever.)
we had a great weekend, one highlight of which was going to the top of arthur's seat and seeing the whole city laid out in front of me. it was really amazing because it was almost a perfectly clear day. i'll put up some pictures once my internet is back in working condition.

oops

2009-07-07T23:51:00.002+01:00

in an attempt to reclaim my right to pandora, i accidentally on purpose downloaded a program that was apparently more than 5gb which is apparently the limit on downloads.
thus i will have no internet for 48 hours.
(writing this on helen's comp)
48 hours puts me at thursday at about 7pm.
unforch, thursday at about 7am (roughly?) we are leaving for edinburgh for the weekend.
so unless i come across a sudden wealth of free wifi and/or internet cafes, there will be limited communication this weekend both on the blog and in general--mom, don't freak out.
in the mean time, i am getting my reading and lsat work done with shocking efficiency...

but in other more exciting news, today we went to the crossness pumping station which was built to pump sewage into the thames way downriver in 1859-65. while the station itself was in disrepair, they have restored part of it and have a working beam engine up and running (which i got to turn on!). although the actual pumping station has been replaced, the sewers that were layed down 140 years ago are still in use, which is pretty crazy. the project was on a scale much larger than the big dig. so that's pretty neat. despite the smell.

after that we went to evensong at westminister abbey today which was SO COOL. we saw the graves of lyell and darwin among other famous people. while i may have fallen asleep during part of it, the whole effect was especially awesome due to the thunderstorm that was happening outside (and apparently causing flooding?)

also charlie (my blockmate) is in town! hooray! we're going to have dinner tomorrow night
ok helen needs her computer. but more (including pics and vid) once my internet ban is up...ugh

blog roll added

2009-07-06T17:56:00.003+01:00

apparently a blog roll is a thing that you're supposed to do, so i've added a few on the side. mostly, links to other friends' "my summer in ____" blogs, but my other friends are more adventurous than i am and are in places like africa and india. let me know if there are more to add.

free concerts in our free time

2009-07-06T17:05:00.009+01:00

yesterday, most of the morning was spent in a flurry of blogging as our response-paper-blogs were due. after a run with molly, i packed up some lunch and helen and i headed to hyde park. there was another music festival in the same place where last week's springsteen performance was. on the bill this week: kanye west!

by the serpentine on the way to the show

sidenote: every night i am amazing by how late the sun sets. since we're so far north, it's literally still bright out close to 10 pm. the picture above was taken around 7:30 pm. it's really really cool but seriously throws off any sense of what time it is. now that i'm thinking about it, this sort of explains why tea time is so late in the day. it's weird to eat dinner when it's still bright out, but you need something to tide you over. so clever...
anyway, helen and i hung out a little bit and listened to q-tip who was on before kanye and who we unfortunately know little to nothing about. but we enjoyed ourselves. about 9, molly, madeline, mike, and whitney joined us and we had a nice little group. also, whitney had made super delicious cookies earlier which we appreciated. we didn't have the greatest view, but we still heard kanye for free!

i guess this view is why some people paid...but we loved it

it was a little chilly once the sun (finally) set

we had no class today to give us a day off before our two consecutive weekend trips, so i tagged along with molly to the imperial war museum. while she worked in the archive, i looked around for a couple hours. it was both one of the best and most depressing museums i've ever been in. the exhibit on children during world war two really got to me. the holocaust exhibit was also not the most uplifting, as is to be expected. i did think it was slightly funny though that the place where they would store the excessive number of shoes and clothes from the victims, they would refer to as "Canada" because it was the "land of plenty". i've never really thought of Canada as the utmost example of a land of plenty, but that could be me being US-centric.
in another part of the museum, they had an exhibit about post-war rations and there i saw my first can of klim!
powdered milk which is sort of like the opposite of milk which is "milk" backwards-->klim! growing up in aruba, my dad would have this instead of real milk since they coudn't transport it there. even though i've never had it, this was a nice little reminder of home in a roundabout kind of way.

after that, i met back up with molly and we headed home. but since we were almost on the end of the line, we got a whole tube car to ourselves. we found this exciting enough to warrant a photo:
she headed to the v&a to learn about 19th cent. life and i, tired from just walking around one museum, headed home to finish up laundry (hooray clean clothes) and do some work.

today is also the first day that it's rained during the day really. there was a thunderstorm a week ago saturday, but it passed pretty quickly and was after i had already settled in for the night. but this seems like it's going to sprinkle all afternoon. hopefully it will let up enough for a run. at least it's cooled down a little bit. i have the door open to the garden and it's pretty nice in here right now.

well, now what?

2009-07-06T10:00:00.000+01:00

there is no pandora in the UK????????

Dear Pandora Visitor,

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

an expat independence day

2009-07-05T15:49:00.008+01:00

yesterday, in honor of america's 233rd birthday, molly, madeline, and i decided that the most patriotic thing we could possibly do was obviously to go to windsor castle and run through the gardens. in short, it was amazing.

locked outside the gates before starting
looking back down "the long walk" at the castle. at 2.3 miles, it's a seriously long walk

lily pads in a random pond that we stumbled upon when we decided to take a detour
they covered almost the whole surface.

molly in "senior portrait pose" by obelisk lake
(the obelisk is to the left of the tall tree off to the right)

the copper horse at the end of the long walk, mimicking the rider's pose
(we are embarrassing)

we were trying to keep to a route that we had seen in a guide book, but there were so many paths and so many things to see that we quickly lost the original route and settled on running for time. it was a slightly cloudy day but that was appreciated because it meant it was a little cooler. basically, we just wandered around the grounds coming across things like the polo grounds, a totem pole, random bodies of water, the cumberland lodge, and a lot of horseback riders. we met back up with madeline and grabbed lunch at a grocery store which we ate waiting for the train back. including the 30-50 minute train ride (the way out was local; the way back was express) we were only gone for about 6 hours. it was a really nice little day trip. and something that i'll remember much more than seeing a million stately rooms inside the castly itself (which we didn't want to pay for and didn't think they would appreciate our post-run-selves)

for the afternoon, we had heard about an expat gathering in battersea park and had been planning on heading over there for burgers and fireworks. unfortunately, someone had forgotten to register the proper forms for the fireworks, but we did have a quite nice day in the park. the lounging on the grass was appreicated after the busy morning. following this, we eventually made our way to the pig's ear pub where we had a drink over a scrabble game. the staff there wasn't too friendly, but it was still fun.

this morning helen and i slept in, not leaving our beds until almost noon. then it seemed like everyone in the program was scrambling to get the response-paper-blogs posted because they are due sunday evenings. we need to do four of them a week. now that i have them out of the way, molly and i are going to go for a short run and later tonight there is a festival in hyde park similar to the one last weekend in that we should be able to crash it (at least i'm hoping it is since i've talked it up to the summer school kids...). but kanye west is headlining so we're going to go have a picnic dinner and hopefully hear him play for free!!

19th cent. gear

2009-07-05T14:25:00.002+01:00

last week during our walking tour, we were in the victoria & albert museum which seems to really like hands-on activities. anne, one of our professors, found a side room with victorian-era clothing and grabbed the closest two students to model it for her.
the results were me in a crinolin which goes under the skirt of dresses and mike in a coat.

mike having problems buttoning up

there was also a corset but i shushed the girl who was trying to point it out to anne.
(i just saw this picture and it reminded me)

portabello road and brick lane

2009-07-04T23:48:00.002+01:00

yesterday afternoon, molly and i walked over to portabello road to check out the markets. it was a friday near the end of the day so some vendors were particularly keen on getting rid of some stuff by lowering prices, but we resisted for the most part. after wandering through the antiques, spending a long time browsing through some old books, picking up some nectarines, and ignoring the poorly made new clothes, we came to the used clothes section. this proved to be a haven for everything from 1920s underwear to 1970s hippie outfits to modern clothes. although we escaped the clutches of one vendor who was set on selling us a school uniform blazer that was probably made for a 4 year old (i tried it on and it was so tight i had to shrug my shoulders and the sleeves ended halfway up my arm. molly's only comment was "it makes your arms look really skinny"), we were caught by a man selling broaches which molly was looking for. i also picked up a purse for L2. overall, it was a success.

molly and madeline were having dinner and then going to a show with madeline's aunt so i headed back home to meet up with team-summer-school for dinner. we were planning on going to brick lane. i am willing to guess that this is where the brick masons used to work; now, it's a thriving indian/south asian area with more restaurants you would think could possibly be supported. i had heard that when you go you should bargain with the people to get the prices down. we were going in a group of 10 people, however. this was a big deal. mike was leading the group down the street and although we already had a restaurant in mind from some of our guidebooks, they kept giving him better and better deals as we walked down the street. free naan. free naan and rice. free naan and rice and papadum. no one will pay more than L10. private room. private room with 20% off. we finally settled on a place that would give us an upstairs air conditioned room and 35% off. we had a great time and a great dinner for just L9 each, including a pretty generous tip. after dinner, we headed home on the tube.

overall, a good day.

swiftly and with purpose

2009-07-03T13:31:00.017+01:00

ok this post is kind of long but there is a lot of multimedia stuff so it really isn't as long as it seems. but what it lacks in conciseness it makes up for in nerdiness.
first off, in a previous post i mentioned that i was doing lsat work in the garden out back but that the photo-uploader wasn't working. now it is. so here's where i do my lsat homework!

this next one is the view from my room of my little work station.

definitely beats a normal lsat class any day.

now, yesterday we went on a mega-walking tour of historical medical sites throughout london. it was guided by this older woman who really nice and incredibly knowledgeable and kind of how i imagine a british grandmother. she kept getting frustrated that we (at one third her age...) weren't walking fast enough and as she hustled down the street kept yelling over her shoulder "walk swiftly and with purpose!" we did our best. sort of.

a quick list of things that we saw includes:
-guy's hospital by the london bridge which was one of the first places that would take infectious or chronic patients
-a 19th century operating room that was in the attic of an old church across the street from the hospital, removed to there so that the screams wouldn't bother the sick people (but apparently the praying people didn't mind?)
-st. bart's hospital opened in the 12th century
-detour during lunch to millenium bridge
-various sites around soho (which is called that because it used to be fields outside the city proper and people would go hunting there and "so-ho" is a hunting cry) including the garden that dickens based the manette family's garden on in a tale of two cities, where marx lived when he was in london for a bit, a variety of workhouses and hospitals and churches from the street
-john snow's water pump, where he figured out what was causing the outbreak of cholera--a bad water supply! so he removed the pump handle and the outbreak stopped. it was about 85 degrees and by that point we'd be running around for 7 hours so we were really disappointed to see that the handle was still missing...

here are some pictures from all that:

nick, amputating my leg on an actual 19th cent operating table.
he's holding a bone saw; other operating knives are in the wooden box on the right.

us, gathered around john snow's pump

after that rather long day, we took some time to recover. i went for a quick run then we had a group dinner of chicken tikka masala and fruit salad which was really good.
later, molly and madeline met up with us and most of the group went to a pub down the road where we discovered that british tv is bizarre, on the whole.

this morning we checked out the museum of natural history and got shown their rare books collection, focusing on darwin's and wallace's books and writings. it was really really cool. they published a version of on the origin of species in braille! molly crashed this as well and we were going to take stupid pictures pretending to read that but they put it away before we got the chance. but here are some pictures i did get to take while there.

me and my roommate in front of a giant dinosaur in the entrance hall to the musuem,
which has been discussed as a "cathedral for science"

molly super pumped about some fossils, although they weren't collected by mary anning

some cool butterflies from wallace's personal collection

and THEN we went to the science museum, where one of our professors used to work, so he gave us a cool explanation of part of a steam engine, which we were lucky enough to see when it's running because i guess they only do it once a week or so.

the actual point that he was making (which i stopped the camera before he got to) was that when wallace was explaining feedback loops in natural selection, he used this device as an analogy.
finally, we were let loose in the science museum where they have watson and crick's original model of DNA as a double helix!

you can't see it too well in this picture, but the photo on the information placard is this one, which shows it much more clearly:

so cool! ok. off to portobello market with me!

welcome to wellcome

2009-07-02T01:06:00.004+01:00

apparently weekdays are going to be pretty busy and kind of mundane in terms of blogging, but although possibly only for the benefit of my parents and marianne-in-the-future, day 2 of class:

wisely packed my own lunch before heading to class this morning, which was good. talked about a sort of general overview of each class, first Victorian engineering, then Victorian medicine. after lunch, we headed to the Wellcome Museum of the History of Medicine, where we saw things like 19th century leech jars and amputating saws (HUGE serrated knives). i'll be heading back here to do research at some point soon because there was a ton that i didn't get to see. and my grant applications said i would. when we got back home i trudged through some lsat stuff, but did so after the happy discovery that my ethernet cord can not only reach my bed but also the picnic table outside, through our french doors opening onto the english garden, which was pretty idyllic (i took pictures but technology doesn't seem to be cooperating right now). after dinner, i had a short nap then started some work for tomorrow and now i'm about to head to bed.

tomorrow, we're going on a medical walking tour of london including bedlam (the hospital for lunatics) and john snow's water pump where he discovered that cholera was due to a bad water supply. becca, i wish you were here. also, i had to start another blog for school which is basically along the lines of 4 short response papers a week. although i would be surprised if you were intereted, just in case, it's here. there isn't much there yet and what is there is going to be all 19th century, all the time.
bed time!

First day of school

2009-07-01T02:08:00.003+01:00

quick post.
today was the first day of class and it was pretty good. talked about the victorian age in general, and in fact part of our reading included the wikipedia page, and also the great exhibition, which was essentially the first worlds fair, and crystal palace where it took place in hyde park. during lunch i relearned the value of a peanut butter jelly sandwich and regretted not doing so earlier, but am now stocked for the future. afterwards, we went on a walking tour around the college and kensington and learned that everything here is named for queen victoria's husband, albert (no last name) prince consort.
molly and i then ran to westminister, passing buckingham, harrod's, and parliament which was pretty cool. shower at home then back to molly's for dinner and awaiting madeline's arrival! she got in literally as i was about to walk out the door.
now home again, doing some reading for tomorrow. it's getting late so i should get back to it, but i'm excited for the next few weeks!

(sorry for excessive wikipedia links, but in case anyone cares, that's what i'm learning about; if you want more than wikipedia, click around here for some good primary sources)

Pictures

2009-06-29T21:46:00.001+01:00

now, since i have the luxury of a stable, if wired, internet connection, i have added pictures at the bottom of a few posts.
to save you from endless scrolling, they can be found here, here (including pictures of molly's place), and here.

Moving in

2009-06-29T21:03:00.004+01:00

this afternoon, post-non-wimbledon (which we prefer not to think of as a wimbledon-fail because we did see what was going on, didn't pay for it, and aren't really into tennis anyway), molly helped me lug my stuff the half mile from her apartment to my dorm. it's small and, well, dorm-like but with a bathroom in the room, and thus better than i expected. the kitchen downstairs features individual cubbies for dry food and mini-fridges divided into even minier fridges for each room. whoever thought of that is either a genius or insane because they are really small. my roommate is a rising senior at kenyon (and does not know becky, rox) and seems really nice. after unpacking my stuff, i met back up with molly for a run through battersea park which was really cool. it's right along the thames and has such sweet things as a peace pagoda and views of the prince albert bridge, which is pastel colored.

afterwards, headed to dinner with the group which was fun. it seems like a good collection of people so i'm excited to see what happens. the highlight of dinner was probably jamie, profs. harrington and durant's four year old son, playing with matchbox cars, making ever-louder noises until prof. harrington leaned across the table and said "jamie, can you please play with your cars in a more demure manner?" i don't think i knew what "demure" meant at fourteen, let alone four. awesome.

meeting for class tomorrow at 9:15. looking forward to it.
but before then i think i need to find a way to get my hands on a bowl and spoon in order to eat my breakfast...

"I've queued at Wimbledon 2009"; or, once a year people decide they might care about tennis after all

2009-06-29T18:04:00.008+01:00

so last night molly and i thought it would be nice to sing by wimbledon and see if we could nab some tickets. despite the fact that the guidebook referenced people camping out all night, we were not deterred. the ticket office opened at 9 so we figured that if we arrived around then, how bad could it be, especially on a monday morning? (famous last words)

after some minor mishaps with figuring which tube line we were supposed to be on due to the train randomly deciding to go to olympia despite saying wimbledon on it, we ended up at the closest tube stop at about 9:20. we walked down the street let's go had suggested and soon spied a line meandering down the sidewalk across the road, which didn't look too bad. crossing, we inquired. "that's the non-tickets line" ah that's us. "this way, then", we were told and pointed in the direction of a field. suddenly, it was clear that the line was very very long, winding and twisting through this parking lot/meadow. a nice old man volunteer informed us that 40,000 would be let in. there were a lot of people there but not 40,000 so we kept walking. we got a "queue card" which informed us of our numbers in line. 9825 and 9826. literally. hmmm. people were sprawled all around in lines, eating, drinking, and sun-bathing (thank god it was a beautiful day). we spent some time reading funny parts of let's go aloud and trying to figure out how long we would last. half an hour later of sitting in the sun, the line 2 over from us started moving. 20 minutes later the one next to us did. at this point we had been in the sun for about an hour and thus molly and i were not too hopeful, in addition to being hot/sweaty/verging on lightheaded. molly asked a volunteer how long and she said that about 9,000 people would get in this morning, then they would reach the 40,000 cap at which point no one could get in until about 4pm. it was 10:45am. we were done. but we had queued at wimbledon if nothing else and had the strawberry-shaped stickers to prove it.

we left the queue and headed for the street. instead of going back the way we had come, though, we walked by the actual tennis club, which we were relieved to find was another half mile of the line down the road. took some pictures, then continued into wimbledon town and hopped the tube home. pit stop in the grocery store and we soon had ourselves some grilled cheeses and tomato soup with a side of strawberries (without the clotted cream) at home. tasty.

molly, queuing.

Moving to Molly's: in which I gain a friend!

2009-06-28T22:34:00.007+01:00

either last night or this morning i heard from molly who had been in edinburgh that she was going to come back earlier than previously planned having finished what she needed to do in scotland a day early. so after a morning of cleaning and doing some reading (for class! imagine!) i packed up my stuff and made a little train comprised of my big suitcase with my little one attached to it and a bag from whole foods attached to that. molly's is a little more than halfway between connie's and the dorms so i was going to have to make this awkward trek in either case. i preferred to do part today and spend the night with her rather than not. but i got some sweet looks as i chugged along the sidewalk, looking pretty grumpy the whole way.

i got to molly's close to 3 and began to explore the place. she's also in a basement apartment with an entrance hallway that turns onto a kitchen-hallway, then a front room off one side that functions as a living room slash bedroom and a back bigger bedroom, and through there a bathroom. (molly's living here with her roommate from the school year madeline) the guy who owns this place is, to say the least, eccentric. there are books all over the place along the lines of proust and freud. and then there's some lighting equipment/spotlights in the living room, just in case it's a little dreary that day, as it can sometimes be in london. in the back room there are two large trunks, one which is labeled military medical supplies and the other military surgical supplies. back there, the mantle of the fireplace has a second function as a florescent light, illuminating everything placed on it from below. the door knocker is shaped like some sort of gremlin sitting on top of a mushroom. and the bathroom features a claw-footed bathtub, a wooden toilet seat with pull-chain, and no shower head. finally, there's a robot on the keychain he gave molly.

he apparently told molly that he cleaned the place up before he came but the thin layer of dust and clutter of junk tells a slightly different story. part of molly's instruction sheet regarding the oven (which doesn't have any temperatures on its dial) include the phrase "i usually turn it until the knob falls off". i guess that's generally a good indicator of when to stop. it's a good apartment though and will do just fine for the summer. we had some fun exploring it. (photos to come--my internet doesn't work here for some reason)

after getting beyond the apartment itself, molly and i donned running gear and a few pounds (the money...) and headed to hyde park. on the way we stopped in a grocery store and picked up two sandwiches, some apples and grapes, 2L of water, and a bottle of wine, all for less than L9! then went over to where people were gathering for the concert. we nabbed some of those stripped deck chairs (molly says "like lawn chairs but classier") and ate and drank while listening to dave matthews band across the divide in the festival. we eventually realized that we were supposed to rent the chairs and ditched them when a man came around to ask about them, so we heard bruce springsteen sitting on the grass! since we were there more for the idea of listening to live music in the middle of london for free (while others had paid upwards of L50 to get in), we didn't mind that we couldn't see the stage or could only hear probably every 3rd word. it was pretty awesome overall. and the people watching was glorious to say the least. toward the end of the boss' set we started heading out and ran back to her place.

some more exploring and discoveries and we have a pretty sweet sound system up and running and some mugs of tea (lacking handles). we also took our first baths in...a while. not sure how clean i feel though. i've offered molly use of my shower. tomorrow we're considering attempting to get cheap tickets to wimbledon but we'll see how that goes. the weather should be good again though, so moving in in the afternoon should be pretty easy.

(i'll try to keep these shorter than this in the future but i had to describe molly's place which is by no means done justice in this post)

the door-knocker. so welcoming!

luminescent mantelpiece--a necessity in any home

molly's bedroom/the living room. spotlight on the bedside table.

awesome

2009-06-28T01:10:00.003+01:00

this is so cool! a blog following this guy as he runs across europe. literally.
no seriously, it's amazing

maybe next summer...

Ben Harper and rain

2009-06-27T22:06:00.000+01:00

i went over to hyde park to check out the hard rock calling shows. i think i heard most of ben harper's set which was pretty good even from as far away as i was. but then the two days of beautiful weather (hot for the british but beautiful to a miamian; blue sky with a fair number of big fluffy clouds) gave way to completely black skies and lightning. so i headed home along with most of the other people picnicking outside the entrance.
maybe i'll have better luck tomorrow. also molly may come back to london from edinburgh a day early so maybe the two of us can go together!

Of kangaroos and modern art

2009-06-27T15:42:00.004+01:00

today i went over to borough market to see what they had to offer. i had heard stories from noor about giant brownies and obviously had to check it out myself. the market itself is a series of stalls underneath raised railroad tracks and is basically a million people and every kind of food that you could wish for. after getting myself an oyster card and sorting out the underground pretty seamlessly, i wound up over by london bridge and in the midst of every kind of fresh olive, cheese, or fish you could think up. walking around, i quickly found several stalls selling massive brownies and got one for myself from the third/cheapest one. as i kept walking, people had all sorts of sandwiches so i decided that the next stall i came to with sandwiches, i would get one. as i wandered down one of the aisles, the next one that i came to said "ostrich and exotic meat." perfect.

their special of the day was a kangaroo burger and i went for it, with cranberry sauce and sauteed onions. i'm not sure what it tasted like exactly. not quite like chicken. but it was definitely delicious.

with a burger and brownie in tow, i headed west down the south bank of the thames until i came to the tate modern. i think my favorite part about the british museum system might be the price--free (with the exception of special exhibits, but who really has the energy to see those anyway?) i've been there before but i was so happy to see it having taken that modernisms class last semester. alina, buchloh really served us well and you basically would've been in heaven, although i'm pretty sure you've been here before. i got to see duchamp's 3 standard stoppages, which makes so much more sense when it's in front of you than when it's up on a projector screen in a basement lecture hall, and other stuff that i could recognize or contextualize. it was really awesome being able to put what i'd learned to use. (hooray liberal arts education!)

after i saw everything there that was free, i walked across the millennium bridge to St. Paul's. i didn't go in because i didn't want to pay and plan on going to an evensong later, which gets you in for free. but there was a sign out front that there was a deacon ordination tonight at 5 or 5:30. i seriously considered sticking around for it because i thought it would be pretty cool, especially to compare it to the ones i've seen in St. Peter's and in Miami, but i had forgotten my book to kill time (it was just about 3) and am pretty sure that they weren't going to welcome shorts, a tshirt, and flip flops, even if they were welcoming the public. this fact was reinforced when i saw a woman in her 30s walking around in a pretty dress and a super fancy hat. is that still a thing in the anglican church? covering your head for mass? it was a really cool hat though and matched her dress perfectly. i was glad i had decided not to go to the service because that probably would've been awkward.

i did go around the back to the church garden and sit there and munch some more on my big brownie, then hopped on the tube and came home. tonight there's the 2nd night of a 3 night music festival in hyde park, hard rock calling. unfortunately, last night i missed the killers, the kooks, and passion pit (which tommy got me for my birthday!), but i'm hoping that i'll be able to hang around outside the ticketed area and be able to overhear ben harper, fleet foxes, and neil young tonight. which would be sweet!

view of the thames...

but probably more importantly, the kangaroo burger

Getting Acquainted

2009-06-26T19:02:00.002+01:00

i spent most of today on purposeful walks. to the grocery store, to see the dorms, to see the serpentine in hyde park, to see big ben, and to find an atm (which may or may not be called a cash machine?). all missions accomplished. and i only snuck one look into my guide book for a map and that was just to check i was on the right way which i was, although there was liberal use of the posted maps in hyde park. it's 625 acres and a bizarrely confusing place. for comparison, boston common is 50 acres, the principality of monaco is 485 acres, and central park is 843 acres (thanks, wikipedia). but if you ask me, hyde park gets confusion bonus points for being extremely oddly shaped, in the same way that boston common isn't actually a square but you want to think it's a square but that's only going to put you out in the wrong place completely. only 12 times bigger. but eventually, after some accidental detours, i found my way.

another strange thing about london is that not only do none of the streets actually go straight but they are also all named rather than numbered. you would think i would be used to this concept from living in the gables, but it's pretty disorienting (disorientating--i am in london now; thanks for the prep, david attenborough.) being in a new city. for example, without turning once, today i walked for about a mile and a half down a single road and it changed names three times. alternatively, connie's street is divided into two parts which are actually neighboring streets with the first half the numbers on one part and the other half the next block down. both of which are dead ends. who comes up with this? it would be horrible to have to canvass here. or to invade, which was probably more the point.

anyway, i managed to figure out where i was, where i was going, and where i wanted to be. and found myself some food at the grocery store so now i'm stocked up on cereal, frozen burritos, and soup.

watched sideways after falling asleep apparently during scene 6 last night. connie came home from work and we ate here and then i read and tried to go to sleep, thinking myself exhausted. but i guess it was just a nap because now i'm up again; i blame jet lag. i'll give reading-until-i-fall-asleep another shot.

tomorrow: street markets and maybe a gallery or museum!

oh i also got a phone yesterday so if you potentially have need of my british phone number, email me. although i'm actually not sure what part of the 20 digit number they gave me is necessary to dial yet. but i'll get there.

Just touched down in Londontown!

2009-06-25T18:50:00.001+01:00

ok so technically i touched down in londontown thursday morning, but i really like that song so we're going to stick with it.

after an early morning flight out of miami, an interminable layover in raleigh, some serious lsat practice/not sleeping on the plane, and what i thought to be some pretty quick learning of the heathrow express/paddington station/taxi stands i wound up at connie's! i spent the day showering, napping, watching marie antoinette and generally recovering from the flight and jet lag. connie got home from work and we went out to eat a cute place which we decided should only sell dessert because that's what they did best. we had a banaffee fool out of pure curiosity and it turns out that it's banana and toffee and cookie crumbs and creme fraiche layered out in a little cup--awesome. we came home to watch sideways during which i promptly and predictably fell asleep.

connie's apartment is adorable, but i'm excited to move into what can most easily be described as dorms. it's actually a bunch of row houses and i'm can't quite tell from the pictures online whether we'll be sort of in a house or if they renovated it to be some sort of long hallway, which would be an interesting dynamic. i'll find out on monday though! i'm happy to be here a few days early and get my bearings and my time zone straight.

question: i know that here you drive on the left side of the street (and thus have been religiously looking right at every street corner) but does that translate to sidewalks? should i also be walking on the left side of those? it's hard to tell based on other people, but maybe there are just a lot of right-side-walking americans around. i've decided to err toward the middle of the sidewalk just in case. that way i'll be in everyone's way. perfect.

edit: ah, niblett has just informed me that in fact, it does not make a difference. good to know. thanks, dude.