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.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
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
Monday, January 14, 2008
Russian Fest / First day of class
Yesterday, I went to the Russian Winter Festival in Trafalgar Square (which does in fact have an "r" at the end--British people pronounce such things "Trafalga." I see already that this will be difficult when taking notes on names and places for class.). I was surrounded by thousands upon thousands of Russian Londoners, all speaking Russian and standing around with life size motroyshka dolls (those dolls within dolls within dolls) and eating blintzes from stands whose menus were written entirely in Russian. So I somehow managed to order a blintz, share some mulled wine, and listen to some incomprehensible Russian pop. It was hilariously entertaining.
Then I walked around London and saw all the sites at night--Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye ferris wheel, the West End theatre district, etc., Very pretty!! Rather windy, but still up in the high 40s/low 50s Fahrenheit-- I haven't worked out Celsius yet--so warmer than New Haven for sure. And then I went over to the boys' flat and helped them make dinner, and we had a lovely little meal for the three of us with place settings and everything. I swear I will come back a natural chef. (Or at least a very experienced boiler of pasta.) And then I planned to go to bed early, but my roommate Laura and I ended up talking until the wee hours. By which I mean 1 AM, since I am still all over the place where time is concerned.
In domestic news, my flat is still great but freezing. Having lived with my darling and wonderful Arizonian roommate these past few years, I've gotten used to heat where possible in the room--and now I can't sleep even under my big duvet. (Is a duvet a blanket? This word is new to me, though apparently it shouldn't be. I can no longer tell when a word is British and when I am just stupid.)
Some fun British words:
lorry = truck
buggy = carriage
aubergine = eggplant
mange touts = snap peas (it means "eat it all," or "eat the whole thing" in French)
tube / underground = subway
The Brits also use different-sized paper, very tall and a little thinner than ours, so nothing fits in my folders. And only once thus far have I barely escaped death as I stepped into the road having looked the wrong way (I will maintain it is the right way). Mercifully, many streets actually have the instructions "Look left" or "Look right" painted on them...too many tourist deaths, perhaps?...
I am a huge fan of British currency, though not so much of just how weak American money stands in comparison. (1 pound = 2 US dollars.) But the British coins are fun shaped, octagonal and mix-and-matched colors, and the bills are colorful with holographic Queens and some even tell a story about the people on them. Maybe I will redesign the American currency to tell stories, and have people collect all the different bills in order to read the whole thing. This could be a new career path for me.
I had my introduction to the semester and my first history class today, which was fun. I'm oddly psyched for classes, notwithstanding my recognition of the nerd factor. But my history professor is this adorable little British man who speaks just like those narrators on the history channel. He summarized the British dynasties from the 1000s to 1600s in about an hour, and made it like a story and I loved listening to him. If all of our professors had fun accents, lectures would be far easier.
Pip pip.
Then I walked around London and saw all the sites at night--Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye ferris wheel, the West End theatre district, etc., Very pretty!! Rather windy, but still up in the high 40s/low 50s Fahrenheit-- I haven't worked out Celsius yet--so warmer than New Haven for sure. And then I went over to the boys' flat and helped them make dinner, and we had a lovely little meal for the three of us with place settings and everything. I swear I will come back a natural chef. (Or at least a very experienced boiler of pasta.) And then I planned to go to bed early, but my roommate Laura and I ended up talking until the wee hours. By which I mean 1 AM, since I am still all over the place where time is concerned.
In domestic news, my flat is still great but freezing. Having lived with my darling and wonderful Arizonian roommate these past few years, I've gotten used to heat where possible in the room--and now I can't sleep even under my big duvet. (Is a duvet a blanket? This word is new to me, though apparently it shouldn't be. I can no longer tell when a word is British and when I am just stupid.)
Some fun British words:
lorry = truck
buggy = carriage
aubergine = eggplant
mange touts = snap peas (it means "eat it all," or "eat the whole thing" in French)
tube / underground = subway
The Brits also use different-sized paper, very tall and a little thinner than ours, so nothing fits in my folders. And only once thus far have I barely escaped death as I stepped into the road having looked the wrong way (I will maintain it is the right way). Mercifully, many streets actually have the instructions "Look left" or "Look right" painted on them...too many tourist deaths, perhaps?...
I am a huge fan of British currency, though not so much of just how weak American money stands in comparison. (1 pound = 2 US dollars.) But the British coins are fun shaped, octagonal and mix-and-matched colors, and the bills are colorful with holographic Queens and some even tell a story about the people on them. Maybe I will redesign the American currency to tell stories, and have people collect all the different bills in order to read the whole thing. This could be a new career path for me.
I had my introduction to the semester and my first history class today, which was fun. I'm oddly psyched for classes, notwithstanding my recognition of the nerd factor. But my history professor is this adorable little British man who speaks just like those narrators on the history channel. He summarized the British dynasties from the 1000s to 1600s in about an hour, and made it like a story and I loved listening to him. If all of our professors had fun accents, lectures would be far easier.
Pip pip.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Out and About (A Bit)
So I woke up yesterday at 1 PM, having slept for 15 hours and woken up still entirely exhausted. Jetlag will do that to you, I guess. Figured out the "tube" or "underground" with my roommate Laura and suitemate Tanya, then went to Camden Market. It was so fun and busy and cute and British! Lots of food stands, big on Indian, Mexican, and West African(!), all served from these enormous vats just laid out on a table. I've never seen anything like it in the States. And it seems there's a huge punk-rock scene in London, so there were blocks and blocks of stores that were essentially Hot Topic, places that sold voodoo dolls on giant billboards...really crazy. And a guy selling "pots" of candy and tea made fun of me for saying "caramel" and "totally" (as opposed to "toffee" and...I'm not sure what?) Impressing the natives already...
Then at night I met up with all the other people in my program (there are only 8 of us) at the boys' flat down the street. Their place is insane--the common room has this dome roof with curtains hanging all around and green chaise lounges and little round porthole windows. It looks like some Turkish sultan's chamber. We went to a club called Aquamarine, which actually had a pool inside. Young British people are really out there fashion-wise--I have never seen so many mohawks in one place. I was fairly dead on my feet at this point, so it was all a bit of a blur, but definitely an experience.
Not sure what's up for today yet. Classes start tomorrow, which should give some more structure to the days.
If anyone has a spare moment in the day, e-mail me! I love e-mails; they make me smile :).
Then at night I met up with all the other people in my program (there are only 8 of us) at the boys' flat down the street. Their place is insane--the common room has this dome roof with curtains hanging all around and green chaise lounges and little round porthole windows. It looks like some Turkish sultan's chamber. We went to a club called Aquamarine, which actually had a pool inside. Young British people are really out there fashion-wise--I have never seen so many mohawks in one place. I was fairly dead on my feet at this point, so it was all a bit of a blur, but definitely an experience.
Not sure what's up for today yet. Classes start tomorrow, which should give some more structure to the days.
If anyone has a spare moment in the day, e-mail me! I love e-mails; they make me smile :).
Friday, January 11, 2008
First Day!
It's a little unbelievable that I am sitting in my flat in the middle of London, when just this morning I was on a couch in New Jersey attempting to watch Scrubs as my mother yelled checklists at me. It is nearly 9 PM, which feels like 4 PM, which frankly just feels a bit like hell considering the jet lag.
When I got into the taxi this morning from Heathrow Airport to the Paul Mellon Centre in London, where I will be studying this semester, I was totally prepared for the fact that the driver would sit on the right side--but I was shocked by the realization that the rearview mirror also faced the right instead of the left. I contemplated this for a few moments, then began to wonder if the turn signal too is on the right of the steering wheel. My first interaction with a real live Londonder thus consisted of a considerable amount of awkward rustling in my failed attempt to see the driver's hands from my vantage point directly behind him.
London was raining, not unexpectedly. My apartment building is in the Bloomsbury district, near the center of London and its Soho area. I passed Big Ben and Buckingham Palace on my way to the building, where the lift took me six flights up to my flat. And it's so much nicer than I expected it to be! I have a good sized kitchen complete with utensils, pots, pans, and even a little washing machine (underwear and socks will no longer be the limiting reagents of real laundry!); a big common room with a breakfast nook, couch, TV, chairs, and a gorgeous view of the city streets; one and a half bathrooms; and two bedrooms, a single and a double. I'm in the double, which is more spacious (although the single has a queen! sized bed.) Nice digs, as they say.
So tired, will continue this tomorrow.
Cheerio!
When I got into the taxi this morning from Heathrow Airport to the Paul Mellon Centre in London, where I will be studying this semester, I was totally prepared for the fact that the driver would sit on the right side--but I was shocked by the realization that the rearview mirror also faced the right instead of the left. I contemplated this for a few moments, then began to wonder if the turn signal too is on the right of the steering wheel. My first interaction with a real live Londonder thus consisted of a considerable amount of awkward rustling in my failed attempt to see the driver's hands from my vantage point directly behind him.
London was raining, not unexpectedly. My apartment building is in the Bloomsbury district, near the center of London and its Soho area. I passed Big Ben and Buckingham Palace on my way to the building, where the lift took me six flights up to my flat. And it's so much nicer than I expected it to be! I have a good sized kitchen complete with utensils, pots, pans, and even a little washing machine (underwear and socks will no longer be the limiting reagents of real laundry!); a big common room with a breakfast nook, couch, TV, chairs, and a gorgeous view of the city streets; one and a half bathrooms; and two bedrooms, a single and a double. I'm in the double, which is more spacious (although the single has a queen! sized bed.) Nice digs, as they say.
So tired, will continue this tomorrow.
Cheerio!
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