Busy Week

This has honestly been my first chance to update since Monday.  Wow, my week has been full.

Saturday was Brighton, which was lovely.  Weather reports warned that it was supposed to rain, and it did...for the first half hour.  After that it was sunny for the rest of the time we were there.

The train ride on the way down might have been the best, and also the geekiest, train ride I've ever had.  It's only an hour to Brighton from London, but my friends and I passed the time playing Shakespeare and Fantasy Twenty Questions.  And for Fantasy Twenty Questions the sources we focused on were Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia, so I kicked serious ass.  On the way home we added Disney to the mix, and I kicked ass at that too.

My Novels teacher lives in Brighton, and she said she'd show us around, so we met her and her excitable Dalmatian puppy (she couldn't get a dog-sitter) at the train station and she gave us a tour.  We followed the May Day Parade for a bit, and then she showed us the Royal Pavilion, the sumptious Indian/Oriental-style palace where George the Prince Regent kept his unofficial wife, apparently.

From there we hit the beach.  It had been raining, but seriously, once we got to the beach, the rain stopped.  It was awesome.  The beach was very rocky and not sandy, so it was not as comfortable to lie on, but we still spent quite a bit of time there.  There was also a carousel on the beach, which four of the five of us decided we had to go on -- we were the only adults there unaccompanied by children. :p  I enjoyed it, though.

We went to lunch at Brighton Pier, and I had fish and chips.  The very first time I've had fish and chips since coming to England, too -- and also the last.  It wasn't...bad, but it didn't have much taste, even when I added vinegar.  But at least I've finally had it, and it was by the seaside, too, so I'm satisfied.

After lunch we went shopping.  Well, I window-shopped.  Some of the others bought stuff, but there was nothing I wanted that would fit me, so I didn't get anything.  We also just walked around and listened to the street performers, but I think the main attractions of Brighton are the beach/seaside and the shopping.  We were done with the shopping, so we went back to the beach for awhile.

We went to a pub for dinner, and I have chicken tikki masala with naan.  It is a mark of how good Indian food is in Britain that I could order it at a pub, of all places, and still have it be very good.  One of the others ordered a whiskey and coke, and we got onto the subject of whiskey, and I somehow managed to be the expert on the subject there.  (Well, maybe it's not too surprising, since I was the only one there over 21.)  This made me want whiskey, so I ordered some, and I actually prefer my whiskey neat rather than mixed with something.  But the others were curious about the taste of plain whiskey, so I let them have small sips.  One made a rather hilarious face, but another actually spat it out.  What a waste of good whiskey! :p

After dinner we went home.  I went to bed, and actually slept very well.  I'd been getting an ear infection, which, after the horrible one of last year, made me very nervous.  I was going to try and see a doctor just in case, but then it just started going away on its own, which was a big relief.

Sunday and Monday I just spent on classes and homework.  Three papers due next week, and three finals.  Gah.  I really prefer having either a final paper or a final exam, not both, especially when the final exam is essay questions.  Oh well, though, since I think I'm pretty well prepared for the tests at least.  I still have two essays to finish.

On Tuesday the entire program went to see Macbeth at the Globe.  The Globe!  Macbeth!  I hadn't been looking forward to standing for three hours, but it wasn't as bad as I'd been anticipating.  I enjoyed the performance.  Some of the others didn't like some of the choices the director made, but I hadn't minded.  I was right in the front, almost in the center, and I just really enjoyed the experience.

Wednesday was spent on classes, figuring out some stuff for Europe (oh, Mom and Dad -- I got the Eurail pass), and writing one of the essays.  I finished the essay Thursday morning, so I didn't really have time for the changing of the guard or the national history museum, so I'm going to try for those next week.  The changing of the guard I especially want to see.  Anyway, I think I've got my exact dates for Europe figured out, for when I'll be in each city and when I'd be better off taking sleeper trains and so on, so that's a relief.  I think on Monday I'll try to make hostel reservations.

Thursday I spent on finishing the essay and doing research for another, then class, and then a show.  Sarah and I were going to spend the night in the airport before our flight to Oslo this morning, because trying to get there in the morning would have been such a hassle.  But we had to leave pretty late, because Sarah had to see Midsummer Night's Dream for the Shakespeare class, and I decided that since she had to see a show, I might as well use the time to see one as well.  I did Billy Elliot again, just because I love it.  Wow, do I love it.  I'm definitely going to try and see the movie when I get home.

Yesterday was also election day in Britain (it looks like the Tories got the most seats but there's a hung parliament, which means they only got a plurality, not an outright majority).  Martin had told us that there'd be broadcasting of election results in Trafalgar Square and against Big Ben, so after my show was over I went to Parliament Square, but there was no broadcasting.  I met Sarah there, and we decided to check out Trafalgar Square, but there was likewise no broadcasting.  It made me very sad, because I'd wanted to watch it, and thought it would have been so cool to see it in Trafalgar Square or against Big Ben.

We had to take an hour-long bus ride to get to Stansted Airport, and Sarah made reservations for one in the morning, because she wanted to make sure we had enough time to get to the coach stop.  I understand that, but I wish she'd gone for the midnight time slot, because we found the bus stop by then, and then had nothing to do.  Things close so early in London -- there were no pubs or bars open or anything.  We basically had to wait outside in the cold for an hour, and I was tired by that point, so I was trying to sleep on a hard wood bench, but it wasn't working out too well because I was so cold.

We made it to Stansted by two, but check-in and security weren't open then, so we passed the night on a hard cold floor in the lobby area.  I drowsed for three hours, but that was about it.

I woke up by about five-thirty and we checked in and went through security, but we still had another couple hours to kill before we even found out what gate we were, so I went on my computer, but not on the internet because I would have had to pay.  We finally made it to the airplane and I dozed some more on the flight.  It was thankfully only about two hours.  That was the first time I've flown since coming over here, and I don't like it any more than I ever have.  I'm really not looking forward to the flight home from Paris.

We had to take another hour-long bus to get from the airport in Rygge to Oslo, but we got to our hostel at about one.  I'd brought some food for my lunches for both days (definitely a good idea, now that I've seen how expensive food is here), so I ate lunch and went on the computer for a bit while we waited for check-in to open.  Then we checked in, dropped our bags off in our room, and went out to explore Oslo.

We'd decided on an easy day today, because both of us were exhausted (honestly, I'm surprised I've managed this long).  We wandered around the shopping area nearby, and I got a European plug adaptor.  From there we went up one of the main streets towards the royal palace, seeing sights such as the Domkirk (church), the University of Oslo, the National Theatre, the Hard Rock Cafe Oslo, the parliament building, and just some great pedestrian areas.  We took some pictures of the palace when we got there, but there wasn't really much else we could do, so we stopped in for a drink at the Hard Rock Cafe and then moved on to look at the fjord.

Right by the fjord, at least the part we went to, was an old fortress and castle, so we explored that a bit.  The castle was closed by then, so we didn't go in, but we actually saw rather a lot of the fortress grounds, and got some great pictures, and saw some guards in funny uniforms standing and marching around, so that was cool.

Sarah had brought food for her dinners, but I really only had room in my backpack for lunches, so I went to find dinner.  Wow, things are expensive here.  Much more so than England and even Ireland.  I really hope that the rest of my visit to Europe has prices more similar to England than to Norway, where a medium pizza cost almost thirty dollars and a glass of pepsi almost six.  But the good thing about getting pizza is that I now have leftovers, so I can have leftover pizza for lunch tomorrow, eat the food I'd brought for dinner, and then not have to pay more.

We came back to the hostel after dinner, since both of us are quite tired, though Sarah more than me.  So now I'm online, have finally had time to properly update this thing, and will probably go to bed in a few hours.  It's nine-thirty here, but it's still light out!  Considering how far north we are, I would have figured it would have gotten dark already, but apparently not.

Anyway.  Tomorrow we're going to take a ferry across the fjord to the Norwegian Folk Museum, meet one of Sarah's Norwegian friends who will show us around more, and then go back to the airport in the evening to spend the night there for a six-fifty flight Sunday morning.  Hopefully I'll be able to sleep better at Rygge airport than Stansted.

I love living in London and I think the tube is marvelously convenient most of the time, but gah it's awful on weekends.  Weekends are when they do engineering work, and of course I understand why they do weekends -- it'd be even more disruptive during the work week -- but doing anything on weekends can be a real hassle.  There was my Easter adventure, and this weekend is another Bank Holiday (for May Day), and there are closures on almost all the lines in my area.  I'm going to Brighton tomorrow and figuring out rail replacement buses and what exactly are the lines I can use is being a bit of a headache.

Anyway!  The semester is winding down, and all of my assignments but the final papers/final exams are done.  I have two weeks left in London.  Two weeks!  How did that happen?  I can't believe how quickly this semester has gone by.

So I'm trying to finish up the touristy stuff I want to do.  Yesterday morning we went to the Imperial War Museum for a class, and after that I had about four hours of free time before my next class so I went to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.  I went to art museums of my own free will!  Honestly, it was mostly because I thought I should, but I did see some Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Monet, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh (for people I've actually heard of), and some of those famous paintings of Queen Elizabeth I and Henry VIII and Queen Victoria and so on, so that was pretty cool.  Next week, probably Tuesday, I'm going to watch the changing of the guard, and I think Thursday will be the Natural History Museum.

On Tuesday my history class went to do a tour of Lord's Cricket Grounds and to see part of a cricket match.  So now I know a bit of the history of the game, and I got to see the Ashes, and I watched some cricket, but I still don't understand it very well.  Pretty much the entire time we were watching the game, we had to ask our teacher what was going on.  Now there are a few things I can get by myself, but for the most part I still need an interpreter.

My plans for this weekend had originally been Dover and Canterbury today, Brighton tomorrow, and Oxford again on Sunday.  But then the friend I'd been going to Oxford with couldn't go anymore, and other people said they were going to Oxford today, so I decided to skip Dover and Canterbury and do Oxford today and have Sunday free.  Though it's just as well, because Sunday will be not so much free as spent getting some final essays out of the way so I don't have to worry about them during the week or when I'm in Norway.

I very much enjoyed Oxford, especially because I got to do what I wanted to do, rather than what had been scheduled as a school trip.  I caved in and bought an Oxford sweatshirt, and we went back to lunch at the Eagle and Child, and we went to Blackwell's Bookshop, which sold a lot of rare books I could not afford no matter how much I wanted some of them (1851 Emma for two hundred pounds!).

Part of my reason for going back to Oxford was because I really wanted to take a boat on the river, and happily the friends I was with also wanted it.  Originally we got a punt, because it seems like punting in Oxford is rather traditional, but, um, we failed.  Well, mostly I failed.  I volunteered to actually punt the boat, but wow is it harder than it seemed.  I just couldn't figure out how to get the boat to move forward.  And then we couldn't really try to change punters because we thought all that moving around would make at least one of us fall out.  I did get a picture of me attempting to punt, though.

We ended up using the paddle to get back to the dock, after only twenty minutes of our allotted hour.  We didn't want to waste our money, though (since we paid for the hour), and we still wanted to go on the river, so we used a paddle boat instead.  Much easier.  One friend steered while the other friend and I paddled, and I think we got our money's worth there.  Great scenery, a boat we were actually able to handle, and a good time all around.  And when we got back to the dock, the boat handler told us we hadn't failed with the punt as badly as some other people have -- we at least managed to get ourselves back to dock, rather than him having to go rescue us.  So despite the blip at the beginning, I had a good time in a boat on the Cherwell, and I am pleased.

After that we went to see Magdalen College, which is where C.S. Lewis taught, and we were supposed to pay three pound fifty but we actually only paid one pound because it was a rainy day and the porter gave us a discount for weather, which was really nice of him.  Then we went to Merton College, which is one of the colleges where Tolkien taught, and we were supposed to pay two pounds but the porter there said we could just go in.  Right after lunch I'd gone to see St. John's College, because it was free to visitors, so I got to see three of Oxford's colleges for only a pound, which was awesome.

There were no specifically Tolkien-related things for us to see at Merton, but it was still pretty awesome to walk the same ground he walked, and though it was very rainy, it was also very pretty.  We also saw some students playing croquet, so that was pretty cool.  I don't think I've ever seen people actually playing croquet before.

My friends had to get back for dinner with their host family, so we left after Merton.  I loved Oxford, though.  Beautiful sights, and such history -- it would have been so cool to have gone to school at Oxford.  Maybe if I decide to continue my education later I'll try for a doctorate or something at Oxford.  Heh.  We'll see how that goes. :p

Brighton tomorrow!  It's supposed to rain even worse than it did today, but there's going to be a festival and parade for May Day, so I'm still really looking forward to it!

Playing Catch-Up

Now for the rest of the past week and a half, which, though interesting, has not been quite as eventful as spring break.

Got all my midterm grades -- As and A-s on everything, which makes me feel a lot better about my unrevised papers.  Unless my teachers get ridiculously stricter for subsequent assignments, I think this semester will continue my straight-A streak.

On Wednesday one of my classmates got a care package from home that included a box of Cheez-Its.  There were only a few of us in the room at the time, and she let us have some, and oh, Cheez-Its.  God, I miss American snack food.  I found something generally cheeto-like to munch on, but I really miss goldfish.  If anyone wants to, you know, send me a care package, then I will love you forever if you send me some goldfish.

On Friday we had a group excursion to Oxford.  I enjoyed it, but I would have enjoyed it more had I been on my own and able to do the things I was most interested in doing, so a friend and I will be going back next Sunday, after Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick.  Anyway, we took the coach there, which was only about an hour (God, this is such a small country), and first we went to the University Museums, where I saw dinosaur skeletons and shrunken heads.  After that we did an audio tour of the Bodleian Library, and then we had about an hour for lunch.  About half of us went to the Eagle and Child pub, which is the pub where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis and the rest of the Inklings would meet, so that was pretty awesome.

After lunch we went for a tour of Christ Church College and Cathedral, including the dining hall and other bits where parts of Harry Potter were filmed, then finished the trip off with the Ashmolean Museum, where I saw King Alfred's Jewel.  (Which was the only thing I was really interested in.  I've been getting rather burned out on museums, I've seen so many this semester.)

There were several things I wanted to do but didn't get a chance to, like touring Tolkien's colleges and getting a punt down the Isis or the Cherwell, but that's why I'll be coming back.  I'm also debating getting an Oxford sweatshirt.  It would be awesome to have, but I generally don't like wearing memorabilia of colleges I don't attend.  Well, I'll think about it before I go back.

I've been missing a lot of the books I had to leave at home, so on Saturday I went to the big Waterstone's on Piccadilly and spent half the day there just reading, and it was wonderful.  Then I came back to my homestay and watched Doctor Who as it aired on BBC1, for the first and possibly the only time.  I've never seen Doctor Who as it aired before (well, it's only possible in Britain), so I was very happy to be able to do that.

Sunday I went with a friend to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D IMAX.  It was more expensive than I like for a movie (though I think I've been spoiled by working at a theater and seeing movies for free), but it was so worth it because my friend actually invited me.  In the beginning of the program I always had to invite myself to things or just go alone, but now people have finally started inviting me, and it's great not being the one to have to make the first move all the time.  Definitely worth a movie ticket.

Though speaking of invitations, another friend told me last week that she was going to Norway in May because she found a ten pound round trip plane ticket.  She asked me if I might be interested, and I said I'll think about it, just send me the information.  So she did, and though the ticket prices went up a bit since she got her tickets, I found that I can go to Norway for $40.  I can't even go from Reno to Tacoma for $40 (flying or driving, considering how much gas it takes), and that's in the same country!

So I decided I'm going with her to Norway in May.  It's the week before the program ends, the 7th through the 9th, and I'm getting pretty excited about it.  I mean, I'm really looking forward to traveling after the program ends (really looking forward), but I'm just going to Western Europe.  And because I did my spring break in Ireland, I'm spending pretty much my whole time abroad in Western Europe.  Which is awesome, of course, but Scandinavia is a different region, with different history and traditions.  I really couldn't pass this chance up, so in May I'll be spending a couple days in Norway.

Today I had a history presentation on Canada in World War I, and I think it went pretty well.  My teacher said I went into a bit too much detail on the battles but that I was very thorough, and he was nodding through most of the presentation, so I think I'll get an A or A- on that.  Next week I have a paper due for that class, but I need to find some more research on my topic, so I think I'm going to do that tomorrow, because I'm going to have a busy weekend.

Tonight I'd been intending to see Wicked with some friends, but a couple said tomorrow night would be better, so I guess I'll be seeing Wicked tomorrow.  Instead, the friend I'm doing Norway with and I decided to see a movie tonight since her phone service gives her 2-for-1 movie tickets on Wednesdays and student prices made it even cheaper -- I paid about three pounds for a movie ticket, which is probably the cheapest I've ever had, not counting the free ones.  We saw Kick Ass, which I very much enjoyed, though it certainly earned its R rating (for violence).

This weekend I'll be meeting two different internet friends.  I'm meeting a more casual one for drinks on Friday, and then I'm spending the weekend with my close friend from Southampton.  On Saturday she'll be coming to London, and then on Sunday I'm going to Southampton.  I can't wait!

Northern Ireland

Before I get to the spring break stuff, catch-up for the rest of the week:

The House of Commons was...boring.  This depressed me very much.  It was Budget Day -- I wanted people yelling and insulting each other!  But I guess we should have gone earlier for that.  Martin wanted us to meet at 3:00, and we got into the House of Commons at about 3:30 (I got some good pictures of Westminster Hall on the way), but by then there were only about ten MPs still there (there are 646 MPs total), droning on in stultifying speeches lasting fifteen or twenty minutes about economy stuff I didn't have the background to understand.  Very disappointing.  Still, at least I've been to the Houses of Parliament.

Thursday was the last day of classes before break, and I just had one test.  I had an essay due Friday (though he said he wasn't going to start looking at them until Monday, meaning we basically had until then to email them to him), but I finished that in the free time I had before my test, meaning I got in all three essays early.  Go me!  I think I did well on the test, too.  Oh!  I also had a test/quiz in my history class, but that was like forty multiple-choice questions.  There were about eight questions I wasn't sure about, but everyone finished the quiz so quickly that he went over the answers in class, and I ended up getting 100%.  Again, go me!

Anyway, now on to spring break!  My first train was at 9:10, but thankfully the closest tube station (which isn't actually the London Underground, but the Overground, which means I've now been on every single tube line), the one actually within walking distance, had the train that went straight to my train station.  It's much easier not having to change lines.

My first train had free wifi, but while my computer could find the signal, there was some sort of security issue I didn't know how to fix, so no internet on the train.  Which was just as well, because I started getting queasy just looking at the words on my screen while trying to fix the problem.  Bloody motion sickness.  It's the most inconvenient thing ever.  Since I can't read, my iPod is my lifeline.

I made it to Holyhead, where my ferry left.  The first Welsh town we went through was called Rhyl, and I knew it was Welsh not only from the name, but from the signs using Welsh as well as English.  Wales is the only UK country I've seen actively trying to hold onto its language like that -- I'd really only seen Scottish Gaelic at the Scottish Parliament, and I haven't really seen Irish Gaelic in Northern Ireland at all.  (Republic of Ireland, yes -- Northern Ireland, no.)

I'm not sure what I'd been expecting out of the ferry, but it was fancier than whatever expectations I'd had.  My ticket had a seat reservation on it, so I assumed we'd have assigned seats, and so on.  I did not actually find any such seat, but I did grab a couch so I could stretch out, and did not miss the lack of assigned seat.  Before the ferry left, I got a couple pictures of Holyhead from the ferry, and when I go back from Dublin, I'll probably get a couple pictures of that as well.

I could not read on the ferry either -- even looking at my itinerary was making me queasy.  I just listened to music and did a bit of wandering -- the ferry had a cinema with two theaters, a family entertainment center, a shop, two bar/lounges, and a cafe, plus cabins and car decks.  I appreciated it much more than flying.

What I did not appreciate was the delay when we docked.  The ferry was supposed to get into Dublin at 5:30, which is why I booked my train to Belfast for 7:00 -- plenty of time, I thought.  I did get to the train on time, but no thanks to the ferry.  First the pedestrian gangway broke down and they had to get a shuttle on board to get us off, and then the bus that was supposed to take us to Bus Arus (bus station) and Connolly Station (train station, where I needed to go), waited around for nothing to happen.  I finally got off the ferry at about 6:15, the bus left around 6:35, my train wanted me to be on the train twenty minutes before departure, and I didn't even have my ticket yet, I had to pick it up at the station.  Thankfully the bus got us there quickly, and it did not take me long to pick up my ticket, so I did make my train, but it was closer than I liked, and I did not have time to pick up dinner.  The dining car didn't have much of a selection (just those kind of sandwiches with all the butter, ugh), so I figured I'd just wait until Belfast.

I got to Belfast all right, but by then I was tired and decided to take a cab rather than walk the half-hour walk googlemaps told me it would be to my hostel.  It ended up being like a five minute drive, so the cab was pretty cheap.  I checked into my hostel, put my stuff down in my room, then went out to hunt down the elusive dinner.  I wandered around Belfast City Center (just a few minutes' walk away from my hostel) for a bit, then finally found a place to eat.  Belfast City Hall, by the way, is actually quite pretty at night.  It's lit up a bit and there's the Belfast Wheel (a ferris wheel -- what is it with the UK and having ferris wheels near their government buildings?) right next to it, which was also lit up.  I got a picture of that tonight.

I decided to take my shower and go to bed fairly early, around eleven, because I was very tired.  I slept fine, but when I got up I was glad that I habitually take showers at night, because apparently in the morning the shower became more of a trickle, and people were complaining about how they couldn't get any water.

I signed up for a tour to the Giant's Causeway today, which was absolutely wonderful.  The Giant's Causeway, of course, but also the tour in general, because it did so much more than just the Causeway.  We stopped for first a photo op at Carrickfergus Castle, had another one at Carnlough, then the Causeway, then another photo at Dunluce Castle, then fifteen minutes for the shop at Bushmills Whiskey Distillery, and finally the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.

The tour guide was great.  He talked pretty much continually when we were on the bus from when the bus left around 9:30 to when we were finally done with Carrick-a-Rede at 5:30, pointing out landmarks, other things of note, general history, and anything else pertinent.  Ireland apparently has a high concentration of castles, because I counted eight we drove past or stopped by just on our coastal road.  Also, North Atlantic salmon are almost extinct, the rope bridge was first built 350 years ago, people once taught school in a small limestone cave not far past Glenarm, and Winston Churchill used to own the Londonderry Arms hotel in Carnlough.  And these are only the facts I can remember off the top of my head.

He gave us about two hours at the Causeway, including lunch, and I needed pretty much the full hour and a half left after lunch to see everything on the entire hike.  There was lots of climbing up and down cliffs and rocks, and I don't generally enjoy hiking and climbing all the much, but I had a great time.  It was gorgeous scenery, and I got so many pictures.  It's also just generally very impressive.

I also got several pictures at Carrick-a-Rede, which was less impressive but still had lovely scenery.  You had to pay five pounds to go across the rope bridge, and I didn't want to, so I satisfied myself with just taking pictures of it.  It was another long walk to get there, with several sharpish inclines and climbing, but all the walking and stuff from this trip so far must be getting me in better shape, because I handled today much better than I would have a year ago.  And I've actually grown to enjoy the walking.  I'm going to try and do more of it when I get home.  (I can hear Mom's "Finally!" from here. :p)

We got back to the hostel at about seven, after more free history about Belfast -- our hostel is apparently in the Cathedral District, and is just down the street from St. Ann's Cathedral, which has the biggest Celtic Cross in all Ireland.  I booked a Black Cab Tour of Belfast for tomorrow morning, went out to have dinner, and then decided to come down to the lobby (which has couches and chairs much more comfortable than in my room) to spend some time online before I go to bed.

There's apparently a rave going on tonight, I was informed by some of the people dressed in the most eye-catchingly bright clothes I've ever seen.  There have been so many people dressed similarly tromping through the lobby in the past hour.  Neon tights and bike shorts, paint-splattered coveralls, floofy skirts (on both men and women), creative socks...it's pretty crazy.  And apparently the theme song for my travels is Journey's Don't Stop Believing, because I've heard that song every single day I've spent outside London, either on my iPod or sung by random people around me, this time by some of the people going to the rave.  It's actually pretty awesome, because I like that song, but we'll see how I feel about it at the end of my trip.

It's only been the first proper day of my trip and I'm having such a great time.  I can't wait for the rest of the week!

Mid-Term

On Thursday I met Maddy for lunch, the London Eye, and the Imperial War Museum.  The London Eye was fun, but not as impressive as I'd hoped.  I did get a very good view of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, but the sun was starting behind them so I'm not sure how well the pictures I took will turn out.

The Imperial War Museum was interesting, but I could only stay there for about an hour because I still had to get to class.  That night we had another show, The White Guard.

Awesome play.  It's about this family of Russians in the Ukraine at the very end of World War I and in the middle of the Russian Revolution, and it had some really amazing sets and wonderful characters and a great story and set of themes.  I loved it, so now it and Billy Elliot are my favorite things I've seen so far.

On Friday we went to Stonehenge and Bath.  We got a coach and a tour guide and stopped at Stonehenge for an hour, where it started raining.  I think it was raining the last time I was at Stonehenge as well.  It was pretty cool, but I have been there before and it hasn't really changed much.

From there we went to Bath, which I enjoyed.  It was still raining, and in fact rained the entire time, but I still enjoyed it.  Our tour guide took us on a walking tour of Bath, showing us some of the main streets, the river Avon (which I hadn't realized went through Bath at all), the Bath Circus and the Royal Crescent with their impressive architecture, and then Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths.  Bath Abbey had some absolutely gorgeous stained glass windows, and at the Roman Baths we were given audio guides that I found out today were narrated by my theatre teacher.

I enjoyed the Roman Baths, mostly for the omgRomans! factor.  After we were done there, we had about an hour of free time, so Sarah and I went to the Jane Austen Centre.  I wish we'd had more free time, because I enjoyed the mini-Jane Austen museum, but the Centre also had a tea room that advertised tea with Mr. Darcy, and I would have liked to do that.

We left Bath at about four for a three hour coach trip back to London, getting home in time for dinner.  Some people stayed in Bath an extra day, but I decided not to, because I had three papers due this week and I wanted to use the weekend to write them.  I did get two done and turned in already, and the third isn't due until Friday so I was going to do it tonight and tomorrow.

I had a bit of a weird experience (I'm not sure what to call it) with the papers, though.  When I write papers, I like to take a draft to my teachers for their feedback, which I can then use to revise the paper and turn in an improved final draft.  I'd intended to do that with these, but when I asked Martin if he'd be willing, he seemed very confused at the concept.  He said he normally looked at student summaries of what their papers were about so he could tell them if they were on the right track or not, but looking at a complete draft was too much like marking it, and he would prefer I do the summary.  I did, and he said my paper should be fine based on that, but I'm a bit eh.  We don't have a writing center here, so my only source of feedback on a rough draft is my teachers (I don't want to ask fellow students, who are busy enough, this isn't their job, and most of them are not politics students, but my teacher (who is also the program director) said he doesn't really do things like that.  I did do another read-through and make a few revisions before turning what I had in, but if I don't get as good a grade as I'd like, for the next assignment I might ask him to look at it anyway, even if it's not what he usually does.  It's really an important part of the writing process for me, and has resulted in the great improvement of many of my drafts, and is really something I sort of took for granted at UPS, since the teachers there encourage that sort of thing.  But it's not like I've never turned in a paper cold, so I suppose we'll just see how this goes.

This weekend I also finished Great Expectations!  Finally!  I "read" it in high school, which means I read the first part, did a bit of skimming of the rest with relying on SparkNotes, and read the final pages.  This is partly because I didn't like the first part and partly because that week was when I was stage crew for 42nd Street and I was busy enough, but I still did fine on the test we had on it.  This time I actually read the entire thing, and liked it somewhat better.  I still don't precisely like it, but it wasn't as bad as I'd remembered, and I enjoyed it more once Pip because less of a little snot.  I still didn't find it all that funny, though.  There were a few moments where I cracked a smile, but really, I find Dickens's style more annoying than amusing.

Moving on!  Monday night we saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and I was like finally! a playwright I recognize!  Apart from the Shakespeare I've seen, I haven't heard of any of the people who have written the plays I've seen, but of course I've heard of Tennessee Williams, and have even read one of his other plays (A Streetcar Named Desire).  I was rather eh about this play, though.  There were things I really appreciated, like the character of Brick and the actor playing him, some of the really great lines, and James Earl Jones, but there were things I rather didn't appreciate, like how the first two acts had mostly two people, only one of whom did much talking.  I found it sort of hard to pay attention with more monologue than dialogue.  Still, it was all right.  Not my favorite, but not my least favorite either.

Tomorrow we're going to the Houses of Parliament!  To watch a debate!  And it's going to be Budget Day, so the different parties are totally going to be all over each other about the budget!

British politics is hilarious.  This is going to be so awesome.

I've been having a good but busy week so far.  On Saturday I was feeling sick so I did nothing, but on Sunday, London was having its St. Patrick's Day celebrations, so I went into town for that.  There was a parade at Piccadilly Circus, and I enjoyed most of it, though I think I had a better time last year, when I was in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Spokane, as part of the Young Democrats delegation.  It's a lot more of a thrill being in a parade rather than just watching one, even if London is inherently more exciting than Spokane. XD

There were also performances going on in Trafalgar Square, so after the parade was over I walked over there.  It was absolutely packed.  Trafalgar Square is pretty big, but it was seriously packed, so it just looked like a sea of people.  I did manage to get a spot where I could sit at a good, fairly close angle to the stage.  I didn't watch everything, because I was still feeling sorta sick, but I listened to a couple different guys singing old Irish songs in both English and Irish.  A school orchestra played some traditional Irish music, and a dance school did some Irish dancing.  Pretty cool.

On Monday my 19th and 20th Century British Novels teacher took us out on a Dickens Walk -- she showed us places like the church where Dickens' parents were married, some places he lived, and several of the places mentioned in Great Expectations.  That was really cool.  When we were in the Temple area, she took us to Middle Temple Hall as well, where Twelfth Night had been performed in Shakespeare's day.

Our walking tour ended pretty close to St. Paul's Cathedral, which I very much appreciated, because Monday was when Maddy arrived and she was staying near St. Paul's.  I haven't seen Maddy since this summer, when I went to Davis to visit her after the Green Day concert in Sacramento.  I took her to Soho for dinner -- we had Indian, and it was actually really good.  I've had better naan, but I got this dish called honey chicken, and it was so good.  Anyway, after dinner I did a bit of playing tour guide, showing her Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus, and then we went to this pub I like for pear cider and to sit and chat for a while.

Yesterday morning I met her at Leicester Square again, because she wanted to see Billy Elliot while she was here, and I was completely fine with seeing it again, even just a few days after the first time.  After that I did more of the tour guide thing, since from there we walked to Trafalgar Square and then to Westminster Abbey.  I pointed out the theatre where I saw The Caretaker a couple weeks ago, and where St. James's Park was, and Downing Street, and the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Westminster Square, and felt sort of weird for even beginning to know this city.

So we went to Westminster Abbey, and wow, I really wished we were allowed to take photographs.  Especially of the graves of Mary Tudor, Queen Elizabeth, and Mary Queen of Scots, and especially of the poets' corner.  Unsurprisingly, the poets' corner was my favorite part.

When we were done at the Abbey, Maddy wanted to see Westminster Bridge, so we walked by the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and I told her some of the things I've been learning about the British political system.  She got some pictures of Big Ben and the London Eye (which we've decided we're going on tomorrow, whoo!), and then we walked back to Trafalgar Square, where we split up, because she wanted to go to the National Gallery and I had to get to class.

We met up again for dinner, and then we saw Billy Elliot.  This time we were seated upstairs, but I enjoyed it just as much as I did on Friday.  It was interesting to see it from a slightly different perspective, because this time I could see their feet, and now I'm even more impressed with these kids' tap skills than I was before.  There were also a few things I noticed this time that I hadn't last time, so I guess it's true that every time you see a show you get something new out of it.  Anyway, I still loved it, it was completely worthwhile, and this time I bought a program as a souvenir.

Maddy and I did not meet up today because she was going to spend it with her cousin, but I had plenty to occupy myself with.  Our class schedule was rearranged a bit, and one of my classes canceled, because Martin wanted us to see the London Mayor's Question Time today.  We went to City Hall, which is across the Thames from the Tower of London in an extremely interesting juxtaposition of ancient castle and modern glass building, and listened as the Mayor answered questions put to him by his assembly of concerns brought to them by their constituents.

I found it really interesting, if very different from American politics, because it seems to me that American politicians try to be somewhat more diplomatic than British ones.    American politicians will be insulting, but indirectly so.  British politicians will just insult you to your face.  It was actually rather hilarious.  Some of my classmates wrote down their favorite insults, but I didn't have the foresight, and so I don't remember the best ones now.

It was still just plain interesting to watch, though.  I was sitting next to someone who is a PoliSci major, so we were taking notes and having a conversation through our notes on our thoughts on what was going on.  We did decide that the Mayor is not a very good debater because he spent his time interrupting people (even those from his own party), and most of the time when he responded to questions from the Opposition, he'd do it through straw man and ad hominem arguments.  I wasn't very impressed with him, though I did enjoy the session in general.

I only had one class this afternoon, thanks to the canceled class, which meant that I was done at 2:30, which is the earliest I've every been done.  I put my time to good use, however, and am now almost done with all the preparation for Ireland.  I have my transportation from London to Dublin and back, from Dublin to Belfast and back, my hostels in Dublin, and my tour.  The only things I have left to do are book my hostel for Belfast, but Maddy was just there and was going to give me information for the hostel where she stayed, and figure out how to get to the Giant's Causeway.  I think I saw that I can take a bus from Belfast, but I'm going to have to double check that.

Today I also got my ticket for Star Wars in Concert, for the day after I get back from Ireland, which happens to be Easter Sunday.  I'm going with another girl from the program, and she got our tickets so I'm going to have to pay her back, but I am so excited for this.  We got the cheapest tickets so pretty far seats, but I'll still be able to hear the music and see what's on the screen, and it's Star Wars in Concert in the O2 Arena.  This is going to be so awesome.

I just came home after I finished booking Ireland stuff, so I'm not going out on St. Patrick's Day, but I'm fine with that.  It's nice to have some downtime in the middle of a busy week.  Tomorrow Maddy and I are doing the London Eye and the Imperial War Museum, then I have class, and then a show.  Then on Friday we're going to Bath and Stonehenge.  Saturday and Sunday are also going to be busy, if in a different way, because I have three papers due next week and I'm going to try and get them all done this weekend so I can get some feedback from my teachers before they're properly due.

The week after next is midterm break.  I'm almost halfway done.  How did that happen?

Yesterday...might well have been the easiest school day I've ever had.  I only have one class on Thursdays, and it's only an hour, and the last class of the day.  I had a bunch of free time before 4:30, so I decided to go to Chinatown.

I love Chinese food.  Mmmm.  I had lunch there, and it was very good.  I also walked around Chinatown a bit, and felt somewhat out of place, though thankfully I was not the only white person there.  I haven't been to any other Chinatown (not even San Francisco's, really), so what I was most reminded of was Bangkok.  Lots of people selling things (especially food) on the streets, lots of kitschy souvenir shops along with things like Chinese Herbal Medicine, lots of people in general.  Very interesting place.  I'll definitely be gooing back there, if only for the food.  Mmm, Chinese food.

I had class at 4:30, and this is my 19th and 20th century novels class, and we'd been intending to go to the Charles Dickens museum on Doughty Street (which is just two streets over from AHA).  Unfortunately, the museum is closed this month, so my teacher wanted us to watch a documentary on Charlotte Bronte, since we just finished Jane Eyre.  However, she couldn't get the TV to work.

So instead, she...treated us to a round of drinks at a nearby pub.  We did do some literary discussion while in the pub, but mostly not.  So that was basically my day.  Chinatown, and then a pub.

Today we went on an excursion to Birmingham, which is about two hours away from London by train.  When we got there we spent about an hour at the Birmingham Art Gallery, but the main point of the excursion was to go to Bournville, and Cadbury World.

It was actually rather hilarious, how excited most of the group was about going to Cadbury World.  I was less than enthusiastic about all the chocolate everyone else was in raptures over, but I was highly amused at just how bouncy everyone was.  There were some school groups of younger kids also doing tours, but people in my group kept joking that our group was so much more excited than the little kids, which from what I observed is actually a fairly accurate statement.

I was far more interested in the history of Bournville and the factory than in the free or otherwise very cheap chocolate, and the history was really why we were even there.  The Cadbury family seems to have been pretty awesome, very much ahead of their time with their treatment of their workforce and wanting to make sure the workers are taken care of even to the extent of building a nice village for them to live in.  I could have done without all the chocolate, but I did enjoy the history lesson.

I did, however, get some chocolate, because it really was very cheap.  I'm not sure whether I should mail them soon, or wait to give them out until I get back home.  I got different kinds, and I'm not sure what people would prefer.  Well, I actually only got four bars, two of milk chocolate, one of dark, and one that is chocolate-covered Turkish Delight.  But I got them for you people at home, and I'm not sure the best way to get them to you fairly.  I'll decide later.

Tomorrow there is once again A Plan to go to the Tower of London.  We'll see how that works out this time. :p

I forgot to bring my flash drive today, so no pictures yet again! Wednesday is my busiest day with three classes, but those are spread out beginning at 9:30am and ending at 5:30pm. Time enough to go on the internet, but not to go home and get my flash drive.

On Sunday I actually got sick. Just a cold, which is really going around our group of students (it's easier to point out those who don't have it than those who do), but I didn't really want to do anything then either. It was a bit better on Monday and Tuesday, and I'm almost over it now, so hopefully this weekend I will be doing something. Apparently there's a Viking festival in York, so I might see about getting a student rail card (makes rail tickets a third cheaper!) and going to York. I heard some people talk about going on Saturday, so I might see about going with them.

Next week we'll be going to Scotland for three days -- Wednesday through Friday. I think we'll be the entire time in Edinburgh, and I'm warned that it's very cold, so I'm going to have to remember to bring my sweaters and dress very warmly. Here it's been alternately very cold and not as cold as I was expecting, but I'm not sure if that's the weather or just something weird my body is doing, because everyone else seems to think it's just plain cold.

Last night was our first theatre show, the play Enron, about the rise and fall of the company Enron. It was sort of strange, being there as an American -- it seemed like such an American show, but it was written by a Brit and is performed by Brits in Britain. My theatre teacher explained today that Britain's economy is so tied to America's that something like Enron would still have been very significant here, which makes sense, but it still feels a bit strange.

I did get dressed up. I knew I wouldn't have time to go back home and change between my last class and the show, so I wore tights under my jeans and brought a skirt and my nice shoes, and changed into them after class. No one else got dressed up. It was also raining, so though I did bring my umbrella, it was not so much fun wearing tights and open-toed shoes in the rain on uneven cobblestones while hurrying and often running to get to the theatre on time. Especially since I saw very few people dressed as nicely as I was. Liz explained later that people are going to theatre more casually now, especially in London, which I'm definitely going to remember because jeans would have been much more comfortable throughout the whole adventure.

I enjoyed Enron. The play actually explained financial matters so I understood them, which I felt was quite the feat. It was also something of a musical -- there were musical numbers and interludes, including songs both written by the playwright and inserted by her to appropriate places -- I especially enjoyed Guns N' Roses's Welcome to the Jungle as particularly apt for the corporation stage. There were a lot of pop culture references to things like Jurassic Park and Star Wars, which I also enjoyed.

Our next play is Dunsanine in about two weeks, which is apparently a sequel to Macbeth written last year or thereabouts. I think that'll be interesting. I'm looking forward to it!

Week's End

So, thus ends my first week in London.

And this is my first post, mostly because I've had a fuzzy internet connection. When I first open up my laptop, I get good reception, but after a few minutes it peters out and is gone until I close the laptop, wait a few minutes, and open it again. I don't know what's up with that, but I'm either going to have to live with spotty internet and get steady online time at the school computers, or pay 99 pounds to have the Apple people look at it and figure out what's wrong. I'm more inclined to the spotty internet -- for now, at least.

This post will have no pictures, since I haven't really had good internet long enough to upload them. Thankfully I brought my flash drive, so I can put the pictures on there and then upload them from a school computer, but I'm only at school Monday-Thursday. I did get some pretty nice pictures, too!

Anyway.

The flight from LA was...horrible. I hate flying at the best of times, but with this particular flight I only managed to get at most two hours of sleep, I was always uncomfortable, and it was bumpy all across the Atlantic. My stomach hated it, and all I wanted was to go to sleep and not feel it, but alas! no good. Then when we got to Heathrow, we had to stay in a holding pattern for at least fifteen minutes when all I wanted was to get off the damn plane, but then when we finally land, we had to wait another fifteen minutes for our gate to be free, and I just wanted OFF THE DAMN PLANE. All told there ended up being a delay of almost an hour. Gah. I hate flying.

I met my roommate Liz, who is nice, and we got to the house just fine. My host mum Suzy was in Australia until Wednesday, but her son Tarik was there with his fiancee Francesca and they were both nice and helpful so we were fine. I was so tired I took a nap for a few hours, but I still managed to get a good eight hours of sleep that night.

Monday was our first day of orientation. The commute was about an hour and a half, with one bus ride, three different tube lines, and a ten minute walk on either end. I've since managed to condense that commute to about an hour, but that's with cooperative buses and tube lines.

There are twenty-nine people in my program, three of which are guys. We listened to some orientation stuff, and then Martin, the program director and one of our teachers, took us for a short walk around the neighborhood. Mom -- Dorothy L. Sayers lived just down the street from my school building! Literally down the street -- I walk for about a minute and get to a placard saying "Dorothy L. Sayers lived here".

Tuesday our teachers gave brief explanations of their classes. I'd been intending to take Britain Today (mandatory class), a history of the Empire class, a theater class, and a Shakespeare class, but now I've decided to take a 19th and 20th century novels class instead of the Shakespeare class. About half the reason I wanted Shakespeare was to see some of his plays, but I can see some of the plays without taking the class, and with the novels class we're supposed to go out and explore the London described in those novels, which sounded more interesting to me.

Tuesday afternoon was spent going to Greenwich. We took a boat ride down the Thames, and I got lots of pictures of things like the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, and so on. We had to climb up an awful hill to get to the Royal Observatory, which is where the meridian line is. It also had a pretty awesome view, so I took some pictures.

Wednesday was first day of actual classes, but it was mostly just introductory stuff. I was amused, however, when my history teacher started mocking the French. I'd thought it was just a stereotype that the British and the French like making fun of each other, but I guess not, if my history teacher does it at basically the first opportunity.

Also on Wednesday, Martin took us to the British Museum for about an hour. The British Museum is only about a ten-minute walk away from school, which is nice. Evanie and I went to see the Sutton Hoo helmet, which our History of the English Language professor last semester told us about and showed us pictures, so we got a couple pictures of us in front of it. When I can upload my pictures to the internet, I'm going to send those to him.

On Thursday I didn't have class until 4:30, so I wanted to take my computer to an Apple store to see if there was something they could do about the internet. I went to the one on Regent Street, so I could also explore Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus a bit. I'll definitely be going back there when I have more time. The Apple store, on the other hand, was not helpful except in telling me I'll need to pay 99 pounds for them to take my computer for a week or two and figure out what's wrong. I don't think I'm in such dire straits that I need that yet.

Friday was the first day of the weekend, since we always get three-day weekends. Liz and I and some of Liz's friends went to Highgate to have tea in a tea shop where Francesca works, and we felt very British about having tea in a tea shop. XD We were somewhat less British by taking loads of pictures to commemorate it. We then walked to the Highgate Cemetary because we wanted to see Karl Marx's grave, but you actually have to pay three pounds to get into the cemetary, so, after a few comments about how Karl Marx would be rolling in his grave at a cemetary practicing such capitalism, we left.

We spent a bit of time at the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street -- or, more accurately, the gift shop. At some point I'll definitely go see the museum itself, but the gift shop was interesting enough, for awhile. Then we came back to Harrow (that's where the homestays are) and had our first meal in a pub. Liz and her friends are all 19/20, so they were very excited to be legally buying drinks. I was very amused. They all ordered different things and kept tasting each other's drinks to see what each was like, but I didn't bother because I've already tried all the things they'd had. I was somewhat disturbed to feel a bit old. XD

Now it's Saturday, and I've had a lazy day, only going to the Harrow Town Centre to get a quick lunch and buy some groceries. I feel a bit odd for just hanging around all day, like I should be going out and doing stuff, but I think that's mostly an external thing -- like other people would be telling me I need to go out and do stuff. Trust me, I am not intending to spend my days here like I do in America, staying home most of the time, but I do need some down time, some just-for-me time. It refreshes me. If I spend every day going out and doing touristy stuff, I'll get burned out on the touristy stuff and just want to sit down and read a book. So to avoid that, I'm going to try and take a day every week or so just for me to relax.

Fourteen weeks is both a long time, and no time at all. I do have plenty of time to be a tourist, but also to pace myself. It doesn't feel like it's all that long until I'm done with my program, but I'm sure I can fit in what I most want to do and still keep myself from getting burned out.