Holiday Weekend

It's a lazy Monday, full of muffins at an adorable place called The Cinnamon Bar (the tables are full of cinnamon under glass) and laundry. I only have one class on Mondays - European and International Labor Law - and thank goodness, because the European Courts of Justice write their cases like I write blog entries - without editing and little logic. It's translated from German (or is it French?) so maybe that's the issue, but I doubt it. I think the ECJ just enjoys being cryptic, like Yoda, only not as squat and green (although, I haven't seen the ECJ panel - maybe they are squat and green...). I haven't memorized all the EU treaties like they have, so it's a little slow going when they refer to roughly 50 different parts of 3 treaties within 2 sentences. I would fear for getting out alive except that many of my classmates (excluding ALV, of course) seem to forget the "school" part of "summer school" and have taken to showing up to our 11:15 class hung over and without note-taking implements. After BLS, it's kind of shocking. It's weird that I only have culture shock inside the classroom, surrounded by Americans (and a few Australians).

Anyway, ALV spent her weekend in Ireland, so I toured London over the weekend with others. July 4th was celebrated in Covent Garden (the theatre district) with a Indian food and English pubbing (I heart irony). Saturday was spent walking around Portobello Road Market, where everything I loved was ungodly expensive, proving once again that I have costly (but very good) taste. Speaking of ungodly expensive, I went to the movies on Saturday night to see Sex and the City (no one with me wanted to see, oddly enough, Wanted - that'll have to wait, I suppose). It was a movie I could have just as easily waited to see on HBO, but it was a nice night out, I suppose. British cinemas are strange, we discovered, as we sat and watched what was the longest string of commercials EVER before the movie started. It clocked in at 27 minutes and included only 2 actual trailers, one of which I'd seen before. My mother said that British ads were amusing, but she hasn't been here in about 15 years. 15 years changes a lot, apparently.

Yesterday, a friend and I took the Underground to Kew Gardens and walked around for 4 1/2 hours, despite the wind and on-and-off rain. It's really lovely, actually, and I don't even know anything about plants.

I liked the Water Lily House the best, with the giant water lilies that I've seen in Peru:

Kew Gardens is, of course, home to Kew Palace. George III lived there during his bouts of porphyria and Queen Charlotte died there. We saw the actual chair in which she died, which was creepy and reaffirmed my belief that Brits are rather morbid:

I liked the Japanese Gateway:

Inside the Temperate House (the largest Victorian greenhouse), there's the tallest indoor plant (a Chilean wine palm), which is 150 years old and 16 meters high:

And then we went up 18 meters into the air on the Treetop Walkway. A wee bit nerve-wracking:


After that climb, I'm feeling a bit better about my ability to get up to St. Paul's Dome sometime this trip. I swear, I'll make it this time!

And I Did Walk 1000 Miles... I Would Not Walk 1000 More

Today was a tad too full of stuff - I'm about to collapse and it's only 11 pm. That or I'm old. Let's say that I'm just worn out for the day though, and not the rest of my life as I know it.

First was a trip to the British Museum. Ironically, my first trip during my stay so far, although it's possibly the closest major attraction to where I'm living AND it's free.

Hey, look! This seems familiar:

I found it amusing that nowhere in the museum did they refer to these (and all the others) as the Elgin Marbles, as if they're pretending they don't have them. English snobbery amuses me when it's not directed at the Scots:

I miss Charlie (but I'm glad he's not this big... or made of stone):

This is a new addition since 2 years ago. I wonder why...:


After the museum, I went to meet a group of the summer students for a "Legal Walking Tour", which would have been far more interesting if it hadn't been raining off and on at the one time I forgot my umbrella. And I'm still not sure I understand how you become a barrister in England, but I do know that it sounds like entirely too much hassle and heartache. I have a new appreciation for the LSAT.

Gray's Inn (one of the Four Inns of Court) has pretty much one famous member - Sir Francis Bacon:

Lincoln's Inn, under the church, where the orphans were left during the 1700s when times weren't going so well:

Where barristers and judges have been getting their robes and wigs for hundreds of years:

The Royal Courts of Justice (the civil courts). You can see the dark clouds that are threatening to pour down on us, which they did just a short time later:

And the famous Temple Church, built by the Knights Templar in the 11th century:


It was at this point that the rain soaked us through and the guide, ironically, gave rather vague directions to the nearest Tube stop before leaving in the other direction - probably to get a cup of tea.

Less Exciting

So I've been having a more relaxing week so far. Sunday, ALV and I traveled up and down Oxford Street, which was both fun and frustrating. "If you want to look in the store, go INSIDE the store!" as ALV pointed out. Window shopping is not very fruitful when you have thousands of people irritated at you for walking at a snail's pace.

Monday night we went to Avenue Q at Noel Coward Theatre, which was hilarious. But RAUNCHY. Puppet nudity, people! But really, I think it should be a test to see if you're too uptight - if you can't laugh at Avenue Q, you need to loosen up. I knew I'd like it from the very first song - "What Can You Do With a BA in English?" Ah yes, that is the million dollar question, isn't it?

Yesterday was Canada Day! And the only event for which I have pictures!

They played street hockey, while the announcer kept referring to the pavement as "ice" and the ball as a "puck":

Even puppies were Canadian (the man had a pipe and umbrella like a stereotypical Englishman, but I couldn't get a good shot and was too shy to ask):

ALV, before we started whining about the heat and heading home:

And what even I, who dislikes children in general, thought was pretty darn cute:


Today was a little jaunt to Harrod's, which was surprisingly not nearly as crowded as when Jon and I went 2 years ago, despite it being sale time. The sale rather ruined it actually, since the big red cardboard signs removed the luxurious mystery of Harrod's. I swear, it's like a theme park, but the rich people are the only ones that can really enjoy themselves. I'd have pictures but someone else was yelled at for taking pictures in the fine jewelry section and I was already on the no-no list for having a backpack. At least they didn't kick us out for wearing jeans and looking like little scruffy vagabonds.

Lots of Old Stuff and One New Stuff

One of my favorite things in London is the London Eye. Sure, it's expensive, doesn't have student prices and forces you into close proximity with people that you wish understood the meaning of 'personal space', but it's also relaxing and gives you lots of pretty views of London:

(Look! Parliament again!... Also, Westminster.)

St. Paul's in the distance:


Yesterday was the Tower of London, another favorite of mine. You can't take pictures of the Crown Jewels unfortunately, but they look practically fake anyway. Maybe they are...

ALV is scared of the Tower (or my picture-taking... whichever):

The British tell you that the Tower wasn't originally a prison, but I think the guys that had time to do this in their cell walls would disagree:

Okay, now this is, in fact, a bit scary. Bayonets on machine guns! Wtf?:

The Tower Bridge:

The White Tower looking imposing:


Today we went to Bath and Stonehenge, which was a bit on the lighter side. I wish we had gotten more time at both of them (particularly Bath), but it was only a day trip. There were delicious muffins involved at one point though...

The Roman bath with the Bath abbey in the background:

The "Sacred Spring":

Milsolm Street and the reason Brits hate tourists, most likely. (Next to me for this picture was a con artist playing Three-card Monte with some young teenager as her target. People, teach your kids what a confidence trick is!):

Stonehenge's burial mounds, with the Beeker people. I couldn't make that name up:

And we all know what this place looks like, right? Well, it's still pretty cool in person:


On the way back, our bus driver (who had repeatedly run lights and driven like a crazy person) got into a fender bender. Of course, being a bus, it was the other guy's fender. He freaked out on us, even though (shockingly, considering our driver's driving) it was actually his fault. It was kind of fantastically hilarious. Ah, I love this town.

As Promised

So I'm still jetlagged, but I'm rather enjoying my first week here in London. Notre Dame's campus in London is about a 30 minute walk from where ALV and I are staying (at the University of London) and, because we're cheap and London so is not, we take the walk instead of the Tube. The best part of the walk is the last bit, where we have to go through Trafalgar Square. It's like being hit with a sledgehammer of "You're in LONDON, by the way!" and it's fabulous.
Lord Nelson, who is facing away actually:

The National Gallery on the other side, which is full of paintings of the Virgin and Child, to the point that they bleed together. I preferred the Impressionists section - hooray for Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh and Seurat:

And St. Martin in the Fields to one side:

I might have to suck it up and pay a massive fee to go to a concert at St. Martin's, otherwise my orchestra teacher from high school might hunt me down and kill me for not doing so. We'll see. Right now, I'm more excited by the prospect of listening to foul-mouthed puppets in Avenue Q.

We took a bus tour on Sunday, during which I took a lot of pictures that included the tops of people's heads. Today, we went to the London Aquarium between class and a "strawberry and cream" reception (which is apparently some Wimbledon thing - obviously, I know nothing about tennis or its traditions). The aquarium is *gasp* overpriced, but also close to the London Eye and, across the way, my total obsession, Parliament and Big Ben. I did you the favor of not posting the 20 photos I have of Big Ben (and yes, I'm aware that that's the name of the actual bell, not the tower... blah blah blah, hush you).
Let's ignore the fact that I have a better picture of the Eye from a previous trip:

From when I was - in ALV's words - "all up in Big Ben's grill":

A terrible photo of me, but the only one I have so far - and THIS is why:

On Saturday, we're taking a trip to Bath and Stonehenge. And just to prove that I'm a total American tourist, when they called it a "coach trip", I had to think for several minutes before realizing that this didn't involve a team of horses and a carriage.

Check check check

I have successfully arrived in London, which is a huge relief. I'd forgotten how daunting it could be to travel alone and I've never been this far alone before. But everything was pretty much as I remembered, making it a lot easier. My room is the typical college dorm room at University of London and the law program is sharing the hall with people that are clearly younger and louder. When I signed in there weren't a lot of people here yet, but I expect to see more of them in the morning. Today wasn't going to be very social anyway - a baby on the plane kept everyone who didn't have earplugs awake and so I took a "nap" that lasted pretty much all afternoon. And soon, I'm going back to bed in an effort to get set on London time.

While I was on the Underground from the airport, I did see a bunch of people playing cricket in one of the fields (since, despite the name, the Underground isn't always under the ground, especially in the suburbs). It's the first time I've seen anyone actually playing when they weren't in a BBC miniseries about the 1920s.

I hope this will be the first and last London post without pictures. Tomorrow, I'll be a sane person with the right amount of sleep again. :)

Update on Nothing

Alright, so I haven't been exactly prolific with the blogging lately. But I haven't been doing anything that's very interesting - I got my hard drive replaced and then a few days ago, my OS got corrupted. I've been reading a lot, running errands and doing laundry. The computer problems are the excitement in my life these days. Oh, and I'm moving this weekend to... another apartment in the same complex, which means I'm basically picking my stuff up and scooting it 50 yards to the south. Don't ask. Long story.

I will be posting quite often once I get to London though - I've promised several people lots of pictures and detailed goings-on. It's 57 degrees there right now. My heat-addled brain might not be able to take it!