Flat and the Weekend

First off, let me introduce you to my home-away-from-home.

This is where I am living this summer, Manson Place:

One of those windows at the top of the frame is mine.

This is my dorm room, and you can see my lower bunk there. Hidden out of the frame in the corner is the other bed in our room.


Here is the common room of our flat. It's small for 13 people, but it does the job.


And here....is our local tube station's scarecrow. I'm not sure WHY our local tube station has a scarecrow, but it's pretty awesome:



My first "proper" weekend in London is now over, and honestly, it's been a bit chill. We came to the conclusion that the weekend is a BAD time to be doing touristy things, because all of the sights are just BUSIER on the weekend. So we mostly tried to stay in less obvious parts of town this weekend.

The only exception was Friday morning, when we decided to hit up the Tower of London earlier in the day. I had been to the Tower before, and a few little things had changed in the past six years.

The biggest difference this time was the Beheadding Memorial on the spot where all executions happened at the Tower. I believe it was just a plaque of some sort the last time I was there. This time, this memorial has replaced the plaque:



Here is the group of us at the Tower:



Of course the tours are still preformed by the Beefeater guards, and they are still as fabulous as they were the first time. Lots of tales of blood and gore and bad jokes. Fantastic.



This is Traitor's Gate, where Anne Boleyn and other "traitors" were rowed from the Thames into the Tower of London for their executions:


And of course, the ravens are still prominent in the Tower of London. It's said that if the ravens leave the tower, the kingdom will fall.



And of course we have the oldest part of the Tower of London, the White Tower, which currently holds the arms and weaponry exhibits. As you can see by my crappy camerawork, it was raining by the time we left the Tower of London.


Much of the rest of the weekend we spent roaming around London and window-shopping. Primark is apparently the cheapest clothing store in existence. Evans is Lane Bryant with cuter clothes and some cheaper prices. It was kind of fun getting out and into the shops. I haven't really BOUGHT myself anything on this trip yet - nothing worth talking about. I'm still pinching pounds a little bit while I wait for financial aid to sort out their issues, but hopefully today or tomorrow that will become less of an issue.

Our other big excursion for the weekend was Saturday night, when at my behest, we all went down to Westminster to watch the sun go down and the lights come out. It was fantastic. The weather was nice. The lights were gorgeous. We just walked around and took pictures and it was utterly lovely.

Here are some of my favorites:











Seeing as it's taken me three days to write THIS blog entry, I'm going to leave it there. But tune in later for more from me! Monday I went ON the London Eye, and to Westminster Abbey, and tonight we're going to see Twelfth Night at the open air theater in Regent's Park!

All the World's a Stage

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, yesterday was our first class trip to the Globe to see a Shakespeare play. I had been on the Globe tour during my last visit to London, but never before been to a play there, so it was a first-time experience for me this time around!



The Globe really is a rather unique theater experience. It is getting more and more popular in our modern world to be obsessed with the past, and therefore to try to revitalize the way things were done in the past, but I think with Shakespeare, nobody does it quite like the Globe.

The theater was built in the exact same manner as the original Globe back in Shakespearean times. They used the same building products from the wood, to the stakes holding the building together, to the thatched roof. Even the seats and stage and performances are all created to be as authentic as possible, which makes it all a very cool place to see a Shakespeare play.

On top of all of the authenticity, it is also very accessible. The "groundlings" on the floor around the stage are 5 pound tickets which can be purchased day-of, or in advance if you so wish. The seats around the outside however, should usually be booked in advance. My teacher was kind enough to get us seats for all of our Globe shows (we shall be going to three). However, he highly recommends buying a groundling ticket and standing for a play for a different kind of experience.

On Wednesday we saw King Lear. Three-hour-long Shakespearean tragedy is probably not the best time to be a groundling, so I was quite content in my seat. Although, even on my wooden bench, I have to admit my butt wasn't particularly happy by the time intermission, or the end of the play came. I also have to admit that Lear is not one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. It just doesn't do a whole lot for me, to be honest. It has it's good scenes, but I doubt I would go to see it again unless connected to class.

I won't go into specifics about characters and plot and the like, because honestly, Shakespearean analysis isn't what my blog is for. However, I will say that one thing they do to recreate the atmosphere of what they believe would have happened in Shakespeare's time is to make the curtain call at the end a bit of an event. The entire cast came out and sang this Olde English Ballad together - a very beautiful, mournful sounding piece, and slowly over the course of the song, resurrected each of the actors lying dead on the stage. When the song ended, they all stood together and did a jig for us before taking their bows. Yup. A jig. My teacher tried to explain this jig to us before it, but I don't think any of us appreciated the awesomeness of a massive group jig until we saw it onstage. It's supposed to liven things up and end on a more positive note than death and agony. It certainly worked.

So we were down on the South Bank all day, really. Before the play we toured the Globe, and after the play we sat in on a Q&A session with the actors who played Lear and Gloucester in the play. It made for a long, Shakespearean-filled day, but we had a little down time in between!

I took a walk down along the Thames with a few classmates for lunch at a Riverside pub with a lovely view of Saint Paul's Cathedral across the river. It was quite nice, and I think we might make a ritual of it on Globe days!

Here I am at the pub with the view of the river behind me!


Some of us beneath the Millenium Bridge:


Saint Paul's Cathedral Dome:


Today I took it very, very easy. After class this morning I stayed in for most of the day and just kind of relaxed around the flat. I decided I needed to chill a bit, and I figured I'd want to be active on the weekend.

This evening I met up with an old camp friend in Camden Town for dinner! It was the first time I'd seen her in I think somewhere around 8 years! We went to a Thai Pub for dinner. I had no idea that the British had Thai Pubs, but really, I figure, why not mix two great things? Thai food and the pub atmosphere? Awesome. The football game was on of course, Spain versus Russia, so it was quite a lively crowd and a good time was had by all!

I believe tomorrow morning I'm going to go to the Tower of London. Possibly. I wanted to do it again since it was really fun last time, so I figured I'd tag along with the group!

Portraits and Plays

Well, as I mentioned at the end of my last post, we went to see "Blood Brothers" in the West End on Monday night. I can't claim to have loved it. Decent music, and decent story, but nothing extraordinary. Still, it was a fun play, we were in the fourth row, and it was free. I have to admit, the closeness of the actors had me thinking about my Hamlet ticket - just a little bit ;)

Yesterday we had a kind of lazy class. I think my teacher is waiting until the plays start to really get into the big stuff. So we watched Shakespeare in Love - a movie I own and have probably seen about 37 times. lol. But it was still fun, and I HAVE actually been wanting to see it again. According to my teacher it's one of the best films at portraying Shakespeare's world. I can see that.

After class we had all afternoon free, so I went with a group of about 8 people down to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square for shopping and wandering.

The group in the Underground:


The group at Piccadilly Circus:


Me alone at the Eros Statue in Piccadilly Circus:


Piccadilly Circus:


Group in a London Phone Booth:



On a spontaneous whim, we decided to go to the National Portrait Gallery, which is one of a handful of museums I didn't go to on my last trip to London. It really was a lovely museum. Between the three floors of the museum they have portraits ranging from the Tudor period to modern times, of everyone from English royals, to politicians, and celebrities. There were portraits of Dickens, the Bronte Sisters, Charles Darwin, Shakespeare.

I had two moments of awesome in the museum. The first was on the 17th-18th century floor. In the same room, on opposite walls, they have a portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft facing a portrait of Mary Shelley. I thought that was particularly awesome, considering the deep connection between those two. Wollstonecraft died giving birth to Mary Shelley, and Shelley was haunted by the memory of her mother her entire life. They were never able to be together in life, so their portraits are together in memory of them. That's just fabulous.

The second, on a slightly sillier note, was in the modern section they had an entire room of portraits of black British actors. There were portraits in there of FIVE DIFFERENT actors who have done roles on Doctor Who, including Noel Clarke! They also had a portrait of Chiwetel Ejiofor in there, who I just adore.

We were tired after the gallery, and wanted to just kind of chill somewhere for a while, so we went up to the museum restaurant on the top floor, which had an AMAZING view of Westminster...but was closing in five minutes. So we somehow ended up wandering around for an hour and a half, before just wandering into the first place we saw when we decided we couldn't stand for another minute.

heh. This was entertaining in the end. We were so tired that we waited until after ordering before really taking note of our surroundings. Apparently we wandered into a combination gay bar/nightclub/restaurant. We were literally the only women, and only straight people in the room. But damn...the food was good there. I had this chicken, potato, and sun-dried tomato salad in honey mustard dressing that was really fresh and absolutely divine.

We were pretty wiped though, so after dinner we just headed back to the flat for the evening and chilled in the common room all night. Still, it was a really nice day, and I absolutely loved the National Portrait Gallery.

Today is our first big Shakespeare day! We are off to the Globe Tour and then we are seeing King Lear and having a "discussion" with the actors after the play! Should be fun!

A Few First Pictures...

I haven't really taken very many yet, which is rather surprising for me. But maybe I'm just getting warmed up!

Anyway, these are pictures from yesterday's tours.

First, from the bus tour of the sites:



Our first stop was at the Millennium Bridge where we could see the Tate Modern (as viewed here) as well as the Globe Theater and Saint Paul's Cathedral.


The Globe


Saint Paul's Cathedral

From the Bridge we could also see the Eye, just peeking through some of the city skyline.


Our second stop was near City Hall to see the Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf from a distance:


City Hall and the Tower Bridge


Canary Wharf

We also had a pretty decent view of the Gherkin from City Hall:



And of course, the Tower of London:



Later on the Walking Tour we explored Kensington and a bit of Hyde Park:


Kensington apartments


The Prince Albert Memorial

That's it for now!

Today I had my first class and some more orientation, and then went walking with my classmate, Hannah, along Kensington High Street. Tonight we are going to the West End to see "Blood Brothers" at the Phoenix Theater!

Tours and Sites and Flatmates

June 22, 5:27 p.m. London, England

Well, so far I have to admit, I have found it much harder than expected to find quality time at my computer! I’ve been trying to keep up with my LJ flist and my e-mail, but I’ve barely had time to skim things, let alone comment and respond! So I apologize for being a little quieter than expected! I just got back to my flat after a walking tour of Kensington, and I sneaked into the kitchen with my laptop to get away from my classmates for a bit in order to focus a little harder on “stuff”, such that it is.

So the past two days have indeed been quite eventful. On Friday evening after my last journal entry, I jumped back on the Underground and went to Leicester Square, since I remembered it as being a fun part of town from my last trip to London, but when I got there I immediately walked out of the tube station and barely made it half a block before it started raining. And unfortunately, seeing as I was afraid to leave my laptop in my hotel room, it was on me, and I didn’t like the idea of being out in the rain, so I jumped into the closest restaurant and had dinner. It was too expensive and not that exciting, but it was food, so I ate quickly and left. Got back on the tube and went back to Earl’s Court where I spent a bit of time in an internet café, before heading back to my room for the rest of the night.

I will not go into too much detail, but my room that night was even more disgusting and cockroach-y than the night before, and I had trouble sleeping, so it wasn’t exactly the best night. So I got myself up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and immediately ran for the hills (i.e., checked out and went straight to check in at the Foundation Center).

I was actually the third person to arrive from my program, and both of the first two turned out to be flatmates of mine, one was a roommate, so the three of us just kind of hung out in the room all morning and waited for everyone else to arrive.

The specific details of where I’m staying: It is the Manson Place flats, as I expected. All of the people in my program are in the same building, spread between three flats. I am in the largest and highest of the flats. We’re on the 4^th floor of the building, and there are 13 of us in this flat. The facilities are actually decent for our group. There are three small refrigerators, so plenty of food space after all. A decent sized kitchen. There are three bathrooms and three showers. Six rooms, I believe. Two rooms of four, one double, and three singles. The three guys in our program are in the singles, and then the rest are women. I am in one of the rooms of four, which is good, actually, because it means I got to be with both of the roommates I requested.

Everyone in the flat and the program seems to be really nice for the most part, and so far we’ve been fairly conflict-free. Which is nice. We had a self-determined flat meeting this afternoon to discuss some flat rules and remind each other about things and we all seemed to be pretty similar minded. This is both good and bad – good, because it’s a pretty comfortable situation so far. But it’s hard because when we want to go out, so far we’ve tended to go in a huge clump, which tends to be problematic when it comes to obvious things like restaurants.

Yesterday afternoon we went on a short walking tour of the FIE facilities in the area, as well as some of Imperial College, and local amenities such as grocery stores, etc. Not that exciting really, but it helped a lot of people figure out the area. After the walk I fed my obsessive side and watched Doctor Who, which somehow resulted in half of my flatmates joining me, which was rather amusing to me. Nice. I might have to convert some people to the dark side while I’m here. After Who, we went to a rather uneventful dinner with the group after failing to make it into the pubs due to Euro 2008 insanity. Tonight we’re going to go early and try to get a table before the game starts ;)

Today we had a few different planned activities. They took us on a very quick little bus tour of the major tourist sites in London, which was cool because I finally got to take some pictures, but frustrating because there just wasn’t enough TIME anywhere. But we’ll hit those places up again later. And they made the mistake of taking us to Buckingham Palace RIGHT AFTER the changing of the guard ended, so it was a freaking madhouse there. Ce la vie!

This afternoon, like I mentioned above, we were taken on a walking tour of Kensington. This was…mildly interesting, if a little strange. It felt like a neighborhood walk and architectural tour more than anything. Which, like I said, mildly interesting. The guide did point out a few interesting places I want to go back to, like this rooftop garden overlooking High Street Kensington. And we went past Kensington Palace, Royal Albert Hall, and the Albert Memorial, which was awesome.

As I mentioned, this evening we’ll be hitting up a pub. Where is still to be determined, but I’m quite ready to go do that ;)

Oh, and because, of course, I know you’re all waiting on baited breath to hear – my luggage did in fact turn up late yesterday afternoon, and let me just say that the resulting shower was like the best shower of my life. It was bliss. I was quite a happy camper. That and pajamas. Pajamas made me quite happy.

I’ll be back later to share some pictures from today’s tours!

Eventful, but Safe Arrival

June 20, 2008 2:26pm London, England

Well, I’ve been in England for about 28 hours now – not as long as I was in transit for, but it’s kind of amazing how quickly I’ve just settled into the city. I spent much of the morning today roaming around on the Underground, seeing a few sites from the outside, and just getting myself adjusted, overall.

But that’s not the story I want to tell first. First HAS to come the story of my transportation woes, and why it took me somewhere around 30 hours to get from California to London (normally a 9 hour flight, direct).

So I arrived at SFO safe and sound at around 7am on Wednesday morning. The first eventfulness of my entire journey happened DRIVING to the airport, as my mom took the Bay Bridge route, and it was completely backed up. No biggie – we’re driving into the city at commute time. We should expect this. Except that a lane was closed for a police action, and when we got to the scene there were about half-a-dozen or so authority figures (police, ambulance, etc) standing and staring over the edge near an abandoned car. Uh, yeah…we apparently just missed the jumper.

So, I’m a little late arriving to SFO, but no matter, because my flight is delayed 45 minutes. I’m not stressed, so I kick back and wait. We leave exactly when they said – 45 minutes late, and found ourselves in the air in a completely filled plane about the same quality as a Southwest plane. Which was a little disappointing to me, but whatever. I figure, it’s only one leg of my flight, so what if it’s a little uncomfortable?

So we fly for about 4 hours, and the captain announces that Newark is shut down so we have to circle and wait to be allowed to land. We circle for about an hour. Then he comes on the loudspeaker again and announces that Newark is still shut down and we’re running out of gas, so we’re being detoured to Buffalo, New York. Oooooookay. So, basically, we spent two hours sitting on the plane in Buffalo before they let us get back into Newark. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how my 4 hour layover ended up being 20 minutes long. Suffice to say, after running through the airport to try to catch my flight, they didn’t let me on. And suddenly I found myself stuck overnight in Newark.

Continental was very good. They set me up with a free room, and gave me food vouchers for dinner and breakfast. Free shuttle to and from the airport. I didn’t have to pay a cent the entire time I was stuck in Newark. And it was quite a swanky room they gave me at this random Best Western in Fords, New Jersey. There was a hot tub in the room! Too bad I wasn’t there long enough to take advantage of it!

So…at around 6:30 on Thursday morning I found myself being dropped off at yet ANOTHER airport, this time on the opposite side of the country. No delays this time. Confusing information, but I got to where I needed to be, took care of my business in-airport, and hopped on a 9am (EST) flight to London. Until we got on the plane, got seated, at which point it took them an hour to get out of the airport due to luggage issues and all sorts of problems. Oy. So around 10am we finally are in the air. The flight from Newark to Heathrow was slightly turbulent, but otherwise uneventful. It was a much more comfortable plane. Lots to do on the entertainment system (including Hangman! It is all about in-flight Hangman!) Not much to see during the flight. Mostly cloudy, and they didn’t turn on the maps until we were over the Atlantic. However, the one and only place I saw from the air that I absolutely 100% recognized was Southampton – so I waved at you from the plane, Tas!

I got off the plane at Heathrow around 10pm London time. Got through customs fairly quickly. Pretty quickly realized that my suitcase did not make it to London, and have to admit, at that point, I just wasn’t even surprised anymore. Filed a claim, and after a slight mixup with the train system (the express was cancelled and I didn’t know until after already buying a ticket – oy!) I ended up on the Underground into the city.

Can’t claim to have had time to do anything last night. It was all I could do to get to the hotel and get checked in before midnight. So I crashed out in my dirty, skuzzy hotel room in London. (Mel & Joyce – if you remember me complaining about the hotel we stayed at LAST time in London, it’s got nothing on this place! Yuck!) But it’s only for two days, so I’m dealing with it and I’m looking forward to getting checked into the FIE facility tomorrow morning (bright and early)!

So now here I am, Friday afternoon. I’ve been in the same clothes since Wednesday morning. I finally was able to get to a drug store this morning to buy a toothbrush and deodorant, and I did shower this morning, so while I feel as skuzzy as the hotel I’m staying in, at least I’m getting to a slightly improved state of existence. But let’s all keep our fingers crossed that my bag gets here soon!

This morning, after a quick breakfast at the hotel, I walked the mile from here to the FIE check-in location and popped my head in to let them know to expect my bag at some point. They were wonderful and lovely and like I said, I can’t wait to get there tomorrow. Then after a quick stint at the internet café to check on things, I bought myself a day-pass for the Underground and took off for the day.

I figured Westminster was the obvious place to start, so that’s where I headed. Walked up to the surface and just grinned at the sight of the clocktower. (Big Ben, if you will, even though Big Ben is actually the bell inside the clocktower, not the clocktower itself). I walked down to the Embarkment there and plopped down on a bench and just sat there for about a half an hour looking out at the Thames and soaking in the city. It was FANTASTIC!

I will say this – one very tragic complaint of mine: They’re doing construction on the Westminster Bridge. Yuck! What this means? There’s a huge BLUE temporary wall all the length of the sidewalk on the side of the bridge closest to the Houses of the Parliament. AND – all of the lovely, gorgeous lightposts have been removed for the construction period. I am seriously bothered by it. My FAVORITE picture that I took in London last time was a picture of one of the lightposts with the clocktower in the background (in fact, that picture is hanging in the living room of my apartment at the moment). So there will be no playing with that favorite image this time around. No lightposts to be seen. It also means I can’t try to bribe someone into mimicking the Doctor and Rose running across the bridge holding hands, because it just wouldn’t look right. (Oh, the tragedy). I didn’t find out details of the construction, but I’m going to use positive willpower and hope that it’s temporary. After all, I will be in London for more than a month!

I walked over to Westminster Abbey and just stood around outside for a while. Again, with the grinning. Really, that’s what I did today. Walk around. From the Abbey I walked to St. James Park and sat around near the pond for a little bit. And from there, I walked past Buckingham Palace to Victoria Station (the area we stayed on our last trip), and caught the Underground from there to Notting Hill and Portobello Market, where I wandered around for a few hours and got lunch.

And then, I decided to take a break and came back to the hotel to recuperate a bit. I have to admit, the walking around has been a bit exhausting. I’m still working on low quantities of sleep. I haven’t gotten more than 5 hours of sleep per night at the most since I left home. On top of that, as much as I still attest that it was good for me to bring my laptop, this hotel just reeks of the kind of place where it could get stolen, so I’m keeping it on me today – one reason why I didn’t really go IN anywhere. My backpack is so huge that I just don’t feel comfortable taking it in places yet. Which bums me out because I really did want to go to the Doctor Who museum today. Just to get it out of the way ;)

I also was a very silly girl and didn’t think to charge my camera batteries before leaving this morning, so my camera was dead all day – thus, no first round of London pictures today. Which, really, is perfectly fine. It’s kind of overcast and a little grey out today, so really, not the most picturesque day. And I figure, everywhere I went today I’m likely to go back to again sometime in the next month at some point. So I’ll save the picture-taking for later.

And on that note, I’m going to close off this first blog entry and say goodbye! It’s lovely to be here, although I’ll admit, traveling alone has been a little bit lonely. It’s nice to just have someone else around. I’m very much looking forward to meeting up with my classmates tomorrow, and checking into the FIE facility.

Welcome, welcome!

Hello everybody, and welcome to my travel blog!

As you know, if you're here, I am spending the first half of this summer studying and traveling in the UK and a little teensy bit into Europe. This is the place where you can go to keep up with my activities. The goal is to update every other day or so, but we shall see how I do at that.

So what exactly AM I going to be doing? I will be in London from June 19-July 19. For the bulk of that time I'll be living and studying at the Foundation for International Education center in South Kensington. My study program, Shakespeare Live! is through UC Davis, taught by a UC Davis English professor. There are, I believe, 21-25 of us going on this trip, and all except 2 or 3 of us are from UC Davis. Over the 4 weeks of the program we're going to be studying and seeing 5 Shakespeare plays in London and Stratford-Upon-Avon: King Lear, Twelfth Night, the Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Taming of the Shrew. I am also personally doing Hamlet on my own after the program is over.

After studying is over, I'm going to be traveling on my own for about 2 1/2 more weeks. During that time, I'm mostly going to be sticking to the south spending time in Southampton, Stratford-Upon-Avon (again), London, Cardiff, and I will also be spending about a week with my older brother in Prague.

I'm going to be posting SOME pictures here with my blog posts, but for the most part, you'll be able to find the bulk of my pictures on my flicker at this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aebaker2697/

Anyway, welcome to my travel blog and I hope you enjoy your stay!