Monday, August 30, 2010

Busy, Busy Dizzy


Weekends around here are busy/crazy. That’s not an excuse for not blogging (ok, it is) but it is also a fact. There always seem to be a million and twelve things going on. Now that classes have started, homework occupies a decent chunk of time.

On Friday we went on a trip to Stonehenge and Bath, but I will save that blog for when I can have the corresponding pictures to assist with the recounting of the adventures.

Saturday started out very lazily. We slept in, ate a bit of breakfast/lunch (we got up around 10 or so), then got ready for the day. Most of the group opted to stay in and do homework (yes, homework. On a Saturday!), but my intrepid friend Hayley decided to join me in exploring Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, as far as British weather goes. The sun was shining, birds chirping, and Londoners were taking full advantage of it. There were people EVERYWHERE. Picnics were going on at comfortable intervals all over the park. People walked around enjoying the day, soaking up some much needed Vitamin-D. As we ambled along the Serpentine (the small man-made river that runs between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens), we saw dogs frolicking in the water, blissful to be out of the house.

I FINALLY got to search out the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens! I’ve wanted to see it since my first trip here, but have never quite managed it.

After that mission was accomplished, we wandered over to the very lovely quartet of fountains at the head of the Serpentine by Marlborough Gate. By this point we opted that it was time for a bit of homework, so we settled in to do some reading/homework.

Being my mother’s daughter, I couldn’t help doing more people-watching than actual work. One of my favorite parts of London is getting to observe the various cultures and conglomerations of people. In one small place, there were families (with adorable and heathenish children alike), couples, friends, strangers. There was evening a wedding party taking photos around the fountains. Listening to the conversations of the grass-loungers around us, I heard many different dialects and accents, most of them not British.

Living with the same 21 people and only interacting with them 24/7 can get a bit old, so on Sunday I went to visit the England branch of the Mommy Mafia, the lovely Tara Allen and her family. This required me taking the tube by myself for the first time ever (moderately scary) and figuring out how to get a ticket to take a train out to the little town they live in, about 50 minutes from Waterloo Station. (Just FYI, Waterloo Station is scary, busy, and really confusing). But I was completely victorious and was rewarded with good company, homemade cookies, wonderful Thai food (chicken pananaag- Yum!) and advice on how to make finicky and confusing British appliances to work.

Today is a day for reading for British Life and Culture class (Watching the English by Kate Fox) and attempting to work on my sadly neglected writing. My novel is going well, but my Angels and Demons story is proving to be a difficult undertaking.

Tomorrow or Wednesday, I will try to post about Stonehenge and Bath, as well as update pictures. The internet here at our lovely flat is too temperamental to attempt to upload a significant amount of pictures. 

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

London Midweek Photo Update 1


The Royal Albert Hall- one of the many monuments to Prince Albert, all within walking distance of our flat!

Greetings from the very quiet resource center here at CAPA!

I've only been here 5 days, but it feels like I've spent much more time here. Since I last blogged, I've officially settled into the flat, got a UK sim card for my phone, and started classes. Also mixed in there was our first UK grocery shopping trip and our first play.

As far as classes go, I've only been to two out of four so far, but I'm quite excited about them. Shakespeare with Dr. Kilfoyle is going to be fantastic. After Capstone, I was a bit burnt out and jaded towards Shakie (as our Theatre professor fondly calls him), but this class is renewing my love for the Bard. We've already started in on Romeo and Juliet and are going to see an all female cast perform in tonight at the Camden Fringe Festival (review to come later). After R&J, we move on to The Tempest (one I haven't read before), then we'll spend time with Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream. After that we got for a history play or two (Henry IV Part 1&2), followed by The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, and King Lear. Dr. Kilfoyle is trying to convince us that we need to put on a small production of our own in November, as the city seems to be lacking in options for about two weeks, but we're not buying it.

Theatre class started yesterday. Our professor, who asks that we call her Janine (I still find it incredibly weird to call professors by their first names), is quite a character. She is adept at many different dialects and accents, which she demonstrated for us. Over the course of the semester we're going to just about every kind of theatre production she could find in London. The one I'm most excited about is Les Miz!!! (25th anniversary year, in the original theatre!). Last night, we went to see The 39 Steps, a comic play based off of the Hitchcock movie of the same title. Didn't realize it at the time, but the lead actor appeared as Francis in Pillars of the Earth. It was quite funny, made more so by the fact that it was performed by a cast of 4, 3 men and a woman. The theatre we saw it in was pretty cool too. Located right by the Statue of Eros in Leicester Square, it's actually built underground, so instead of climbing up to the nosebleed section, you climb down to the stalls.

The weather here is absolutely fantastic. We've had a bit of rain, but nothing too terrible. I am soooo not missing triple digit heat and humidity. All of me loves living here, except for the blisters on my feet. They're not too happy at the moment, especially since I love walking around. I planned to spend yesterday morning in Hyde Park, but my body decided I needed to sleep until noon instead, so I'm planning an excursion there tomorrow after my 9:15 Writing In The City class.

And now, the pictures I promised. There aren't many as I'm trying to soak up the city rather than experience it through a camera lens.
Monument to Prince Albert that was painted black up until about 20 years ago b/c it had to be protected from WWI/WWII bombings.

Lexie and her awesome Dutch pancake with nutella.


Our small and rather messy room (3 girls in one room makes for interesting mornings)


Our living room/kitchen and my flatmates Hayley and Anna
I promise to try and have more pictures for next week. This Friday we go to Bath and Stonehenge, so I'll undoubtedly have more pictures from those adventures.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

London from a Bus


Greetings from our lovely (but TINY) flat in Kensington!
           
After a two-hour orientation this morning at the hotel, we went on a wonderful private tour of Central London. Our tour guide (Eric) was quite funny and full of knowledge of the city.

Some interesting facts we learned today:
-       Affluent people live in the West of London and socioeconomics grow less well-off as you move East. The reason? Because in the West, you get fresh, country air, whereas if you build East you get the more pungent City smells. Part of the reason London won the 2012 Olympics was because most of the events will be held in the East so that they can revitalize the neighborhoods and boroughs there.
-       Dad, there’s very little mowing in London because there’s no room to have yards. The only serious mowing occurs in the parks.
-       Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens are known as the Lungs of London because there are so many plants and so much open space.
-       The Knightsbridge area got its name because two knights fought to the death over who got to tax a bridge. (Seriously.)
-       As the tour guide said “We win, we nearly win, or we just don’t talk about it.” The American Revolution is just a page in front of Napoleon.
-       The dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral (which is actually 3 domes) served as a rallying point for Londoners during the Blitz, because as long as it was still standing, Britain was still fighting.
-       Barristers are the dudes who wear the wigs and robes and they work in the civil courts.
-       London never stops. Even after the Great Fire of 1666, it develops, gets better, and gets bigger.

I will admit to completely nerding out as we drove through Mayfair, getting to see all of the places that I’ve read about in my romance novels (Grosvenor Square, Berkley Square, Hatchard’s Bookstore- which I plan to visit soon).

We’re in a really great neighborhood in Kensington. It’s about a ten-minute walk to the CAPA center where we’ll have classes and maybe a 30-minute walk from Kensington Gardens. We went to a pub this evening for dinner (which was really more like snacks) and drinks with some of our professors.

Now we’re just back, hanging out in the apartment, getting ourselves sorted out.

I’ll try to upload some pictures by Wednesday. Tomorrow is going to be spent shopping, getting cell-phones and stuff like that.

Cheers!

Friday, August 20, 2010

London Calling


Well, I’m finally here. I’m in London!

Getting here was exhausting, to say the least. 10 hours on a plane, in the middle seat, behind a family with twin toddlers made for a very, long day, especially on top of my connecting flight to Houston being delayed. But I’m now sitting in my hotel room just outside of Heathrow Airport, relaxing.

To stave off sleeping and avoid jet lag, we all decided to use our Oyster cards (see: Tube passes) to go into Central London and explore a bit. We started out in a larger group, but by the time we actually got into the city there were just 6 of us. We didn’t particularly want to actually do a lot, so we went on a very long wander around Westminster.

Most of you will be shocked to hear that I was actually the one navigating (and not getting us lost on top of that). But after walking around for 4+ hours, we were pretty wiped out, so we ate at a pub and came back to the hotel.

Can I just say I love London? There is so much history just everywhere and it all blends in with the modern seamlessly.

Tomorrow we have orientation and then a bus tour of the city before we move into our flats.

P.S. I already have blisters (Ouch!)