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