It's been a while! Lots of work this past week and the next few as well, but I am coming back to the United States in only 2 weeks and 2 days! This trip has gone incredibly quickly, but I'm happy with the time frame...I've really loved London but I'm ready to go home.
I went to Nice with Sophie and Kate two weekends ago, which was absolutely beautiful. Such a blue ocean and smooth pebbles on the beach and gorgeous views of the mountains. We walked through the Flower Market, and I have officially determined that the orchid and lily are my favorite flowers. (I figured I should have one, for being-swept-off-my-feet purposes and all.)
AND I rode a bicycle for the first time since my car accident in tenth grade! It was easy to pick it back up, kind of like...well, like riding a bike. Riding along the coastline was so much fun. I did, of course, get horrendously sunburned, but I write now with a subtle tan that will disappear completely within the next three days. We also took a train to Monte Carlo in Monaco, which claims to be its own country, but passports were not required. Everyone there looked like they had just stepped out of a photoshoot. And I went to a casino and blew through 10 euros, though I did learn to play poker and I'm not horrendous at it.
My parents came last weekend! It was so nice to see them; I showed them London, and it all went very very quickly. But I was really glad I got to show them where I live and the places I go every day. Plus they got me boots :).
And now we have work. Lots and lots of work. Joy. Ah well, that's what the end of the semester is always like.
British Grammar of the Day:
One does not (insert verb here) anything; one "has a (insert verb here.)"
For example: I'll think. = I'll have a think.
We laughed. = We had a laugh.
This principle extends indirectly to a number of other common phrases, for example:
To try = to have a go, i.e., Have a go at eating this pork pie and mash.
To take a nap = to have a nap, i.e., College students need to have a nap as often as infants.
Also, a note on the word "do." I fail to understand why the Brits add "do" to the end of many sentences ending with a verb, but they do. (I just did too.)
i.e., "Are you aware of this obscure historical fact? No reason why you should do."
Cheers~
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Spring Break, Purim, Easter, etc...
It has been quite some time since my last update. A lesson in procrastination: turns out that the more you put off, the more you have to do. So this is a short rundown of a long past few weeks...
Sami came for spring break, and we basically took London. Highlights included: the SCIENCE MUSEUM(!!!), where we got to play with science experiments involving magnets, shadows, seeing through walls, bubbles, colors, the works (please see my scientific work of art here: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/sociallight.asp?videoID=60f3a7ad79534a9d8a7ea070f9c990df ); Billy Elliot the musical, a really stirring dance production with an incredibly talented 13-year-old boy in the lead role; tea and scones at the Kensington Gardens Orangery in the pouring rain; the Tate Modern as a whole--I love that place; the Vanity Fair exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery; the Irish festival in Covent Garden/Trafalgar Square on Saint Patrick's Day; and cupcakes at the famous Hummingbird Cafe in Portobello Market. Apologies for the dry recollections of what was actually an exciting (albeit long-ago) week.
The science museum's infrared cameras prove that I have some serious circulation problems. Note that my nose is the same color as my hair--which is DEAD:
The Spirit of Saint Patrick! (If our lips look unnaturally pink, it is due to some fierce experimental make-up at B Never 2 Busy 2 B Beautiful, a make-up store unaware of the extraneous nature of that first "b.")
We also experimented with socialized healthcare when my poor beleaguered roommate ate something funky and ended up with hives. We had to walk to the emergency room at 4 in the morning, having been informed by the 999 (not 911) operator that, because she was still breathing, she would not receive an ambulance dispatch for several hours. Super. After being turned away at not one but two doors to the emergency room, we were finally accosted by SECURITY (that's right) and led to the correct entrance. Where Matt the night nurse pumped cortizone into Laura and told us that our majors were useless. Hi, Matt. You're a nurse on the graveyard shift.
Post-allergy, Laura and I visited the Disney store at Covent Garden to make our room decor complete:
Then all us Yale-in-Londoners reunited for a 3-day field trip to Bath, which was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. We saw Stonehenge, historically exciting but cold and ultimately just a pile of rocks (says the camera-toting man beside me to his wife: "Smile and say, 'This is overrated.'")
But then we saw Stourhead, an enormous experiment in landscaping around a beautiful man-made lake with tunnels and Greek statues. It was so serene and gorgeous, frankly breathtaking. I would love to stroll there with a wrinkly friend when I retire.
The pub at Stourhead, no joke:
Also, I HIKED up a mountain!! I do not think Anna and/or Daniel read this, but they experienced my hiking failures in the California heat this summer, and this view from the mountain serves as my proof that it was just the lack of sunscreen and trees:
Finally, we arrived at Bath. I LOVED it. It used to be a big vacation spot for the British aristocracy, but it fell into disfavor in the early 1900s, and has renewed its popularity within the past 50 years or so. It was a beautiful mix of medium-sized town with stores and cafes and nightlife, Georgian architecture set against rolling green landscape, and historic site of Roman ruins and a natural hot spring that once served as a Roman bath.
And Andrea, Josh, Laura, and I went to a SPA for two hours, which was the absolute most luxurious thing I have ever done in my life. Enormous warm bath on the bottom floow, aromatherapy steamrooms with lavendar, mint, eucalyptus infusions, open-air bath on the roof with stunning views of the sun through the clouds and on the mountains. If I had seen this place earlier, I would have stayed an extra week to hang around Bath. It was truly one of the most simultaneously (paradoxically?) calming and exciting places I have ever been.
Fancy schmancy place where we took High Tea with hot cross buns and cinnamon butter, complete with pianist serenading us with Over the Rainbow, Fer Elise, etc:
Side of the chapel, angels climbing Jacob's ladder:
Me outside the chapel:
Bookstores amuse me:
Then today, I attended my first church service ever--Easter at Westminster Abbey!! It was really very interesting to see the ceremony of it, with the precession and the crosses and even the incense, which seemed rather Gothic to me but certainly gave a sense of awe to the whole proceeding. And I took communion, questionably sacrilege I know-- but I figure that the Anglican church doesn't actually believe in transubstantiation anyways, so I can deal with eating a bit of Christian symbolism for the sake of cultural experience. I was also really interested in the differences between the Christian and Jewish service, particularly the representation of G-D. While the pastor's sermon relating the tale of Easter seemed to describe a fluid transition between Old Testament and New Testament G-D, the Christian service was all about G-D's love, which simply does not exist in the Judaic service. In fact, I was really struck by the Christian focus--even rhetorically--on the words "love" and "death," particularly the combination of the two in Jesus' love for humanity allowing him to triumph over death. Judaism deals very little with death or the afterlife, and I couldn't help but feel that Christianity tended toward a more modern sentiment of answering man's fears and desires for continued life after death. It was a more comforting feeling than the Jewish service, I would say, but it also felt simply less ancient to me (a historical fact) and therefore less rooted in the spirituality of generations. In conclusion: I am Jewish through and through. But this was a really interesting experience, and I would love to see a Protestant service someday.
And for an alternative religious experience...Laura and I attended the official LONDON STUDENT PURIM PARTY on Thursday night!! All of London's student Jews came out for the equivalent of Jewish Halloween, and Laura and I dressed up with feathers in our hair (thank you, 96-pence art pack from Tesco), and we serendipitously met fellow costumed Purim-goers on the tube and followed them to the party and it was lovely.
Pretty cemetery (this has nothing to do with anything, but I guess we could extrapolate to the whole being dead/not thing that plays into Easter):
And I feel much better having rectified my blogging delinquency. Naptime :).
P.S. Eurotrip anyone?
Sami came for spring break, and we basically took London. Highlights included: the SCIENCE MUSEUM(!!!), where we got to play with science experiments involving magnets, shadows, seeing through walls, bubbles, colors, the works (please see my scientific work of art here: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/sociallight.asp?videoID=60f3a7ad79534a9d8a7ea070f9c990df ); Billy Elliot the musical, a really stirring dance production with an incredibly talented 13-year-old boy in the lead role; tea and scones at the Kensington Gardens Orangery in the pouring rain; the Tate Modern as a whole--I love that place; the Vanity Fair exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery; the Irish festival in Covent Garden/Trafalgar Square on Saint Patrick's Day; and cupcakes at the famous Hummingbird Cafe in Portobello Market. Apologies for the dry recollections of what was actually an exciting (albeit long-ago) week.
The science museum's infrared cameras prove that I have some serious circulation problems. Note that my nose is the same color as my hair--which is DEAD:
The Spirit of Saint Patrick! (If our lips look unnaturally pink, it is due to some fierce experimental make-up at B Never 2 Busy 2 B Beautiful, a make-up store unaware of the extraneous nature of that first "b.")
We also experimented with socialized healthcare when my poor beleaguered roommate ate something funky and ended up with hives. We had to walk to the emergency room at 4 in the morning, having been informed by the 999 (not 911) operator that, because she was still breathing, she would not receive an ambulance dispatch for several hours. Super. After being turned away at not one but two doors to the emergency room, we were finally accosted by SECURITY (that's right) and led to the correct entrance. Where Matt the night nurse pumped cortizone into Laura and told us that our majors were useless. Hi, Matt. You're a nurse on the graveyard shift.
Post-allergy, Laura and I visited the Disney store at Covent Garden to make our room decor complete:
Then all us Yale-in-Londoners reunited for a 3-day field trip to Bath, which was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. We saw Stonehenge, historically exciting but cold and ultimately just a pile of rocks (says the camera-toting man beside me to his wife: "Smile and say, 'This is overrated.'")
But then we saw Stourhead, an enormous experiment in landscaping around a beautiful man-made lake with tunnels and Greek statues. It was so serene and gorgeous, frankly breathtaking. I would love to stroll there with a wrinkly friend when I retire.
The pub at Stourhead, no joke:
Also, I HIKED up a mountain!! I do not think Anna and/or Daniel read this, but they experienced my hiking failures in the California heat this summer, and this view from the mountain serves as my proof that it was just the lack of sunscreen and trees:
Finally, we arrived at Bath. I LOVED it. It used to be a big vacation spot for the British aristocracy, but it fell into disfavor in the early 1900s, and has renewed its popularity within the past 50 years or so. It was a beautiful mix of medium-sized town with stores and cafes and nightlife, Georgian architecture set against rolling green landscape, and historic site of Roman ruins and a natural hot spring that once served as a Roman bath.
And Andrea, Josh, Laura, and I went to a SPA for two hours, which was the absolute most luxurious thing I have ever done in my life. Enormous warm bath on the bottom floow, aromatherapy steamrooms with lavendar, mint, eucalyptus infusions, open-air bath on the roof with stunning views of the sun through the clouds and on the mountains. If I had seen this place earlier, I would have stayed an extra week to hang around Bath. It was truly one of the most simultaneously (paradoxically?) calming and exciting places I have ever been.
Fancy schmancy place where we took High Tea with hot cross buns and cinnamon butter, complete with pianist serenading us with Over the Rainbow, Fer Elise, etc:
Side of the chapel, angels climbing Jacob's ladder:
Me outside the chapel:
Bookstores amuse me:
Then today, I attended my first church service ever--Easter at Westminster Abbey!! It was really very interesting to see the ceremony of it, with the precession and the crosses and even the incense, which seemed rather Gothic to me but certainly gave a sense of awe to the whole proceeding. And I took communion, questionably sacrilege I know-- but I figure that the Anglican church doesn't actually believe in transubstantiation anyways, so I can deal with eating a bit of Christian symbolism for the sake of cultural experience. I was also really interested in the differences between the Christian and Jewish service, particularly the representation of G-D. While the pastor's sermon relating the tale of Easter seemed to describe a fluid transition between Old Testament and New Testament G-D, the Christian service was all about G-D's love, which simply does not exist in the Judaic service. In fact, I was really struck by the Christian focus--even rhetorically--on the words "love" and "death," particularly the combination of the two in Jesus' love for humanity allowing him to triumph over death. Judaism deals very little with death or the afterlife, and I couldn't help but feel that Christianity tended toward a more modern sentiment of answering man's fears and desires for continued life after death. It was a more comforting feeling than the Jewish service, I would say, but it also felt simply less ancient to me (a historical fact) and therefore less rooted in the spirituality of generations. In conclusion: I am Jewish through and through. But this was a really interesting experience, and I would love to see a Protestant service someday.
And for an alternative religious experience...Laura and I attended the official LONDON STUDENT PURIM PARTY on Thursday night!! All of London's student Jews came out for the equivalent of Jewish Halloween, and Laura and I dressed up with feathers in our hair (thank you, 96-pence art pack from Tesco), and we serendipitously met fellow costumed Purim-goers on the tube and followed them to the party and it was lovely.
Pretty cemetery (this has nothing to do with anything, but I guess we could extrapolate to the whole being dead/not thing that plays into Easter):
And I feel much better having rectified my blogging delinquency. Naptime :).
P.S. Eurotrip anyone?
Friday, March 7, 2008
Sunflowers
Spring break!!! I am staying here in London for break, but SamiBo is coming to visit me, and we are going to hit up everything that London has to offer. Much walking to everywhere. It will be lovely to have nothing better to do with my day than to start walking in the morning and come back whenever we feel like it. I am so excited!! :)
So today, Laura and I went to East London for an East Festival celebrating that region of the city. There was this hugeee food fest area with all sorts of really fresh stuff, so we got a veggie burger loaded with crap and walked around some. Among the things we saw: A dress made out of ties. A wool-maker. A felt-maker. A petting zoo!!--sheep, a pony, a donkey, chickens. We also got some wares from a van called "Choc Star," which apparently drives around the city and sells chocolate goodies and is both famous and fabulous. Yum.
Then we stopped at this Salvation Army-like place. I bought a "teaching children poetry" book. Laura bought a blue sunflower. Both of these add importantly to the free yellow daffodils some street vendor gave us. They also contribute to the decor of our newly spotless and organized flat! It's true. We worked hard.
Then for dinner (I swear we did more than eat today--there was much walking between choco-van and dinner time), we mashed sweet potatoes into kidney and black beans with tomato paste, added zucchini carrots onion broccoli bell pepper coriander chili and cumin, and had sweet potato-bean burritos with guacamole and salsa. Culinary masterpiece. And we made coffee raspberry muffins from scratch. Really, Laura and I are domestic goddesses. There are just no other words.
And now we are going to complete a lovely day by watching the glories of Whitney Houston in "The Bodyguard."
Musing of the day:
If one happens to get on the wrong tube line on the way back from a grand outdoor festival, and one happens to be carrying quite a large artificial blue sunflower, it is probably wise to exit the train and backtrack at the next stop, rather than creating a commotion by whipping around furiously trying to read alternative maps posted around the walls of the car.
Q&A of the day:
Where do you find a mop in this city? Answer: Nowhere.
So today, Laura and I went to East London for an East Festival celebrating that region of the city. There was this hugeee food fest area with all sorts of really fresh stuff, so we got a veggie burger loaded with crap and walked around some. Among the things we saw: A dress made out of ties. A wool-maker. A felt-maker. A petting zoo!!--sheep, a pony, a donkey, chickens. We also got some wares from a van called "Choc Star," which apparently drives around the city and sells chocolate goodies and is both famous and fabulous. Yum.
Then we stopped at this Salvation Army-like place. I bought a "teaching children poetry" book. Laura bought a blue sunflower. Both of these add importantly to the free yellow daffodils some street vendor gave us. They also contribute to the decor of our newly spotless and organized flat! It's true. We worked hard.
Then for dinner (I swear we did more than eat today--there was much walking between choco-van and dinner time), we mashed sweet potatoes into kidney and black beans with tomato paste, added zucchini carrots onion broccoli bell pepper coriander chili and cumin, and had sweet potato-bean burritos with guacamole and salsa. Culinary masterpiece. And we made coffee raspberry muffins from scratch. Really, Laura and I are domestic goddesses. There are just no other words.
And now we are going to complete a lovely day by watching the glories of Whitney Houston in "The Bodyguard."
Musing of the day:
If one happens to get on the wrong tube line on the way back from a grand outdoor festival, and one happens to be carrying quite a large artificial blue sunflower, it is probably wise to exit the train and backtrack at the next stop, rather than creating a commotion by whipping around furiously trying to read alternative maps posted around the walls of the car.
Q&A of the day:
Where do you find a mop in this city? Answer: Nowhere.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Sigh...Education
Sadly, little of note has happened here since my last update. I spent the entire weekend and week working on a history research paper, an art history research paper, and two theatre reviews, all due during the week. Thursday was a day of recuperation. Until this point, I had mostly forgotten that I am indeed still in school, and must work as such.
Thursday night, all of us hung out in Kate and Sophie's place next door, which was all the more fun because we had all been stressed in equal measure this week. Then yesterday Laura and I saw this "Sleeping and Dreaming" exhibit at a museum nearby, but we were disappointed at the surface-level mix of art, history, and science that the museum failed to adequately bring together.
And at night...I saw Wicked in London! Josh called at 6 PM saying he could get tickets, so of course I freaked out and agreed. One hour later, I was up in the rafters in the Apollo Victoria Theatre for twenty pounds. Totally worth it. The girl who played Elphaba was fantastic, but Glinda's speaking voice was so damn annoying I wanted to take a munchkin hostage until it stopped. Glindas should stop trying to imitate Kristin Chenoweth's voice, which is naturally high-pitched, and just speak. So annoying. But still a lovely play, even though I missed Erica / twinnies / Debbie who I have seen the play with at home.
And I just bought tickets to go to Nice, France at the end of the month!! Very exciting :).
Thursday night, all of us hung out in Kate and Sophie's place next door, which was all the more fun because we had all been stressed in equal measure this week. Then yesterday Laura and I saw this "Sleeping and Dreaming" exhibit at a museum nearby, but we were disappointed at the surface-level mix of art, history, and science that the museum failed to adequately bring together.
And at night...I saw Wicked in London! Josh called at 6 PM saying he could get tickets, so of course I freaked out and agreed. One hour later, I was up in the rafters in the Apollo Victoria Theatre for twenty pounds. Totally worth it. The girl who played Elphaba was fantastic, but Glinda's speaking voice was so damn annoying I wanted to take a munchkin hostage until it stopped. Glindas should stop trying to imitate Kristin Chenoweth's voice, which is naturally high-pitched, and just speak. So annoying. But still a lovely play, even though I missed Erica / twinnies / Debbie who I have seen the play with at home.
And I just bought tickets to go to Nice, France at the end of the month!! Very exciting :).
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Noah's Ark, Paris Style
Long-awaited Paris update!! I have been putting this off because there is oh-so-much to say, but now I realize that the longer I wait the less I have to say because of my lamentable forgetfulness, so here goes... ('tis long but interesting, I promise...)
On Thursday (Valentine's Day), Laura, Josh, and I concluded class and raced to the airport, having cut our time very close between class and flight. Somehow we arrived with time to spare, so of course we sat around in the bookstore and cafe until we had no time to spare, and had to literally run to the gate before they shut us out. So we went Easyjet to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, and the entire flight was only about one hour until we were deposited onto foreign(ish) soil.
We found our hotel (more on this later), and went to a cafe for a late dinner. As I experienced when I was in Paris this summer, France offers very little in the way of meals if the only meat you like is chicken. I know not what the vegetarians do. There is so much ham that I can only think it symptomatic of France's anti-Semitism. Still, I did not end up with food poisoning this trip, which I sadly cannot say for my first Parisian experience. Reason #1 for which this trip was awesome.
Josh had made reservations for the night at a place called "Hip Hotel." When we reached the address listed, we found a building called "Hotel Atlas." First indication that there was a reason our accommodations were so cheap. (More on this later.) We entered and encountered County Man, with whom our interactions went like this:
Us: (breaking out the rusty French) C'est combien? (How much does the room cost?)
County Man: *mumble mumble* the jist is "I owe you 64 cents."
Us: OK.
County Man: *counts some change, gets up to 60. Looks at it. This is incorrect. Tries again. Gets 65. Incorrect again. Starts over.*
Us: C'est pas grave, garde-le. (It's fine, just keep it.)
We are told that our room is on the 5th floor (really the 6th, because Europeans consider the ground floor as floor zero), and that there is no elevator. We climb a very windy staircase. We continue to climb. We understand why the French are so skinny. We arrive at the room with buns of steel.
The room consists of: 1) Tile floors. 2) A cot for Josh, comfortable enough. 3) A bed for Laura and me. We throw our bags onto it, and they do not bounce. We throw ourselves onto it, and experience pain. Turns out there is no significant difference between our bed and a slab of concrete. There are also no pillow cases, but the sheets have been wrapped around the pillows such that we do not notice for the first 2 minutes. 4) A lamp that actually gives off shadow instead of light. It is so dismal that we call it the Light of Despair. We grow to love it as the week progresses. 5) A bathroom that smells like cat litter, in which we find a shower with iffy-looking faucets. More on this later.
The room is so horrible that it is the best part of this trip. Much laughter commences. I will absolutely stay in this hotel should I ever return to Paris.
On Friday, we walked around Paris. My geography is a little iffy, so I may be confusing places I saw on Friday with Saturday. We went to the Place de la Concorde on which there is the l'Obelisque, and from which you can see a straight line both to the Jardin de Tuilleries and the Louvre, and down the Champs Elysees to l'Arc de Triomphe. So pretty.
We also went to the Place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris in an area called le Marais. It was lovely to walk around, even though it was horrifically cold. I ceased to feel my body after an hour. But then we experienced the wonder that is Starbucks in Paris. We know we are stupid American sell-outs for not going to a French cafe. But the Viennese hot chocolate (not even on the US Starbucks menu) was heaven in a cup. Got us through the rest of the day.
Place des Vosges:
Also saw the Centre Georges Pompidou, which is a modern art museum whose construction the French were not altogether happy with, although I think it is really interesting and fits with the modern art it contains:
Then at night, we went to a new cafe for dinner and had some delish food outside under a magnificent space heater. I met up with my friend Alex, who I had not seen since the summer before senior year, so it was nice to see him. Then we went to an area called Rue Mouffetard, which had much student life and bars and such.
We then took the metro back to Hotel Questionable. A note on the Paris metro v. the London tube: the metro is cheaper, the tube is nicer, the metro has Kinder Bueno vending machines. Paris wins.
Arriving at Hotel Questionable around 2 in the morning, we found all the lights off and the door to the "lobby" locked. We were not given a key, so we knocked on the door, only to encounter...Grumpy Man! Grumpy Man has the night shift, which as far as I can tell involves being awoken from his nap by stupid hotel patrons who need to get in. Grumpy Man mumbled in an angrier manner than County Man, then let us in so we could stairmaster it to sleep.
When we awoke on Saturday, we realized that we had only reserved the hotel for 2 nights, that we had nowhere to go for night 3, and that it was 11:45 and checkout was at noon. So Josh went downstairs and met Asian Lady, who was talking to a group of students who had clearly been searching all day for a place to stay. Asian Lady was offering the students a room, at which point Josh interrupted to ask if we could keep ours for an extra day, at which point she said yes and told the students that she actually did not have a room for them. We felt kind of bad, but honestly...we would have become the nomads if the other students weren't.
So we decided to utilize our location in the Asian district to get some pho (pronounced: fuh), a Vietnamese soup advertised everywhere, mostly because we thought "pho" was a very silly word. It was delicious. Then we walked around some more, this time to Notre Dame and around the Hotel de Ville, the government area of Paris. We found a yummy rhumerie (rummery? I suppose.) They also had an ice-skating rink set up, along with tubing areas for little kids, and it was all very cute and wintry and festive. Though I will repeat my happiness that I have always lived in an area with real seasons, snow included. Paris and London do not generally snow, and I miss that part of winter. Am very glad that I got to see some snowfall at Yale before I left. But I digress.
Hotel de Ville:
Then we met up with Roland, a relative of mine who lives in Paris, and his girlfriend. They were very very sweet and took Josh, Laura, and me out to a lovely full-course dinner, then drove us around Paris at night. Tres belle. Roland was a jokester; the three of us loved him. We met up with Gerald and Andrea, who had also come to Paris but were not staying with us, for a little while as well.
Then on Sunday, we all split up during the day. I went to the Louvre on my own, which was much fun and very leisurely and a nice little bit of independence (not to mention language practice.) I ate at a very French cafe, then met up with Alex again and went to the Eiffel Tower and ate a nutella crepe. The US needs to embrace nutella more than it does, I think. Though all this crepe consumption does make me miss American pancakes. Who wants to do IHOP with me when I return? (Ella, remember our venture on route 17 when we could barely drive?)
Sunday was also a landmark occasion hotel-wise, when all of the clues came together to determine why this was the best worst hotel room ever. Having asked Desk Man to let us stay another extra night that morning, we reflected that karma would not be pleased. Sure enough, after Josh and I showered in the morning (not together), we made the always-welcome discovery that our shower would not shut off. In fact, although the showerhead was dry, water began bursting uncontrollably from the faucets. I alerted Desk Man, who told me that the mechanic does not work on weekends.
Me: But the water is going to go into the room! (This conversation was conducted in French. Most unfortunately, I could not remember the word for "flood." NB: it's "d
Desk Man: You can use the public shower.
So we decided to just shut the shower doors and hope that the drain would perform its job well. Which worked, miraculously, all day long. But at around 8 PM, disaster struck. Josh put down his foot only to find two inches of water in the bedroom. Turns out one of our travel-sized shampoos had floated up and lodged itself in the drain, flooding the place. So Josh started bailing out water with the trashcan, Laura started alternately saving our stuff and jumping around frantically on the bed, and Josh discovered after twenty minutes that there was a hole in the trash can and abandoned the effort. He went downstairs to Desk Man.
Josh: We were told this morning there would not be a problem. I think there's a problem. There is water in our room.
Desk Man came up to check, looked around, and left for 30 minutes. Upon his return, he asked if we would like a new room. We said yes, and were given room number 1 in the hotel. What this means is that our window was eye level with pedestrians, and we could open the window and step directly onto the street. Reasons #2 and 3 for which this was the best worst hotel room ever. We found the entire fiasco utterly hilarious.
We awoke at 5 AM Monday morning to catch the plane back, having gone to sleep only two hours earlier. We were tired indeed, but too afraid to use the shower. Laura, always unusually chipper in the mornings (I love it), was especially awake and without groggy morningness. I cannot say the same for myself.
So we returned from our Great Paris Noah's Ark Adventure and got ourselves to class by 11. By 2 we were at the Royal Academy of Arts in London for a personal tour of their new "From Russia" exhibit, featuring loads of famous art by Matisse and also modern art.
This one was my favorite, by Kandinsky. I love the colors:
The constant activity did not stop there. Tuesday morning we woke up early to catch a train to Oxford for English class. We spent the day touring Oxford, where most unfortunately we were unable to enter the dining hall where they film Harry Potter. To be honest, I found Oxford surprisingly disappointing. Yale is based on Oxford and shares much of its architecture, though in a smaller and admittedly grittier area. But I guess this is why I was mostly unimpressed. Also, I think Sterling is the most beautiful university library in the world. Oxford's felt cold and unwelcoming by comparison.
We also ate lunch with students and chatted about the Oxford educational system, which is so incredibly different from the American system that I don't think you can even really compare the two. You go to college for 3 years, choose a "major" the second you step foot in the door, ONLY take classes within your major all three years, don't have "class" in the traditional sense but instead meet with the teacher individually for one-hour "tutorials" about an ungraded essay you research and write every week, and have no tests at all until one huge exam at the end of the third year that determines your graduation rank. It sounds like absolute hell to me.
Basically: I love Yale. But Oxford IS beautiful from above:
Us in the Oxford library:
And now, I have been procrastinating on two rather large research papers both due this week. I must go work on those. Women in 17th century England were a remarkably boring group of people.
P.S. I made cupcakes and frosting from scratch on Thursday night! Like, no mix involved. Big deal stuff.
P.P.S. Those of you who have been reading will know that this is mostly cribbed from this blog, but ah well... http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=6218
In conclusion: Paris was the best weekend ever. I did not stop laughing the entire time.
Evidence, in the metro:
On Thursday (Valentine's Day), Laura, Josh, and I concluded class and raced to the airport, having cut our time very close between class and flight. Somehow we arrived with time to spare, so of course we sat around in the bookstore and cafe until we had no time to spare, and had to literally run to the gate before they shut us out. So we went Easyjet to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, and the entire flight was only about one hour until we were deposited onto foreign(ish) soil.
We found our hotel (more on this later), and went to a cafe for a late dinner. As I experienced when I was in Paris this summer, France offers very little in the way of meals if the only meat you like is chicken. I know not what the vegetarians do. There is so much ham that I can only think it symptomatic of France's anti-Semitism. Still, I did not end up with food poisoning this trip, which I sadly cannot say for my first Parisian experience. Reason #1 for which this trip was awesome.
Josh had made reservations for the night at a place called "Hip Hotel." When we reached the address listed, we found a building called "Hotel Atlas." First indication that there was a reason our accommodations were so cheap. (More on this later.) We entered and encountered County Man, with whom our interactions went like this:
Us: (breaking out the rusty French) C'est combien? (How much does the room cost?)
County Man: *mumble mumble* the jist is "I owe you 64 cents."
Us: OK.
County Man: *counts some change, gets up to 60. Looks at it. This is incorrect. Tries again. Gets 65. Incorrect again. Starts over.*
Us: C'est pas grave, garde-le. (It's fine, just keep it.)
We are told that our room is on the 5th floor (really the 6th, because Europeans consider the ground floor as floor zero), and that there is no elevator. We climb a very windy staircase. We continue to climb. We understand why the French are so skinny. We arrive at the room with buns of steel.
The room consists of: 1) Tile floors. 2) A cot for Josh, comfortable enough. 3) A bed for Laura and me. We throw our bags onto it, and they do not bounce. We throw ourselves onto it, and experience pain. Turns out there is no significant difference between our bed and a slab of concrete. There are also no pillow cases, but the sheets have been wrapped around the pillows such that we do not notice for the first 2 minutes. 4) A lamp that actually gives off shadow instead of light. It is so dismal that we call it the Light of Despair. We grow to love it as the week progresses. 5) A bathroom that smells like cat litter, in which we find a shower with iffy-looking faucets. More on this later.
The room is so horrible that it is the best part of this trip. Much laughter commences. I will absolutely stay in this hotel should I ever return to Paris.
On Friday, we walked around Paris. My geography is a little iffy, so I may be confusing places I saw on Friday with Saturday. We went to the Place de la Concorde on which there is the l'Obelisque, and from which you can see a straight line both to the Jardin de Tuilleries and the Louvre, and down the Champs Elysees to l'Arc de Triomphe. So pretty.
We also went to the Place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris in an area called le Marais. It was lovely to walk around, even though it was horrifically cold. I ceased to feel my body after an hour. But then we experienced the wonder that is Starbucks in Paris. We know we are stupid American sell-outs for not going to a French cafe. But the Viennese hot chocolate (not even on the US Starbucks menu) was heaven in a cup. Got us through the rest of the day.
Place des Vosges:
Also saw the Centre Georges Pompidou, which is a modern art museum whose construction the French were not altogether happy with, although I think it is really interesting and fits with the modern art it contains:
Then at night, we went to a new cafe for dinner and had some delish food outside under a magnificent space heater. I met up with my friend Alex, who I had not seen since the summer before senior year, so it was nice to see him. Then we went to an area called Rue Mouffetard, which had much student life and bars and such.
We then took the metro back to Hotel Questionable. A note on the Paris metro v. the London tube: the metro is cheaper, the tube is nicer, the metro has Kinder Bueno vending machines. Paris wins.
Arriving at Hotel Questionable around 2 in the morning, we found all the lights off and the door to the "lobby" locked. We were not given a key, so we knocked on the door, only to encounter...Grumpy Man! Grumpy Man has the night shift, which as far as I can tell involves being awoken from his nap by stupid hotel patrons who need to get in. Grumpy Man mumbled in an angrier manner than County Man, then let us in so we could stairmaster it to sleep.
When we awoke on Saturday, we realized that we had only reserved the hotel for 2 nights, that we had nowhere to go for night 3, and that it was 11:45 and checkout was at noon. So Josh went downstairs and met Asian Lady, who was talking to a group of students who had clearly been searching all day for a place to stay. Asian Lady was offering the students a room, at which point Josh interrupted to ask if we could keep ours for an extra day, at which point she said yes and told the students that she actually did not have a room for them. We felt kind of bad, but honestly...we would have become the nomads if the other students weren't.
So we decided to utilize our location in the Asian district to get some pho (pronounced: fuh), a Vietnamese soup advertised everywhere, mostly because we thought "pho" was a very silly word. It was delicious. Then we walked around some more, this time to Notre Dame and around the Hotel de Ville, the government area of Paris. We found a yummy rhumerie (rummery? I suppose.) They also had an ice-skating rink set up, along with tubing areas for little kids, and it was all very cute and wintry and festive. Though I will repeat my happiness that I have always lived in an area with real seasons, snow included. Paris and London do not generally snow, and I miss that part of winter. Am very glad that I got to see some snowfall at Yale before I left. But I digress.
Hotel de Ville:
Then on Sunday, we all split up during the day. I went to the Louvre on my own, which was much fun and very leisurely and a nice little bit of independence (not to mention language practice.) I ate at a very French cafe, then met up with Alex again and went to the Eiffel Tower and ate a nutella crepe. The US needs to embrace nutella more than it does, I think. Though all this crepe consumption does make me miss American pancakes. Who wants to do IHOP with me when I return? (Ella, remember our venture on route 17 when we could barely drive?)
Sunday was also a landmark occasion hotel-wise, when all of the clues came together to determine why this was the best worst hotel room ever. Having asked Desk Man to let us stay another extra night that morning, we reflected that karma would not be pleased. Sure enough, after Josh and I showered in the morning (not together), we made the always-welcome discovery that our shower would not shut off. In fact, although the showerhead was dry, water began bursting uncontrollably from the faucets. I alerted Desk Man, who told me that the mechanic does not work on weekends.
Me: But the water is going to go into the room! (This conversation was conducted in French. Most unfortunately, I could not remember the word for "flood." NB: it's "d
Desk Man: You can use the public shower.
So we decided to just shut the shower doors and hope that the drain would perform its job well. Which worked, miraculously, all day long. But at around 8 PM, disaster struck. Josh put down his foot only to find two inches of water in the bedroom. Turns out one of our travel-sized shampoos had floated up and lodged itself in the drain, flooding the place. So Josh started bailing out water with the trashcan, Laura started alternately saving our stuff and jumping around frantically on the bed, and Josh discovered after twenty minutes that there was a hole in the trash can and abandoned the effort. He went downstairs to Desk Man.
Josh: We were told this morning there would not be a problem. I think there's a problem. There is water in our room.
Desk Man came up to check, looked around, and left for 30 minutes. Upon his return, he asked if we would like a new room. We said yes, and were given room number 1 in the hotel. What this means is that our window was eye level with pedestrians, and we could open the window and step directly onto the street. Reasons #2 and 3 for which this was the best worst hotel room ever. We found the entire fiasco utterly hilarious.
We awoke at 5 AM Monday morning to catch the plane back, having gone to sleep only two hours earlier. We were tired indeed, but too afraid to use the shower. Laura, always unusually chipper in the mornings (I love it), was especially awake and without groggy morningness. I cannot say the same for myself.
So we returned from our Great Paris Noah's Ark Adventure and got ourselves to class by 11. By 2 we were at the Royal Academy of Arts in London for a personal tour of their new "From Russia" exhibit, featuring loads of famous art by Matisse and also modern art.
This one was my favorite, by Kandinsky. I love the colors:
The constant activity did not stop there. Tuesday morning we woke up early to catch a train to Oxford for English class. We spent the day touring Oxford, where most unfortunately we were unable to enter the dining hall where they film Harry Potter. To be honest, I found Oxford surprisingly disappointing. Yale is based on Oxford and shares much of its architecture, though in a smaller and admittedly grittier area. But I guess this is why I was mostly unimpressed. Also, I think Sterling is the most beautiful university library in the world. Oxford's felt cold and unwelcoming by comparison.
We also ate lunch with students and chatted about the Oxford educational system, which is so incredibly different from the American system that I don't think you can even really compare the two. You go to college for 3 years, choose a "major" the second you step foot in the door, ONLY take classes within your major all three years, don't have "class" in the traditional sense but instead meet with the teacher individually for one-hour "tutorials" about an ungraded essay you research and write every week, and have no tests at all until one huge exam at the end of the third year that determines your graduation rank. It sounds like absolute hell to me.
Basically: I love Yale. But Oxford IS beautiful from above:
Us in the Oxford library:
And now, I have been procrastinating on two rather large research papers both due this week. I must go work on those. Women in 17th century England were a remarkably boring group of people.
P.S. I made cupcakes and frosting from scratch on Thursday night! Like, no mix involved. Big deal stuff.
P.P.S. Those of you who have been reading will know that this is mostly cribbed from this blog, but ah well... http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=6218
In conclusion: Paris was the best weekend ever. I did not stop laughing the entire time.
Evidence, in the metro:
Thursday, February 14, 2008
love
this is neither the forum nor the time for this kind of sentiment (i have two essays due tomorrow that i should really work on, seeing as it's 3:15 AM and i still have to pack for Paris tomorrow), but i am just feeling so grateful for my wonderful friends from home. not that i don't love and adore all my Yale lovelies...but i have some of the most incredible and supportive and loyal and always and forever THERE for me home friends. i love them so much after so many years. they are my rocks.
sorry. i was just so bursting with the love that i could not control it. paris tomorrow (today...12 hours...shit not ready) through very early monday morning...i am psyched!! should be a wonderful way to spend the weekend. then it's nose to the grindstone to churn out 2 MORE essays for the next week. eeks!! so much to do, so little time.
happy valentine's day <3... y'all are a few of my favourite things :)
sorry. i was just so bursting with the love that i could not control it. paris tomorrow (today...12 hours...shit not ready) through very early monday morning...i am psyched!! should be a wonderful way to spend the weekend. then it's nose to the grindstone to churn out 2 MORE essays for the next week. eeks!! so much to do, so little time.
happy valentine's day <3... y'all are a few of my favourite things :)
Monday, February 11, 2008
A Rundown
On Friday, Laura, Josh, and I walked down Oxford Street towards Kensington Gardens. I do not know how I could have missed Oxford Street before now, but it was so much fun, very much like the busiest shopping districts in New York City. We passed through a really high-end district, with Louis Vuitton (I can't even spell that) next to Tiffany next to Sotheby's next to craziness. Unlike the cheapie places I populate, the places here gave out free samples, so we all got some delicious Belgian chocolates just for walking in the door to a store we could never afford. A+.
Kensington Gardens was magnificent. So green, so serene (that rhymes), and so many birds! Ducks, geese, swans everywhere. I have never seen so many swans just chillin' in all my life. It was really beautiful. Not to mention the fact that the weather was LOVELY, warm and sunny and rain-less, a rare thing for London.
One of the few pictures sans birds:
Swans!:
Then we had tea at the Orangery, but not before Laura and I indulged in some silly pictures by Queen Anne:
Then on Saturday, Laura and I went out to Notting Hill, which was lovely and white even if I did expect Julia Roberts to come out of a bush at any moment. We went to the Portobello Antiques market, which went on for blocks and blocks and sold incredible old books and silverstuff and relics and etc. And I got some delicious spiced apple drink, which made me reminisce about going to farms with my family when I was little, picking apples and going on hayrides and buying apple butter. I hope I did not complain about that at the time; it is a really sweet memory now. I am thinking Autumn might be my favourite season. I would never want to live somewhere without it. Thanks, Mum and Dad.
Classy Notting Hill sign:
May I quote, "Come and snog in safety! They'll never know." Ooooh, the British. I love the word snog. Will introduce it to the Americas when I return.
Below, we have the most intense matryoshka dolls I have ever seen. They actually got bigger to the left, out of the frame of this picture because it was just too much for one small camera lens to capture:
Me being superfly in front of a leopard car. Unsure if this was an antique, or if someone actually drives this:
Then yesterday, we went to Trafalgar Square intending to see a Hogarth we had talked about in art history class at the National Gallery, but we ended up dead in the middle of Chinese New Year: London Style. Apparently, London hosts the second-largest Chinese New Year celebration in the world. That's second to China, people. Do not ask me why. But it was crazy--hundreds and hundreds of people crowding block after block of the city, firecrackers going off in Leicester Square every other hour, paper dragons all over the streets, piano prodigies on the stage, the works. Quite an experience:
Then later that night, I went over to the boys' flat and received a lovely meal, then hung out with Gerald's two friends from Spain who I could not understand at all. Must learn Spanish, would be helpful in my life. I did hear the Spanish lisp, though, so that was something. We also watched a Cuban movie, and I have learned that the word for bus in Cuba sounds like "wawa." This, incidentally, is also the name of a rather delicious chain of convenience stores along the Jersey Shore, and it really made me want some Arizona Sweet Tea and a hot dog as per my beach days with Debbie long ago.
Also, I made dinner all by myself for my two suitemates and myself on Thursday!!! Homemade tomato-basil sauce with zucchini, over whole-wheat spaghetti, side of honey-glazed carrots. It is the shining accomplishment of my LIFE. No joke. I am putting it on my resume and I don't care how many potential employers laugh and throw away my file.
In other news...I am going to Paris this weekend!! Thursday through Sunday. Exciting stuff. Also, Miss Samantha Lil Bo is coming to visit me over spring break!! This makes me immensely happy.
What makes me less happy is summer. Freaking out over summer plans over here. Considering Kentucky. Someone please tell me how ridiculous an idea that is.
Word of the day:
Sheets = turns out it just means pages, like in America. Couldn't we have said this in the first place?
Contemplation of the day:
Will being in Paris on Valentine's Day make me barf?
Kensington Gardens was magnificent. So green, so serene (that rhymes), and so many birds! Ducks, geese, swans everywhere. I have never seen so many swans just chillin' in all my life. It was really beautiful. Not to mention the fact that the weather was LOVELY, warm and sunny and rain-less, a rare thing for London.
One of the few pictures sans birds:
Swans!:
Then we had tea at the Orangery, but not before Laura and I indulged in some silly pictures by Queen Anne:
Then on Saturday, Laura and I went out to Notting Hill, which was lovely and white even if I did expect Julia Roberts to come out of a bush at any moment. We went to the Portobello Antiques market, which went on for blocks and blocks and sold incredible old books and silverstuff and relics and etc. And I got some delicious spiced apple drink, which made me reminisce about going to farms with my family when I was little, picking apples and going on hayrides and buying apple butter. I hope I did not complain about that at the time; it is a really sweet memory now. I am thinking Autumn might be my favourite season. I would never want to live somewhere without it. Thanks, Mum and Dad.
Classy Notting Hill sign:
May I quote, "Come and snog in safety! They'll never know." Ooooh, the British. I love the word snog. Will introduce it to the Americas when I return.
Below, we have the most intense matryoshka dolls I have ever seen. They actually got bigger to the left, out of the frame of this picture because it was just too much for one small camera lens to capture:
Me being superfly in front of a leopard car. Unsure if this was an antique, or if someone actually drives this:
Then yesterday, we went to Trafalgar Square intending to see a Hogarth we had talked about in art history class at the National Gallery, but we ended up dead in the middle of Chinese New Year: London Style. Apparently, London hosts the second-largest Chinese New Year celebration in the world. That's second to China, people. Do not ask me why. But it was crazy--hundreds and hundreds of people crowding block after block of the city, firecrackers going off in Leicester Square every other hour, paper dragons all over the streets, piano prodigies on the stage, the works. Quite an experience:
Then later that night, I went over to the boys' flat and received a lovely meal, then hung out with Gerald's two friends from Spain who I could not understand at all. Must learn Spanish, would be helpful in my life. I did hear the Spanish lisp, though, so that was something. We also watched a Cuban movie, and I have learned that the word for bus in Cuba sounds like "wawa." This, incidentally, is also the name of a rather delicious chain of convenience stores along the Jersey Shore, and it really made me want some Arizona Sweet Tea and a hot dog as per my beach days with Debbie long ago.
Also, I made dinner all by myself for my two suitemates and myself on Thursday!!! Homemade tomato-basil sauce with zucchini, over whole-wheat spaghetti, side of honey-glazed carrots. It is the shining accomplishment of my LIFE. No joke. I am putting it on my resume and I don't care how many potential employers laugh and throw away my file.
In other news...I am going to Paris this weekend!! Thursday through Sunday. Exciting stuff. Also, Miss Samantha Lil Bo is coming to visit me over spring break!! This makes me immensely happy.
What makes me less happy is summer. Freaking out over summer plans over here. Considering Kentucky. Someone please tell me how ridiculous an idea that is.
Word of the day:
Sheets = turns out it just means pages, like in America. Couldn't we have said this in the first place?
Contemplation of the day:
Will being in Paris on Valentine's Day make me barf?
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Insanity
Tuesday was NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY and quite possibly my craziest day in London.
After class, we all ventured to All-Hallows Church right by the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, where we entered two teams into the Pancake Race!!! I was the original Team Viv, and the other four were Team Viv 2. (Viv is our Yale-in-London program director. She's hilarious.) So we all decked ourselves out in blue--I could say that this was an example Yale spirit, but actually it was the most common color we could find that didn't need some serious laundering--and put on warpaint that turned out to be Gerald's old ProClear face cream. I am currently the proud owner of a remarkably clear T-Zone. And I had an apron.
Team Viv below:
So we brought our own skillet, the church provided pancakes (crepes, really), and we had to race across the ground, flip the pancakes twice, and hand over the skillet. Team Viv 2 (not my team) made it to Round 2 out of 3, which was really QUITE the accomplishment. This was some high-stakes food-flipping skillet sprinting.
About to run:
Then we ate crepes with lemon and butter.
And THEN, best part of all, the church guy (minister? vicar?) comes over to us and starts quizzing us. A sampling below...
Question 1: Is your boyfriend left-handed?
Me: (humoring him) Yes.
Question 2: Does he have trouble opening your blouse?
Me: ... what what now?
Him: That's because the buttons on a woman's shirt are on the wrong way for a lefty!
Question 3: (Indicating Josh) Does he get grumpy?
Me: Sure.
Him: You just tell him to keep his pecker up.
Female vicar/ministress person: What on earth is going on here!?
Him: Calm down, it just means chin!
Question 4: (To Josh) Do you knock up your girlfriend in the morning?
Collectively: W.T.F.
Him: It means wake up, people, get your mind out of the gutter!
We then ask for a picture with him. To which he responds by posing, then saying, "What don't you get? Don't say cheese, say sex!"
The man, the minister, the legend--getting his sin out before Lent:
And the craziness did not stop there. I got back to the flat only to receive an e-mail from my father, informing me of a group called Democrats Abroad that apparently held primary races on Super Tuesday in London. So I ran over there, where there was this huuugee rally going on. I had never been involved in any political rally on a grand scale before, but it was really quite energizing and inspiring and also frightening. The Obama supporters on one side of the room were screaming, "YES WE CAN!", the Hillary people screaming, "YES SHE CAN!", the people in between just generally screaming. It was muyyy intense.
Plus they had candidate cookies, with print-out pictures of the candidates attached in frosting. We were told to take off the picture and paste it around the room, so there were tons of Baracks and Hillarys all drooping frostingly down the wall.
See:
So that was my Shrove Tuesday / National Pancake Day / Mardi Gras excitement. Happy (unhappy?) Lent to all those who celebrate. Laura told me of an interesting tradition in her church, where they add on a good habit for Lent rather than taking away a bad one. This sounds more difficult to me.
Wednesday (yesterday), we saw a play for class called "Land of the Dead / Helter Skelter," by American playwright Neil LaBute. It was a combination of two one-act plays, and the most disturbing night of theater I have ever witnessed. Each one was just a man and his wife talking to one another, covering issues of blame and abortion and 9/11 and commitment, and they featured such an intense level of human tragedy and trauma--not to mention truly unsettling acts of violence at the end--that I was actually nauseated. The production was damn good, just disturbing.
And today the lead actress came to our class to talk about it, and she described at least the first play as a love story, which was a really surprising interpretation that changes how I view the whole thing. Such interesting stuff...
Word of the day, American-British this time (brought to you by your friendly neighborhood minister):
Fanny pack = obscene reference to female genitalia
After class, we all ventured to All-Hallows Church right by the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, where we entered two teams into the Pancake Race!!! I was the original Team Viv, and the other four were Team Viv 2. (Viv is our Yale-in-London program director. She's hilarious.) So we all decked ourselves out in blue--I could say that this was an example Yale spirit, but actually it was the most common color we could find that didn't need some serious laundering--and put on warpaint that turned out to be Gerald's old ProClear face cream. I am currently the proud owner of a remarkably clear T-Zone. And I had an apron.
Team Viv below:
So we brought our own skillet, the church provided pancakes (crepes, really), and we had to race across the ground, flip the pancakes twice, and hand over the skillet. Team Viv 2 (not my team) made it to Round 2 out of 3, which was really QUITE the accomplishment. This was some high-stakes food-flipping skillet sprinting.
About to run:
Then we ate crepes with lemon and butter.
And THEN, best part of all, the church guy (minister? vicar?) comes over to us and starts quizzing us. A sampling below...
Question 1: Is your boyfriend left-handed?
Me: (humoring him) Yes.
Question 2: Does he have trouble opening your blouse?
Me: ... what what now?
Him: That's because the buttons on a woman's shirt are on the wrong way for a lefty!
Question 3: (Indicating Josh) Does he get grumpy?
Me: Sure.
Him: You just tell him to keep his pecker up.
Female vicar/ministress person: What on earth is going on here!?
Him: Calm down, it just means chin!
Question 4: (To Josh) Do you knock up your girlfriend in the morning?
Collectively: W.T.F.
Him: It means wake up, people, get your mind out of the gutter!
We then ask for a picture with him. To which he responds by posing, then saying, "What don't you get? Don't say cheese, say sex!"
The man, the minister, the legend--getting his sin out before Lent:
And the craziness did not stop there. I got back to the flat only to receive an e-mail from my father, informing me of a group called Democrats Abroad that apparently held primary races on Super Tuesday in London. So I ran over there, where there was this huuugee rally going on. I had never been involved in any political rally on a grand scale before, but it was really quite energizing and inspiring and also frightening. The Obama supporters on one side of the room were screaming, "YES WE CAN!", the Hillary people screaming, "YES SHE CAN!", the people in between just generally screaming. It was muyyy intense.
Plus they had candidate cookies, with print-out pictures of the candidates attached in frosting. We were told to take off the picture and paste it around the room, so there were tons of Baracks and Hillarys all drooping frostingly down the wall.
See:
So that was my Shrove Tuesday / National Pancake Day / Mardi Gras excitement. Happy (unhappy?) Lent to all those who celebrate. Laura told me of an interesting tradition in her church, where they add on a good habit for Lent rather than taking away a bad one. This sounds more difficult to me.
Wednesday (yesterday), we saw a play for class called "Land of the Dead / Helter Skelter," by American playwright Neil LaBute. It was a combination of two one-act plays, and the most disturbing night of theater I have ever witnessed. Each one was just a man and his wife talking to one another, covering issues of blame and abortion and 9/11 and commitment, and they featured such an intense level of human tragedy and trauma--not to mention truly unsettling acts of violence at the end--that I was actually nauseated. The production was damn good, just disturbing.
And today the lead actress came to our class to talk about it, and she described at least the first play as a love story, which was a really surprising interpretation that changes how I view the whole thing. Such interesting stuff...
Word of the day, American-British this time (brought to you by your friendly neighborhood minister):
Fanny pack = obscene reference to female genitalia
Monday, February 4, 2008
Whan that april...
I visited Canterbury on Saturday! With Laura, Tanya, and a whole bunch of international students. Twas so nice to see a part of England that is not urban like London is. Apparently there's a whole other world out there, just like you really can't judge the US by what you see in New York. I am ignorant enough not to have realized this until Saturday.
So Canterbury is kind of a funny amalgamation of the really really old with the modern (see: the Jaguar store beside the Nordic ruins.) We saw the Canterbury Cathedral, the ultimate end of pilgrimages such as the one described in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" (thank you, English 125.) Then we climbed on the Nordic castle ruins-- so much fun, like some giant medieval playground.
After that we walked to the real playground and chilled (literally) on the see-saw-like contraption into which Laura and I could not fit our legs. It was such a beautiful park/play area--reminded me of one that I saw in L.A. but a lot colder, and also everyone had British accents.
Other fun things about Canterbury: The Black Prince is enshrined there. The grass is beautifully richly green, which I have not seen for a while living in the city. They have fresh crepes with butter and sugar--mmmmmm. And best of all, they have a Winnie-the-Pooh store!! I loved it. I have discovered since being in London that I adore children's literature, and should probably try and do something with that at some point in my life. This is an odd little passion and one that I don't really know what to do with, but for now I'm content just to read about the Hundred Acre Wood.
Then today in our history class, we were talking about how the US still observes Blue Laws in some areas while England does not, and our sweet benign little 80+ year old professor said: "Well, you are Puritans, after all. You're descendants of the people we got rid of." Love it.
Then Laura and I walked around attempting to find the UCL Hillel House and failed miserably, but did discover the University of London Union house, where they had a little student hang-out place.
We then attempted to make pancakes in honor of NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY tomorrow(!), but the Brits' version of pancakes are crepes and not the lovely fluffy things we have in the US of A, so we got burned and eggy and confused and ended up switching things up in the middle and converting our batter to Yorkshire Pudding batter. Which turned out AMAZINGLY. I do not really understand the concept behind Yorkshire Pudding, but I do know that it is a) not pudding b) deformed mutant batter that puffs from the tray and sprouts branchy little offshoots c) most perfectly made by Courtney and Laura's Home Cooking (brought to you by the 10-Second Rule.)
Thought of the day:
I miss American pancakes.
Word of the day:
Flapjacks = NOT pancakes. They are little granola cookie snack-like thingies.
Distinction of the day:
Sweet v. Savoury. Sweet foods are sweet and dessert-like (self-explanatory), i.e. jam, honey, ice cream. Savoury foods are heartier, more meal-like, i.e. meats, potatoes, pasta. I did not understand this until today, which is highly unfortunate, since British people use this overly frequently to ask what kind of crepe, pie, etc you want when it can go both ways.
Uncertainty of the day:
Sheets = ? As in, "Professor, how long should our essay be?" "About six sheets." "Do you mean six pages, or the front and back so it's twelve pages?" "Don't worry about that; just make it six sheets."
So Canterbury is kind of a funny amalgamation of the really really old with the modern (see: the Jaguar store beside the Nordic ruins.) We saw the Canterbury Cathedral, the ultimate end of pilgrimages such as the one described in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" (thank you, English 125.) Then we climbed on the Nordic castle ruins-- so much fun, like some giant medieval playground.
After that we walked to the real playground and chilled (literally) on the see-saw-like contraption into which Laura and I could not fit our legs. It was such a beautiful park/play area--reminded me of one that I saw in L.A. but a lot colder, and also everyone had British accents.
Other fun things about Canterbury: The Black Prince is enshrined there. The grass is beautifully richly green, which I have not seen for a while living in the city. They have fresh crepes with butter and sugar--mmmmmm. And best of all, they have a Winnie-the-Pooh store!! I loved it. I have discovered since being in London that I adore children's literature, and should probably try and do something with that at some point in my life. This is an odd little passion and one that I don't really know what to do with, but for now I'm content just to read about the Hundred Acre Wood.
Then today in our history class, we were talking about how the US still observes Blue Laws in some areas while England does not, and our sweet benign little 80+ year old professor said: "Well, you are Puritans, after all. You're descendants of the people we got rid of." Love it.
Then Laura and I walked around attempting to find the UCL Hillel House and failed miserably, but did discover the University of London Union house, where they had a little student hang-out place.
We then attempted to make pancakes in honor of NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY tomorrow(!), but the Brits' version of pancakes are crepes and not the lovely fluffy things we have in the US of A, so we got burned and eggy and confused and ended up switching things up in the middle and converting our batter to Yorkshire Pudding batter. Which turned out AMAZINGLY. I do not really understand the concept behind Yorkshire Pudding, but I do know that it is a) not pudding b) deformed mutant batter that puffs from the tray and sprouts branchy little offshoots c) most perfectly made by Courtney and Laura's Home Cooking (brought to you by the 10-Second Rule.)
Thought of the day:
I miss American pancakes.
Word of the day:
Flapjacks = NOT pancakes. They are little granola cookie snack-like thingies.
Distinction of the day:
Sweet v. Savoury. Sweet foods are sweet and dessert-like (self-explanatory), i.e. jam, honey, ice cream. Savoury foods are heartier, more meal-like, i.e. meats, potatoes, pasta. I did not understand this until today, which is highly unfortunate, since British people use this overly frequently to ask what kind of crepe, pie, etc you want when it can go both ways.
Uncertainty of the day:
Sheets = ? As in, "Professor, how long should our essay be?" "About six sheets." "Do you mean six pages, or the front and back so it's twelve pages?" "Don't worry about that; just make it six sheets."
Friday, February 1, 2008
Records and Rip-Offs
I actually cannot believe that it is already February. Why does life pass by so quickly the older I get?
It's been a fun few days. Wednesday night I saw a play called Dealer's Choice for class. It was really really good, an all-male cast dealing with poker but really with the gambles and stakes and choices we encounter in all aspects of lives and relationships. And it dealt a lot with father-daughter father-son relationships, which for some reason always really gets to me. So all in all a very good night at the theatre.
Then yesterday night, I babysat for my professor's 2 year old (so cute!) in the afternoon, then took a class at the gym.
{{Heretofore unrecorded event: I bit the bullet and joined the Y here, and took a trampoline class Tuesday night!! It was so much fun; I now have a trampoline coach every Tuesday who will attempt to restore just a tad bit of my former gymnastics-y glory. He has failed thus far (by which I mean, I have failed), but at least he's cute. }}
Yesterday's class was called "Abs Blitz" and was, I swear, taught by a Nazi. He actually gave time penalties for letting your feet hover more than an inch above the ground. And had a little pencil mustache. And was evil all over. My abs do not thank him.
So thenn I returned home to a delicious dinner of chicken salad curry and naan prepared for me by my dear wife Laura, and Gerald joined us, and we drank wine to the iTunes party shuffle feature that changes songs every 40 seconds to the sound of Homer Simpson saying, "Did we drink enough yet?" And we used my iTunes, which guarantees not a single good party song but plenty of Broadway, Backstreet, Spice Girls, and Dirty Dancing. Lovely.
Then we decided it would be a good idea to seek out a pub called The Cock (hilarity ensues when asking passersby to help me locate the cock), which in fact does exist a few blocks down. Since the wine had affected me the most, I was nominated to go up to random Brits and exploit my American stupidity, so in conclusion we met a few London college students who we will never see again. Fun times.
And today, Laura and I had afternoon tea at the National Portrait Gallery with the BEST. DAMN. SCONES I have ever tasted. I cannot begin to explain the deliciousness. Served with clotted cream (still unsure just what that is) and black currant jam, scones are my new favorite.
We also looked at the special exhibit (oh, it turns out museums are for art, not food) showcasing the winners of the Photographic Portrait Prize 2007. This is a movement to use photography as portraiture, aka as a means of capturing who a person is more than the special effects and such that photography sometimes gets caught up in. (Though I can't speak to this, because I know very little about photography.) Some of the photos were incredibly moving, though interestingly I don't think they translate quite as well on the computer screen as they did in the gallery-- http://www.npg.org.uk/live/PPP2007_16.asp and forward and backward for more.
We then went to Brick Street, which is basically Indiatown (as opposed to the Chinatown we have in most US cities and also a block down from me in London.) We don't tend to have Indiatowns in big cities, but this was CRAZY. Every single restaurants had really aggressive people standing outside trying to talk you into going to their restaurant, and even when you pass by them, they actually walk next to you still convincing.
We ended up in this place because they gave free beverages, and got utterly delicious Indian food-- chicken tikka malayan, yumm--but ultimately got ripped off because they offered us bread and we said yes and then they charged us for the bread, which is all well and good if not something that generally happens in the US...but ON TOP of that, they made us pay for the sauces it came with that we hadn't ordered and that seemed as natural and, may I say, as included as butter is with bread in Italian restaurants. Ridic. So we payed them 5pence short (wanted to make it the entire price of the sauces short but didn't have the cajones), and left. Bitter but still a good night.
And now we are going to watch Reentttt! :) Woooot.
Word of the day:
Busker = entertainer in the tube
It's been a fun few days. Wednesday night I saw a play called Dealer's Choice for class. It was really really good, an all-male cast dealing with poker but really with the gambles and stakes and choices we encounter in all aspects of lives and relationships. And it dealt a lot with father-daughter father-son relationships, which for some reason always really gets to me. So all in all a very good night at the theatre.
Then yesterday night, I babysat for my professor's 2 year old (so cute!) in the afternoon, then took a class at the gym.
{{Heretofore unrecorded event: I bit the bullet and joined the Y here, and took a trampoline class Tuesday night!! It was so much fun; I now have a trampoline coach every Tuesday who will attempt to restore just a tad bit of my former gymnastics-y glory. He has failed thus far (by which I mean, I have failed), but at least he's cute. }}
Yesterday's class was called "Abs Blitz" and was, I swear, taught by a Nazi. He actually gave time penalties for letting your feet hover more than an inch above the ground. And had a little pencil mustache. And was evil all over. My abs do not thank him.
So thenn I returned home to a delicious dinner of chicken salad curry and naan prepared for me by my dear wife Laura, and Gerald joined us, and we drank wine to the iTunes party shuffle feature that changes songs every 40 seconds to the sound of Homer Simpson saying, "Did we drink enough yet?" And we used my iTunes, which guarantees not a single good party song but plenty of Broadway, Backstreet, Spice Girls, and Dirty Dancing. Lovely.
Then we decided it would be a good idea to seek out a pub called The Cock (hilarity ensues when asking passersby to help me locate the cock), which in fact does exist a few blocks down. Since the wine had affected me the most, I was nominated to go up to random Brits and exploit my American stupidity, so in conclusion we met a few London college students who we will never see again. Fun times.
And today, Laura and I had afternoon tea at the National Portrait Gallery with the BEST. DAMN. SCONES I have ever tasted. I cannot begin to explain the deliciousness. Served with clotted cream (still unsure just what that is) and black currant jam, scones are my new favorite.
We also looked at the special exhibit (oh, it turns out museums are for art, not food) showcasing the winners of the Photographic Portrait Prize 2007. This is a movement to use photography as portraiture, aka as a means of capturing who a person is more than the special effects and such that photography sometimes gets caught up in. (Though I can't speak to this, because I know very little about photography.) Some of the photos were incredibly moving, though interestingly I don't think they translate quite as well on the computer screen as they did in the gallery-- http://www.npg.org.uk/live/PPP2007_16.asp and forward and backward for more.
We then went to Brick Street, which is basically Indiatown (as opposed to the Chinatown we have in most US cities and also a block down from me in London.) We don't tend to have Indiatowns in big cities, but this was CRAZY. Every single restaurants had really aggressive people standing outside trying to talk you into going to their restaurant, and even when you pass by them, they actually walk next to you still convincing.
We ended up in this place because they gave free beverages, and got utterly delicious Indian food-- chicken tikka malayan, yumm--but ultimately got ripped off because they offered us bread and we said yes and then they charged us for the bread, which is all well and good if not something that generally happens in the US...but ON TOP of that, they made us pay for the sauces it came with that we hadn't ordered and that seemed as natural and, may I say, as included as butter is with bread in Italian restaurants. Ridic. So we payed them 5pence short (wanted to make it the entire price of the sauces short but didn't have the cajones), and left. Bitter but still a good night.
And now we are going to watch Reentttt! :) Woooot.
Word of the day:
Busker = entertainer in the tube
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
PANCAKES!
Most exciting thing I have learned since loaning myself to Great Britain:
In the Christian world, it's called Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.
In the United States, it's called Mardi Gras.
But in the UK...it's called National Pancake Day.
THAT'S RIGHT. The great people of England, Scotland, and Wales have a NATIONAL HOLIDAY in celebration of that most venerated of all breakfast foods: the pancake. Neither is this some new tradition; the Brits have been observing this cultural gem since 1445. I kid you not. It's happening February 5th, only one week from today.
And among the many Pancake Day traditions, the most exalted is...pancake racing! This involves the flipping of pancakes on a frying pan while racing down a city street, alternately booed and bolstered by the cheering crowds. And lest we think this sport is without its dangers, one pancake race team application specifies: "Each team must provide a frying pan and NON-SLIP running shoes--we provide the pancakes!" (http://www.allhallowsbythetower.org.uk/pancake_race.htm) Screw Relay for Life. This is Pancakes for Life.
I love the Brits.
In the Christian world, it's called Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.
In the United States, it's called Mardi Gras.
But in the UK...it's called National Pancake Day.
THAT'S RIGHT. The great people of England, Scotland, and Wales have a NATIONAL HOLIDAY in celebration of that most venerated of all breakfast foods: the pancake. Neither is this some new tradition; the Brits have been observing this cultural gem since 1445. I kid you not. It's happening February 5th, only one week from today.
And among the many Pancake Day traditions, the most exalted is...pancake racing! This involves the flipping of pancakes on a frying pan while racing down a city street, alternately booed and bolstered by the cheering crowds. And lest we think this sport is without its dangers, one pancake race team application specifies: "Each team must provide a frying pan and NON-SLIP running shoes--we provide the pancakes!" (http://www.allhallowsbythetower.org.uk/pancake_race.htm) Screw Relay for Life. This is Pancakes for Life.
I love the Brits.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The three things I recall doing
What have I been doing these past few days? I ask mostly because I cannot remember. Some highlights:
Laura and I explored both London's biggest and oldest bookshops. Waterstone's, the biggest, was insane. And the oldest, Hatchard, was established in 1797. It's very sweet with lots of character. I love the bookshops in London--there are rows and rows of them all along a single street near my flat, which makes me very happy. Musing: Is it bad that I still love Barnes and Noble best? I am a corporate drone...
Was awake for a grand total of 4 hours before 7 PM yesterday, and it was wonderful. Had gone to the Hope but not made Fabric the day before, instead hanging out at the Penthouse (boys' Turkish flat) and having to be carried down the street due to a shoe disfunction. Upon waking yesterday, we went to a concert thingy with a bunch of different bands, where, having first gotten us rockin out with hair limbs body flailing, Gerald proceeded to push Laura and me onto the open area right in front of the stage. We continued to dance like crazy people, whereupon the lead singer pointed us out and thanked us for our enthusiasm. Musing: I am now considering "groupie" as a professional career choice.
Awoke this morning to attend a mock execution of Charles I. Walked to St. James' Park and observed Brits with pikes and rifles marching down the square. Sadly, there was no real execution. Musing: Would it be so hard to fake cut off a head? I am anti-bloodshed and even I found its lack distressing.
I am sure I've done more than this recently, but my memory span is bloody short. Bullocks.
Laura and I explored both London's biggest and oldest bookshops. Waterstone's, the biggest, was insane. And the oldest, Hatchard, was established in 1797. It's very sweet with lots of character. I love the bookshops in London--there are rows and rows of them all along a single street near my flat, which makes me very happy. Musing: Is it bad that I still love Barnes and Noble best? I am a corporate drone...
Was awake for a grand total of 4 hours before 7 PM yesterday, and it was wonderful. Had gone to the Hope but not made Fabric the day before, instead hanging out at the Penthouse (boys' Turkish flat) and having to be carried down the street due to a shoe disfunction. Upon waking yesterday, we went to a concert thingy with a bunch of different bands, where, having first gotten us rockin out with hair limbs body flailing, Gerald proceeded to push Laura and me onto the open area right in front of the stage. We continued to dance like crazy people, whereupon the lead singer pointed us out and thanked us for our enthusiasm. Musing: I am now considering "groupie" as a professional career choice.
Awoke this morning to attend a mock execution of Charles I. Walked to St. James' Park and observed Brits with pikes and rifles marching down the square. Sadly, there was no real execution. Musing: Would it be so hard to fake cut off a head? I am anti-bloodshed and even I found its lack distressing.
I am sure I've done more than this recently, but my memory span is bloody short. Bullocks.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Corkingly
I am in a lovely lovely mood. Life is going just corkingly.
After English class today, Laura and I took the tube to Knightsbridge and went to Harrods. It was magnificent. Truly the most out of control department store I have ever been within--and I'm a Jersey girl. We like malls and department stores. There's this whole Egyptian escalator section, where they have sphinxes and hieroglyphics and headdresses and such all the way around on your way up these little escalators. Actually, there's a lot of Egyptian stuff in Britain--saw Cleopatra's Needle on Satuday, which is just plopped down on the Strand along the Thames. It was not quite as thrilling as I had expected, and certainly not as awesome as Harrods was today!
Laura and I spent about an hour and a half in the children's book section of Harrods alone. It was lovely and wonderful. We saw more Horrid Henry (I mistakenly called him Harry last time--oops), which apparently is a favourite children's book series here. British people just adore horrid things. I love it. And we got oh-so-excited about the "Horrible History" books on display that the saleslady started talking to us for a while. She had this odd British accent with very full and rounded vowels, and she seemed to love what she does, and she brought us to the Winnie the Pooh section and told us that the idea for the series actually originated in Harrods, when A.A. Milne bought a bear for his son, Christopher Robin, and then made up stories to go along with it. How sweet! I love original pooh bear; the cover of one of the books quotes:
"Hallo, Piglet," he said. "I thought you were out."
"No," said Piglet, "it's you who were out, Pooh."
"So it was," said Pooh. "I knew one of us was."
How pure and adorable is a friendship in which you get confused as to which of you was gone when you are alone? I adore British sensibilities. In every way they are more direct than Americans: they come up with the simplicity of Pooh Bear--and then on the other end, they have ads for competitions that are like, "Come to Quiz Night! Trump all the people stupider than you!" I feel like we'd get sued in the US for insinuating that some people might be "stupider" than others, or that, sometimes, we're not all winners. Anyway. Yay England.
I did in fact buy a few of the "Horrid History" books, featuring such topics as the "Terrible Tudors" and the "Stinky Stuarts." I plan to read these in place of my history book, which is dry and boring and gives all the same information minus much of the loo humour.
And then we saw the shoe area, which is all black and each shoe has its own black platform. Very dramatic. AND I played around with a beaded Cleopatra dress that was worth over 1600 pounds--that's 3200 US dollars, for those who are counting. Craziness. And the Food Halls were fucking incredible: gelato in enormous goblets with museum-quality presentation; an entire wall of jelly beans; and a chocolate area with more truffles than I have ever seen in my life. And the lady behind the counter felt bad for Laura and me, so she gave us free Turkish Delight candies (which I am told feature heavily in the Chronicles of Narnia, though I realize now that I have never read those books).
In conclusion: I love Harrods. One day perhaps I will be able to afford one bead on one of their dresses.
Then we located Hyde Park, but it looked pretty sketchy at night--kind of like a less populated Central Park-- so we decided to leave that for another day.
Educating Courtney, or Things I Can Do Now That I Could Not Do Two Weeks Ago:
I can semi- use a map!
I can also use the tube.
I can also use the bus! (Much more difficult than the London Underground, let me assure you.)
I can cook stir-fry vegetables and noodles and chicken, and (must give credit to Laura here) can get creative with leftover rice and add yogurt, cinammon, mango, grapes to make a dessert-like salad.
I can get a drink at a pub and not get carded. (I could not do this two days ago, lol.)
I can clean and organize my life into a single closet, half a dresser, and no desk. It's true. Jen, you would love me better now.
So yesterday was a wasted day completely, except for my history class, which I loved loved. That little British man who is my professor makes history a story, and then we break for tea and coffee (these people take their tea damn seriously), and then we look at primary sources and somehow this is not dry. I think perhaps because I have a secret crush on my 70-year-old professor.
But then our internet went bonkers, so we went bonkers, so we tried everything to set up a modem but failed miserably--I missed all my wonderful techies at Yale--so we tried to continue to steal from the internet cafe across the street as we had been doing but were thwarted, so we chatted with the internet guy as he tried to help us for 3 hours. So in the end nothing was accomplished and we went to bed unwired. And I realized that never never could I have done this trip sans internet. Communication with my homies (hah- pun) is key.
And on Saturday, we walked around London a bit. Passed Chinatown and Soho and Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square, which I particularly liked--lots of Italian restaurants and movie theaters and a nice little statue square area thingy in the middle. And I saw posters for British Rent and Wicked, which pleased me immensely and which I studied enough to give a detailed analysis of the differences in US-UK advertising, but will not do here. This is the day on which we figured out the buses. This is also the day on which Laura and I ate dinner on the Queen Mary--yes, a ship on the Thames. We just kind of walked over a plank and sat at some wavy table and ordered chips and then were like...hm! We're eating on the Thames. That's kind of fun.
And that's London Life. I'm off to Moroccan Night at the International Student House now, to crib some free dinner. And tomorrow I'm seeing a play called the Vertical Hour, directed by the guy whose master class I saw last week and set at Yale. It will make me miss my wonderful Yalies, I'm sure.
Word of the day:
take a piss at / take a mickey at = make fun of
Thought of the day:
London rain is mean to curly hair. Talk about frizz.
After English class today, Laura and I took the tube to Knightsbridge and went to Harrods. It was magnificent. Truly the most out of control department store I have ever been within--and I'm a Jersey girl. We like malls and department stores. There's this whole Egyptian escalator section, where they have sphinxes and hieroglyphics and headdresses and such all the way around on your way up these little escalators. Actually, there's a lot of Egyptian stuff in Britain--saw Cleopatra's Needle on Satuday, which is just plopped down on the Strand along the Thames. It was not quite as thrilling as I had expected, and certainly not as awesome as Harrods was today!
Laura and I spent about an hour and a half in the children's book section of Harrods alone. It was lovely and wonderful. We saw more Horrid Henry (I mistakenly called him Harry last time--oops), which apparently is a favourite children's book series here. British people just adore horrid things. I love it. And we got oh-so-excited about the "Horrible History" books on display that the saleslady started talking to us for a while. She had this odd British accent with very full and rounded vowels, and she seemed to love what she does, and she brought us to the Winnie the Pooh section and told us that the idea for the series actually originated in Harrods, when A.A. Milne bought a bear for his son, Christopher Robin, and then made up stories to go along with it. How sweet! I love original pooh bear; the cover of one of the books quotes:
"Hallo, Piglet," he said. "I thought you were out."
"No," said Piglet, "it's you who were out, Pooh."
"So it was," said Pooh. "I knew one of us was."
How pure and adorable is a friendship in which you get confused as to which of you was gone when you are alone? I adore British sensibilities. In every way they are more direct than Americans: they come up with the simplicity of Pooh Bear--and then on the other end, they have ads for competitions that are like, "Come to Quiz Night! Trump all the people stupider than you!" I feel like we'd get sued in the US for insinuating that some people might be "stupider" than others, or that, sometimes, we're not all winners. Anyway. Yay England.
I did in fact buy a few of the "Horrid History" books, featuring such topics as the "Terrible Tudors" and the "Stinky Stuarts." I plan to read these in place of my history book, which is dry and boring and gives all the same information minus much of the loo humour.
And then we saw the shoe area, which is all black and each shoe has its own black platform. Very dramatic. AND I played around with a beaded Cleopatra dress that was worth over 1600 pounds--that's 3200 US dollars, for those who are counting. Craziness. And the Food Halls were fucking incredible: gelato in enormous goblets with museum-quality presentation; an entire wall of jelly beans; and a chocolate area with more truffles than I have ever seen in my life. And the lady behind the counter felt bad for Laura and me, so she gave us free Turkish Delight candies (which I am told feature heavily in the Chronicles of Narnia, though I realize now that I have never read those books).
In conclusion: I love Harrods. One day perhaps I will be able to afford one bead on one of their dresses.
Then we located Hyde Park, but it looked pretty sketchy at night--kind of like a less populated Central Park-- so we decided to leave that for another day.
Educating Courtney, or Things I Can Do Now That I Could Not Do Two Weeks Ago:
I can semi- use a map!
I can also use the tube.
I can also use the bus! (Much more difficult than the London Underground, let me assure you.)
I can cook stir-fry vegetables and noodles and chicken, and (must give credit to Laura here) can get creative with leftover rice and add yogurt, cinammon, mango, grapes to make a dessert-like salad.
I can get a drink at a pub and not get carded. (I could not do this two days ago, lol.)
I can clean and organize my life into a single closet, half a dresser, and no desk. It's true. Jen, you would love me better now.
So yesterday was a wasted day completely, except for my history class, which I loved loved. That little British man who is my professor makes history a story, and then we break for tea and coffee (these people take their tea damn seriously), and then we look at primary sources and somehow this is not dry. I think perhaps because I have a secret crush on my 70-year-old professor.
But then our internet went bonkers, so we went bonkers, so we tried everything to set up a modem but failed miserably--I missed all my wonderful techies at Yale--so we tried to continue to steal from the internet cafe across the street as we had been doing but were thwarted, so we chatted with the internet guy as he tried to help us for 3 hours. So in the end nothing was accomplished and we went to bed unwired. And I realized that never never could I have done this trip sans internet. Communication with my homies (hah- pun) is key.
And on Saturday, we walked around London a bit. Passed Chinatown and Soho and Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square, which I particularly liked--lots of Italian restaurants and movie theaters and a nice little statue square area thingy in the middle. And I saw posters for British Rent and Wicked, which pleased me immensely and which I studied enough to give a detailed analysis of the differences in US-UK advertising, but will not do here. This is the day on which we figured out the buses. This is also the day on which Laura and I ate dinner on the Queen Mary--yes, a ship on the Thames. We just kind of walked over a plank and sat at some wavy table and ordered chips and then were like...hm! We're eating on the Thames. That's kind of fun.
And that's London Life. I'm off to Moroccan Night at the International Student House now, to crib some free dinner. And tomorrow I'm seeing a play called the Vertical Hour, directed by the guy whose master class I saw last week and set at Yale. It will make me miss my wonderful Yalies, I'm sure.
Word of the day:
take a piss at / take a mickey at = make fun of
Thought of the day:
London rain is mean to curly hair. Talk about frizz.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Spider's Web!!!!
The Jonathan Edwards Spider's Web Literary and Arts Magazine is currently in the Swing Space mailroom!!! I am very excited about it and very proud of it and very sad that I cannot actually hold a physical copy for the moment. But if you are reading this and at Yale, go pick up a copy!!!!
:)!!!
!
:)!!!
!
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Being Cultured
Yesterday (or two days ago technically, I guess--in any case, on Thursday), I had my first Modern British Drama class. It's a really incredible class, because it is only modern in the sense that it is what's on the British stage now. aka We watch plays that are popular, then talk about them. Amazing. And it's really different from any class I've ever taken, because we talk about performance and dramatic choices and the relative importance of the book versus other elements of staging. And I even get credit for the English major for it.
After class yesterday, we had a potluck dinner in the flat next door! It was utterly adorable. My flat (I keep wanting to call it a suite, but we're not at Yale anymore) contributed whole wheat pasta, olive oil, tomato sauce, and grated cheese. Next door made goat cheese, tomatoes, and crackers, and also buttered mushrooms and peas. And the boys brought a baguette and salad and mulled wine, which we heated on the stove top, though this tasted like a mix of snapple, cider, and nail polish remover. All in all, it was a very successful dinner; will be repeated.
Below we have some cooking pictures:
The magnificent spread. It looked cooler in real life. That covered bowl houses the pasta that was my contribution. Hell yeah I'm proud.
Laura and me on our first day of cooking. Pre-discovering the kitchen fan. If the room looks smoky, that's because it is.
Then we all went to the UCL pub, where 1.50 pound shots sounded cheap for about a half a second before we left. Finally we got to student night at some club called the Rocket? I think, where they were really cross (that’s right, cross) about proper ID. My friend Sophie who forgot hers actually had to prove that her keys matched up to her roommate’s in order to establish that she was a student. Intense.
This one is Scylla, by Ithell Colguhoun, after the sea monster who attacks the boat between the rocks in the Odyssey...but...
It was inspired by what the artist sees when in the tub! It's described as a "pictoral pun!" (See the knees and--ahem--"coral"?) I find this magnificent.
And then today was an uber-theatrical day. Woke up at noon, then went immediately to the Almeida Theatre for a master class with Sam West, who is apparently some big British actor. It was so interesting; he gave notes on student performances, and it was amazing to see the interpretation entirely transformed by just a few suggestions. And he really followed the text for clues to character, going so far as to note commas and periods and other such punctuation as indicative of how a character thinks and therefore what he/she is, which is interesting from a writer-ly perspective.
Immediately following that from 2-4:15, we went to the National Theatre and heard the director of Much Ado About Nothing speak at 6. Not oh so enlightening. Then we saw Much Ado About Nothing (and by we I mean my class and professor, which is 9 people), and it was wonderful! Most interesting and accessible interpretation of Shakespeare I've ever seen. Very funny, too--there was a pool onstage and fun to be had.
I got back to the flat at 11:30, so literally spent all day at the theatre. Feeling cultural. This is quite a boring post. How shall I spice it up? A picture of me! I know not why I look so unhappy, but I think I am unintentionally adopting my sister's "I am so disgusted with the world" face; and what with Rent closing on Broadway in a few months (I KNOW!) we have been kindred spirits as of late.
And here are the other people in my program, minus Kate and Laura, at the Hope pub near my flat. It closed at 11 and kicked us out, but not before we got some rockin' good cider.
Also, some tantalizing pictures of my flat:
For more on the flat, see my video on facebook in which I give a tour.
And lastly, I feel I must share the ridiculousness of where the boys live. It truly is some Sultan's chamber:
Knickers and Rubbish,
Courtney
P.S. I just learned that you can click on these pictures to make them larger.
P.P.S. Word of the day: rubbish bin = trash can.
After class yesterday, we had a potluck dinner in the flat next door! It was utterly adorable. My flat (I keep wanting to call it a suite, but we're not at Yale anymore) contributed whole wheat pasta, olive oil, tomato sauce, and grated cheese. Next door made goat cheese, tomatoes, and crackers, and also buttered mushrooms and peas. And the boys brought a baguette and salad and mulled wine, which we heated on the stove top, though this tasted like a mix of snapple, cider, and nail polish remover. All in all, it was a very successful dinner; will be repeated.
Below we have some cooking pictures:
The magnificent spread. It looked cooler in real life. That covered bowl houses the pasta that was my contribution. Hell yeah I'm proud.
Laura and me on our first day of cooking. Pre-discovering the kitchen fan. If the room looks smoky, that's because it is.
Then we all went to the UCL pub, where 1.50 pound shots sounded cheap for about a half a second before we left. Finally we got to student night at some club called the Rocket? I think, where they were really cross (that’s right, cross) about proper ID. My friend Sophie who forgot hers actually had to prove that her keys matched up to her roommate’s in order to establish that she was a student. Intense.
This one is Scylla, by Ithell Colguhoun, after the sea monster who attacks the boat between the rocks in the Odyssey...but...
It was inspired by what the artist sees when in the tub! It's described as a "pictoral pun!" (See the knees and--ahem--"coral"?) I find this magnificent.
And then today was an uber-theatrical day. Woke up at noon, then went immediately to the Almeida Theatre for a master class with Sam West, who is apparently some big British actor. It was so interesting; he gave notes on student performances, and it was amazing to see the interpretation entirely transformed by just a few suggestions. And he really followed the text for clues to character, going so far as to note commas and periods and other such punctuation as indicative of how a character thinks and therefore what he/she is, which is interesting from a writer-ly perspective.
Immediately following that from 2-4:15, we went to the National Theatre and heard the director of Much Ado About Nothing speak at 6. Not oh so enlightening. Then we saw Much Ado About Nothing (and by we I mean my class and professor, which is 9 people), and it was wonderful! Most interesting and accessible interpretation of Shakespeare I've ever seen. Very funny, too--there was a pool onstage and fun to be had.
I got back to the flat at 11:30, so literally spent all day at the theatre. Feeling cultural. This is quite a boring post. How shall I spice it up? A picture of me! I know not why I look so unhappy, but I think I am unintentionally adopting my sister's "I am so disgusted with the world" face; and what with Rent closing on Broadway in a few months (I KNOW!) we have been kindred spirits as of late.
And here are the other people in my program, minus Kate and Laura, at the Hope pub near my flat. It closed at 11 and kicked us out, but not before we got some rockin' good cider.
Also, some tantalizing pictures of my flat:
For more on the flat, see my video on facebook in which I give a tour.
And lastly, I feel I must share the ridiculousness of where the boys live. It truly is some Sultan's chamber:
Knickers and Rubbish,
Courtney
P.S. I just learned that you can click on these pictures to make them larger.
P.P.S. Word of the day: rubbish bin = trash can.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
ClassesV2
Second day of class was yesterday. It was an English/Lit class, Dream Visions in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, where we read Chaucer and other Middle English works and focus on fantasies and dreams. In other words, it should be as whacked out and delusional as Yale Lit classes get. This is wonderful news. And then today I had Art History, which is really the best it can possibly be, though I'm a bit nervous that I've never taken an art history class before and don't know how to write about art. But we'll visit a different British gallery every other class (British National Gallery, Tate Britain, etc) and see everything we're working on in the flesh (in the canvas?)
And tomorrow is my Modern British Drama class, which is modern only in the sense that it is based on what's showing on the London stage right now. So I get to see the plays on which my class is based every single week, starting with Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre this Friday. These classes are all humanities, so lots and lots of outside reading and writing, but all the resources are so present. I'm really excited about classes! I'm such a nerd!!
Yesterday we also checked out the University of London library, which is utterly enormous but also utterly unimpressive compared to Sterling at Yale. I guess SML is so big and beautiful and with so many open study spaces (I swear, they are vast and uncramped compared to the UCL library) that it's tough for me to like anything else. I don't think I'll be using this much.
And at night I went to a pub and got a raspberry--yes, raspberry--beer. The girliest beer there is, and the most drinkable one I've ever had. I felt totally bad-ass, out drinking on a Tuesday night, until I was the only one in the group to get carded. Apparently I do not yet look 21. :( (The legal drinking age here is 18, but they will card you if you look under 21--just like they say they card you if you look under 30 in the US.) Must work on my sophisticated face.
More British vocab:
ice lolly = popsicle
loo = bathroom
water closet = bathroom
loo paper = toilet paper (this one really confused me.)
And my shining accomplishment of the night: Laura and I made dinner! Coriander chicken, no less, with a multitude of spices I won't pretend I've heard of before (coriander, cumin, etc). And we even had salad and a baguette and butter. I felt so grown-up, though I suppose the novelty of this will wear off very shortly. My flat does have a dishwasher, as well as a joint washer/dryer for clothes, two of the most wonderful pieces of news I have received upon looking around the kitchen. (The other being that a fan exists above the stove, a fact Laura and I did not realize until we set off the fire alarm.)
Finally, we went to the British Museum after class today. It is literally one block away from my classroom building at the Paul Mellon Centre (as is the UCL library...and my flat...and the shopping district...I am very central.) You can just walk into the British Museum--there are no entry lines or guards or bag checks or metal detectors or anything, which feels very strange to me. But I saw some pieces of the Parthenon, and some Enlightenment crap (sorry, artifacts) that people used to have lying around their desks...and the Rosetta Stone!! It was bigger than I had imagined but smaller than most of my other Yale-in-Londoners had thought, so I suppose I just had an unusually small mental picture. But you can definitely make out the heiroglyphics and Greek and Egyptian script on there. Very cool.
And now I'm in the flat, getting the Spider's Web ready to print. (JE people--it will be coming out within the next two weeks, and it's really come together. I'm proud of it.) I miss all of you in the States, and I really hugely appreciate all of your e-mails and comments.
Ooh, pictures. This blog has really bad quality uploading, so I will put just a few with comments here. The rest I think I'll just upload on facebook...I'll have a lot, so they'll mostly be untagged.
The London Eye ferris wheel along the Thames River! The cars are much larger than I imagined, as big as a subway car. I have yet to go on this, but I will have a tourist day and do it.
Big Ben! Not much to say here. It's big. I think the Parliament building it's attached to is more impressive than it is.
Blintzes that Josh and I somehow managed to order at the Great Big Russian Extravaganza (not its official name), even though the menus and servers only spoke Russian.
Gerald, Josh, me, and Tanya next to the matryoshka dolls at the GBRE.
A children's book sold at Camden Market. Ithought it was hilarious and so typically British to have a children's story called "The Sad Story of X," with a depressing-looking ghoulish drowning picture on the cover. There was also a lovely little book called "Horrid Harry and the Nits," also incredibly British and a great name for a band.
The poles along the street outside of Buckingham Palace all have this inscription on them! For Queen Elizabeth II, and the R stands for something that I swear I remembered yesterday. Everyone here loves the Queen. They sell these enormous postcards that just feature her in this silly blue dress with flowers. Cute lady.
The street just outside my flat. The cross street with the big building is Tottenham (pronounced Tot-nuhm) Court Road, one of the big shopping streets in London. That little store on the left is a Fish Take Away place--they sell fish and chips to "take away." This is as opposed to "eat-in," which costs significantly more than the exact same food eaten elsewhere, a really unhappy phenomenon we do not have in the US.
Camden market. I love this. Is it the name of the brand, or an exclamation about the price?
Thank you, England.
West African food in huge vats at Camden Market! I did not try any. I regret this now.
Camden market. It may look like a carnival from the outside, but inside that little tunnel are punk rockers and voodoo dolls and Avril Lavigne look-alikes. Frightening indeed, but we journey on.
Domestic pictures to come soon!
Rubbish and Chaps,
Courtney
And tomorrow is my Modern British Drama class, which is modern only in the sense that it is based on what's showing on the London stage right now. So I get to see the plays on which my class is based every single week, starting with Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre this Friday. These classes are all humanities, so lots and lots of outside reading and writing, but all the resources are so present. I'm really excited about classes! I'm such a nerd!!
Yesterday we also checked out the University of London library, which is utterly enormous but also utterly unimpressive compared to Sterling at Yale. I guess SML is so big and beautiful and with so many open study spaces (I swear, they are vast and uncramped compared to the UCL library) that it's tough for me to like anything else. I don't think I'll be using this much.
And at night I went to a pub and got a raspberry--yes, raspberry--beer. The girliest beer there is, and the most drinkable one I've ever had. I felt totally bad-ass, out drinking on a Tuesday night, until I was the only one in the group to get carded. Apparently I do not yet look 21. :( (The legal drinking age here is 18, but they will card you if you look under 21--just like they say they card you if you look under 30 in the US.) Must work on my sophisticated face.
More British vocab:
ice lolly = popsicle
loo = bathroom
water closet = bathroom
loo paper = toilet paper (this one really confused me.)
And my shining accomplishment of the night: Laura and I made dinner! Coriander chicken, no less, with a multitude of spices I won't pretend I've heard of before (coriander, cumin, etc). And we even had salad and a baguette and butter. I felt so grown-up, though I suppose the novelty of this will wear off very shortly. My flat does have a dishwasher, as well as a joint washer/dryer for clothes, two of the most wonderful pieces of news I have received upon looking around the kitchen. (The other being that a fan exists above the stove, a fact Laura and I did not realize until we set off the fire alarm.)
Finally, we went to the British Museum after class today. It is literally one block away from my classroom building at the Paul Mellon Centre (as is the UCL library...and my flat...and the shopping district...I am very central.) You can just walk into the British Museum--there are no entry lines or guards or bag checks or metal detectors or anything, which feels very strange to me. But I saw some pieces of the Parthenon, and some Enlightenment crap (sorry, artifacts) that people used to have lying around their desks...and the Rosetta Stone!! It was bigger than I had imagined but smaller than most of my other Yale-in-Londoners had thought, so I suppose I just had an unusually small mental picture. But you can definitely make out the heiroglyphics and Greek and Egyptian script on there. Very cool.
And now I'm in the flat, getting the Spider's Web ready to print. (JE people--it will be coming out within the next two weeks, and it's really come together. I'm proud of it.) I miss all of you in the States, and I really hugely appreciate all of your e-mails and comments.
Ooh, pictures. This blog has really bad quality uploading, so I will put just a few with comments here. The rest I think I'll just upload on facebook...I'll have a lot, so they'll mostly be untagged.
The London Eye ferris wheel along the Thames River! The cars are much larger than I imagined, as big as a subway car. I have yet to go on this, but I will have a tourist day and do it.
Big Ben! Not much to say here. It's big. I think the Parliament building it's attached to is more impressive than it is.
Blintzes that Josh and I somehow managed to order at the Great Big Russian Extravaganza (not its official name), even though the menus and servers only spoke Russian.
Gerald, Josh, me, and Tanya next to the matryoshka dolls at the GBRE.
A children's book sold at Camden Market. Ithought it was hilarious and so typically British to have a children's story called "The Sad Story of X," with a depressing-looking ghoulish drowning picture on the cover. There was also a lovely little book called "Horrid Harry and the Nits," also incredibly British and a great name for a band.
The poles along the street outside of Buckingham Palace all have this inscription on them! For Queen Elizabeth II, and the R stands for something that I swear I remembered yesterday. Everyone here loves the Queen. They sell these enormous postcards that just feature her in this silly blue dress with flowers. Cute lady.
The street just outside my flat. The cross street with the big building is Tottenham (pronounced Tot-nuhm) Court Road, one of the big shopping streets in London. That little store on the left is a Fish Take Away place--they sell fish and chips to "take away." This is as opposed to "eat-in," which costs significantly more than the exact same food eaten elsewhere, a really unhappy phenomenon we do not have in the US.
Camden market. I love this. Is it the name of the brand, or an exclamation about the price?
Thank you, England.
West African food in huge vats at Camden Market! I did not try any. I regret this now.
Camden market. It may look like a carnival from the outside, but inside that little tunnel are punk rockers and voodoo dolls and Avril Lavigne look-alikes. Frightening indeed, but we journey on.
Domestic pictures to come soon!
Rubbish and Chaps,
Courtney
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
