Another day-by-day update:
Wednesday I went to Camden Town to do a little shopping--I probably spent too much time there, but it's such a fun part of town I couldn't help it.
Thursday we saw some of the churches designed by Christopher Wren--he designed 50 of them after the great fire several hundred years ago that burned most of London to the ground. We also took some time to check out St. Paul's Cathedral, which was also designed by Wren. We went in the late afternoon so that we could see Evensong; it was a mostly male choir, and the way their voices filled the church was very beautiful. I spent the rest of the night in, goofing off.
Friday was another pretty low-key day. I've been trying to take it easy this week, since next week will be busy. I spent some time at the British Museum, checking out the American Printmaking exhibit. I was amazed by some of the prints--a lot of them look like they were drawn or painted, their so detailed. I also looked at the mummies (I've been obsessed with Egyptian history since I was in the sixth grade) and took another look a the Rosetta stone, since I didn't have much of a chance when we went to the museum with my class. After that, I headed over to Tottenham Court Road, where there's a Borders, and I picked up guide books for Paris, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
Saturday I went to pick up Dorothy and my train tickets so we can get from Denmark to Sweden. They ended up being twice as expensive as we thought. Why is rail travel so costly? Ugh. After that, I went to Portobello Road again, and it was a lot different from the last time I went. Saturday is the antique fair, so the streets were packed with stalls and people browsing. I picked up a couple of things, along with some cheap fruits and veg. I'm totally spoiled by California produce..even the things I got at the farmer's market were pretty much...eh. After that, I had the apartment to myself, since Taylour's in Greece and the other two girls went to Paris. I totally took over the couch and spread my crap everywhere, and had a nice night of relaxing.
Today, Beth Ann and I went to the Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. Maybe Britain doesn't have the same freedom of speech we have in the US, because now that I think about it, I haven't seen any crazies marching around shouting insane lectures at people like you get in San Francisco or LA. But on Speaker's Corner, you can say whatever you like, so there were all sorts of opinions flying around. There was one guy yelling about Palestine, another going on about conspiracies and Iraq, and oddest of all, a little old women dressed in pearls and a purple house coat. She stood on a stool and screamed about how God would hold us responsible for our failures, and something about alternate dimensions.
After that, I went to Brick Lane again for the Sunday Up Market. It took my a while to find it, and at first I was a little disappointed, because all I could find was used clothing and junk. Once I got to the real market, though, I found some really interesting clothing and jewelry, and some great food. I didn't buy anything, but it gave me some really good ideas. Tonight I'm staying in again--there's not really anyone to go out with, anyways, and I want to start reading up on my guide books. Cheers!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Further Update
So here's what I did in the last couple days:
Monday I was also essentially useless. I slept late, went to class for a couple hours to discuss the assignments for the course, and then had dinner. After that, I went to the Globe to see A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was amazing. We got tickets for the yard, which means we stood up the whole time, but the show was so great that I almost forgot we were standing up. The costumes were beautiful, and the show was put on very well--it was especially fun to see the show since I was in it once.
Yesterday we had class, and then we went to Westminster Abbey, which I really liked. It was beautiful, and we saw the poet's corner! Geoffry Chaucer and a lot of other names I recognized are buried or commemorated there. Loved it.
Anyways, it's getting late and I'm getting tired. We have class again tomorrow because we doubled up this week. No class next week and I'm going to Copenhagen and Stockholm. So excited!
That's it for now!
Monday I was also essentially useless. I slept late, went to class for a couple hours to discuss the assignments for the course, and then had dinner. After that, I went to the Globe to see A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was amazing. We got tickets for the yard, which means we stood up the whole time, but the show was so great that I almost forgot we were standing up. The costumes were beautiful, and the show was put on very well--it was especially fun to see the show since I was in it once.
Yesterday we had class, and then we went to Westminster Abbey, which I really liked. It was beautiful, and we saw the poet's corner! Geoffry Chaucer and a lot of other names I recognized are buried or commemorated there. Loved it.
Anyways, it's getting late and I'm getting tired. We have class again tomorrow because we doubled up this week. No class next week and I'm going to Copenhagen and Stockholm. So excited!
That's it for now!
Finally a Dublin Update
I keep putting off writing about Dublin because I know it's going to be a long one. Here goes:
I'll start with Ryanair, a budget European airline. Our flight out was supposed to be at 8pm or so, but we eventually got delayed to about 9pm. Once they called our gate (about 20 minutes before boarding, thanks Gatwick Airport), we hustled over there with everyone else, and found that they appeared to have no boarding procedure whatsoever. Honestly: we went down a long hallway, into a tiny room, and back in the same hallway in a huge clump. There were no lines, no announcements. Once we got past that, we got on the little shuttle and drove out to our plane. I am not kidding when I say we could have just run out on the tarmac to play chicken with the airplanes.
One on board, we realized that the plane itself was hilariously low-budget. The overhead compartments all had advertisements, they played radio ads over the PA system, and our seats were squished so close together there wasn't even any room for those little net pockets they keep the emergency info and a barf bag in on normal airlines, let alone reclining. In short, this was the airline equivalent of a city bus, except more crowded. We drove around the runway for about 30 minutes before we took off. The flight was short, and the landing was bumpy, but eventually we made it to Dublin and got a taxi back to our hostel.
We stayed at the Dublin International Youth Hostel, which was pretty clean, and safe. It was sort of old and creaky, but it was good enough for us to sleep in. The whole time we were there the three of us (Dorothy, BethAnn and I), had the whole room of ten beds to ourselves, which was lucky. The showers were a little dodgy--they had the kind of facets that automatically turn off, so you had to push down on it and stand in the freezing water for a while before it heated up. Breakfast was served in a converted chapel with the international hostel symbol on the stained glass window and confessionals for telephone booths. Overall, I was pretty happy with the place--it'll be interesting to be at a hostel for four nights in Copenhagen next week, so we might have a chance to meet some other travelers and make some new friends.
We did a lot of sightseeing on our first day. Dublin isn't very large, so two days there was about perfect. It definitely has a different feel from London--it's charming, but far less urban and sophisticated. We saw Dublin Castle, which had a really cool exhibit of ancient manuscripts from all the major religions of the world (we saw fragments of the gospel that were written in about 400AD). We took a quick walk though Trinity College, and then saw St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral, both of which gave me a chance to see some of the Gothic style that Norm's been lecturing us about.
One of the highlights of Dublin was the Guinness Storehouse. They had a fantastic facility set up with about seven different floors covering all the aspects of making beer (including, rather lamely, a socially-responsible "choice" floor. We skipped that). I never knew much about the process of making beer, and I thought it was all pretty interesting. The inside of the building has a huge atrium shaped like a giant pint glass, and when you get to the top you get a free (or rather, included) pint of Guinness in the Gravity Bar, which has windows all around and a 360° view of Dublin. I don't usually like dark, heavy beers, but I enjoyed my Guinness and ALMOST drank the whole thing.
Odd sidenote: when we were getting on the plane in London, I thought I recognized a guy who goes to USC. I wasn't sure, so I didn't say anything, but strangely enough he was at the Guinness Storehouse the same time we were and got in the elevator with us. I had to ask, and yes, he does to to USC. He didn't seem to remember me, and I only remembered him because he is COVERED in freckles. Weird.
Anyways, we went back to the hostel after that, and geared up to go out with the others girls from our program, who were also in Dublin. We were ready long before them, so we went out in search of a bar in the area around the Dublin Spire (which is pretty cool, btw). We finally got tired to walking around and settled on the next one we saw, called Madigan's. There were some very casually dressed people smoking outside, but when we tried to go in, the crotchety old guy at the door wouldn't have it. He decided none of us were old enough to be in a bar, even though BethAnn showed him her id, and that since Dorothy and I were wearing sneakers (which he called runners, and which everyone else outside was wearing) we couldn't come in. So we left and had a pint somewhere else. After that, we found the girls in the Temple Bar area, but decided to call it a night.
The next day, we kept it pretty low key: we went to the Street Artists Championship in St. Marion's Park and saw some absolutely incredible acrobatics--two guys who called themselves the English Gents did very proper things like reading the paper and drinking tea while standing directly on each other's heads and balancing one handed on top of one another. Of course, midway through the show they stripped down to union-jack shorts and socks with garters. Fantastic.
We also went to the National Gallery of Ireland, where I learned that I don't particularly care about Irish art. But it was a way to kill time, which we were in need of at this point, because we hadn't booked a hostel for that night. We were planning on staying out until we needed to go to the airport at 6ish in the morning. In case you were wondering how stupid that idea was, the answer is : Vastly. The problem wasn't so much staying up all night--it was finding something to do in the afternoon when we'd run out of ideas and wanted to go rest. We tried sitting in St. Stephen's Green and reading magazines, but it was too cold. We tried sitting in a bookstore, but it was too boring. Eventually we headed over the other girl's hostel and grabbed dinner at about 8pm, but it was a very long afternoon.
After dinner, we met up with about 13 or 14 Scottish guys our age who'd come to Dublin to celebrate a couple birthdays. They were all traditionally dressed in kilts, and made sure we all knew just how traditional--there was no end to the flashing that night.
So we all headed out to the Temple Bar area, and had a couple pints at a really noisy, crowded bar. The rest of the girls went home, and we followed the Scottish guys to a club up the street, which was quieter and a little less crowded. After a while though, I noticed that it was filled with much older men trying to hit on much younger women, and that the Scottish guys were more than a little obnoxious. We sat tired and blank-eyed upstairs for awhile before deciding to duck out, grab some food and our bags, and head for the airport. And darn, we couldn't find those boys on the way out. Gee.
Getting to the airport was pretty uneventful, although we were harassed a couple times by airport police for sleeping stretched out a bunch of chairs--at this point, it was about 4am Sunday and we'd all been up since 9am Saturday morning. BethAnn and I lost it--all we could do was laugh and read magazines...sleep was not coming. Eventually we got checked in a headed to our flight, and I started counting the steps until I could get to my bed in London. Take flight, get off plane, get on train back to central London, take tube, change lines twice, walk back to apartment, climb 3 flights of stairs, get in bed. Ugh.
Eventually we made it back, and I spent the rest of Sunday being utterly useless. But I got rested up, and the weekend was a huge success. I'm really glad I got a chance to go, and I'd do it again in a second--but from now on, I'm booking a bed for every night I go somewhere, no matter how early our flight is.
I'll start with Ryanair, a budget European airline. Our flight out was supposed to be at 8pm or so, but we eventually got delayed to about 9pm. Once they called our gate (about 20 minutes before boarding, thanks Gatwick Airport), we hustled over there with everyone else, and found that they appeared to have no boarding procedure whatsoever. Honestly: we went down a long hallway, into a tiny room, and back in the same hallway in a huge clump. There were no lines, no announcements. Once we got past that, we got on the little shuttle and drove out to our plane. I am not kidding when I say we could have just run out on the tarmac to play chicken with the airplanes.
One on board, we realized that the plane itself was hilariously low-budget. The overhead compartments all had advertisements, they played radio ads over the PA system, and our seats were squished so close together there wasn't even any room for those little net pockets they keep the emergency info and a barf bag in on normal airlines, let alone reclining. In short, this was the airline equivalent of a city bus, except more crowded. We drove around the runway for about 30 minutes before we took off. The flight was short, and the landing was bumpy, but eventually we made it to Dublin and got a taxi back to our hostel.
We stayed at the Dublin International Youth Hostel, which was pretty clean, and safe. It was sort of old and creaky, but it was good enough for us to sleep in. The whole time we were there the three of us (Dorothy, BethAnn and I), had the whole room of ten beds to ourselves, which was lucky. The showers were a little dodgy--they had the kind of facets that automatically turn off, so you had to push down on it and stand in the freezing water for a while before it heated up. Breakfast was served in a converted chapel with the international hostel symbol on the stained glass window and confessionals for telephone booths. Overall, I was pretty happy with the place--it'll be interesting to be at a hostel for four nights in Copenhagen next week, so we might have a chance to meet some other travelers and make some new friends.
We did a lot of sightseeing on our first day. Dublin isn't very large, so two days there was about perfect. It definitely has a different feel from London--it's charming, but far less urban and sophisticated. We saw Dublin Castle, which had a really cool exhibit of ancient manuscripts from all the major religions of the world (we saw fragments of the gospel that were written in about 400AD). We took a quick walk though Trinity College, and then saw St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral, both of which gave me a chance to see some of the Gothic style that Norm's been lecturing us about.
One of the highlights of Dublin was the Guinness Storehouse. They had a fantastic facility set up with about seven different floors covering all the aspects of making beer (including, rather lamely, a socially-responsible "choice" floor. We skipped that). I never knew much about the process of making beer, and I thought it was all pretty interesting. The inside of the building has a huge atrium shaped like a giant pint glass, and when you get to the top you get a free (or rather, included) pint of Guinness in the Gravity Bar, which has windows all around and a 360° view of Dublin. I don't usually like dark, heavy beers, but I enjoyed my Guinness and ALMOST drank the whole thing.
Odd sidenote: when we were getting on the plane in London, I thought I recognized a guy who goes to USC. I wasn't sure, so I didn't say anything, but strangely enough he was at the Guinness Storehouse the same time we were and got in the elevator with us. I had to ask, and yes, he does to to USC. He didn't seem to remember me, and I only remembered him because he is COVERED in freckles. Weird.
Anyways, we went back to the hostel after that, and geared up to go out with the others girls from our program, who were also in Dublin. We were ready long before them, so we went out in search of a bar in the area around the Dublin Spire (which is pretty cool, btw). We finally got tired to walking around and settled on the next one we saw, called Madigan's. There were some very casually dressed people smoking outside, but when we tried to go in, the crotchety old guy at the door wouldn't have it. He decided none of us were old enough to be in a bar, even though BethAnn showed him her id, and that since Dorothy and I were wearing sneakers (which he called runners, and which everyone else outside was wearing) we couldn't come in. So we left and had a pint somewhere else. After that, we found the girls in the Temple Bar area, but decided to call it a night.
The next day, we kept it pretty low key: we went to the Street Artists Championship in St. Marion's Park and saw some absolutely incredible acrobatics--two guys who called themselves the English Gents did very proper things like reading the paper and drinking tea while standing directly on each other's heads and balancing one handed on top of one another. Of course, midway through the show they stripped down to union-jack shorts and socks with garters. Fantastic.
We also went to the National Gallery of Ireland, where I learned that I don't particularly care about Irish art. But it was a way to kill time, which we were in need of at this point, because we hadn't booked a hostel for that night. We were planning on staying out until we needed to go to the airport at 6ish in the morning. In case you were wondering how stupid that idea was, the answer is : Vastly. The problem wasn't so much staying up all night--it was finding something to do in the afternoon when we'd run out of ideas and wanted to go rest. We tried sitting in St. Stephen's Green and reading magazines, but it was too cold. We tried sitting in a bookstore, but it was too boring. Eventually we headed over the other girl's hostel and grabbed dinner at about 8pm, but it was a very long afternoon.
After dinner, we met up with about 13 or 14 Scottish guys our age who'd come to Dublin to celebrate a couple birthdays. They were all traditionally dressed in kilts, and made sure we all knew just how traditional--there was no end to the flashing that night.
So we all headed out to the Temple Bar area, and had a couple pints at a really noisy, crowded bar. The rest of the girls went home, and we followed the Scottish guys to a club up the street, which was quieter and a little less crowded. After a while though, I noticed that it was filled with much older men trying to hit on much younger women, and that the Scottish guys were more than a little obnoxious. We sat tired and blank-eyed upstairs for awhile before deciding to duck out, grab some food and our bags, and head for the airport. And darn, we couldn't find those boys on the way out. Gee.
Getting to the airport was pretty uneventful, although we were harassed a couple times by airport police for sleeping stretched out a bunch of chairs--at this point, it was about 4am Sunday and we'd all been up since 9am Saturday morning. BethAnn and I lost it--all we could do was laugh and read magazines...sleep was not coming. Eventually we got checked in a headed to our flight, and I started counting the steps until I could get to my bed in London. Take flight, get off plane, get on train back to central London, take tube, change lines twice, walk back to apartment, climb 3 flights of stairs, get in bed. Ugh.
Eventually we made it back, and I spent the rest of Sunday being utterly useless. But I got rested up, and the weekend was a huge success. I'm really glad I got a chance to go, and I'd do it again in a second--but from now on, I'm booking a bed for every night I go somewhere, no matter how early our flight is.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Off to Dublin tomorrow!
Just headed to bed so that I can wake up early tomorrow and get ready to go to Dublin.
The last couple days have been nice, aside from my ferocious allergies. I've stopped wearing my contacts all together, and I think some of my neighbors may be able to identify me from my sneezing. Almost nothing is helping this get better, and I'm getting frustrated.
Anyways, yesterday we went to the Tower of London with my architecture class--Norm may be an old guy (who probably needs a hip replacement, he says) but he schooled us walking. Seriously, it was hard to keep up (made harder by the fact that he's deaf in one ear, so when we yell for him to slow down he can't hear us).
The Tower was impressive, to me mostly because I'm amazed that structures like that still even exist. And it's a little weird that it's just in the middle of the City of London, which is mostly modern glass-and-steel office buildings. Did you know that some people live there? The families of the yeoman of the guards apparently have houses within the Tower. I can't imagine anything more surreal than growing up in the Tower of London--asking a classmate to come over after school would be awkward at best.
We all went out to Sports Cafe again last night--pints are only £1.50 and there's no cover charge if you're a student on Tuesday nights. Needless to say, I didn't meet any locals, just more American students. Oh, except for the creepy MUCH older man who accused me of being the kind of girl who hangs around outside the men's bathroom (?), telling me he has a kid, and then trying to compare himself to David Bowie. I had help from my friend Tim, another student on Syracuse's program, to get rid of Mr. Bowie.
The rest of the night was uneventful, except for when BethAnn and I tried to get home on the bus with Tim--he suddenly turned around, made what I still maintain was a very ambiguous hand gesture, took off running down the street and disappeared. We ran after him, only to discover that he was in fact using one of the iconic red telephone booths to discreetly relieve himself. Classy.
Today was spent mainly getting ready for my trip--I bought a goofy looking little backpack because for some reason that seems smarter than my big shiny purse. We leave tomorrow at 9:15pm, so somehow between now and then I need to get my room cleaned and get packed. Oh, and do about a million other things.
I also just booked my flight to Copenhagen. In about a week and a half, I'm going with friends to Denmark and Sweden. Very excited!
The last couple days have been nice, aside from my ferocious allergies. I've stopped wearing my contacts all together, and I think some of my neighbors may be able to identify me from my sneezing. Almost nothing is helping this get better, and I'm getting frustrated.
Anyways, yesterday we went to the Tower of London with my architecture class--Norm may be an old guy (who probably needs a hip replacement, he says) but he schooled us walking. Seriously, it was hard to keep up (made harder by the fact that he's deaf in one ear, so when we yell for him to slow down he can't hear us).
The Tower was impressive, to me mostly because I'm amazed that structures like that still even exist. And it's a little weird that it's just in the middle of the City of London, which is mostly modern glass-and-steel office buildings. Did you know that some people live there? The families of the yeoman of the guards apparently have houses within the Tower. I can't imagine anything more surreal than growing up in the Tower of London--asking a classmate to come over after school would be awkward at best.
We all went out to Sports Cafe again last night--pints are only £1.50 and there's no cover charge if you're a student on Tuesday nights. Needless to say, I didn't meet any locals, just more American students. Oh, except for the creepy MUCH older man who accused me of being the kind of girl who hangs around outside the men's bathroom (?), telling me he has a kid, and then trying to compare himself to David Bowie. I had help from my friend Tim, another student on Syracuse's program, to get rid of Mr. Bowie.
The rest of the night was uneventful, except for when BethAnn and I tried to get home on the bus with Tim--he suddenly turned around, made what I still maintain was a very ambiguous hand gesture, took off running down the street and disappeared. We ran after him, only to discover that he was in fact using one of the iconic red telephone booths to discreetly relieve himself. Classy.
Today was spent mainly getting ready for my trip--I bought a goofy looking little backpack because for some reason that seems smarter than my big shiny purse. We leave tomorrow at 9:15pm, so somehow between now and then I need to get my room cleaned and get packed. Oh, and do about a million other things.
I also just booked my flight to Copenhagen. In about a week and a half, I'm going with friends to Denmark and Sweden. Very excited!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Oops
Didn't mean to go so long without updating.
One of the problems with only having class one day a week is that by the time I get to the actual weekend, I've been off so many days I'm just wiped out. So let's see what I can remember.
Friday I think I stuck pretty close to home because I was tired. I finally finished the giant novel about London that mom gave me, which I loved. It's so nice to be able to just sit down and read a book--that hasn't happened in a long time. That evening, I went with Dorothy and Beth Ann to see Stomp, which I loved. I was really surprised at the range of music and numbers the show had--I was sort of just expecting one big noise the whole time. Definitely worth it.
Saturday I went to Camden Town with my roommate and on of the girls downstairs, Emily. Camden is amazing--on the weekends it's full of teenagers looking for scary club wear, and just about everyone has spiked/dreadlocked hair, piercings, and tons of tattoos. Excellent people watching, and really amazing food. I'm definitely planning on going back, because aside from all the Hot Topic type stores, there's an amazing craft/vintage market with all kinds of amazing stuff. After that we went to Green Park (or St. James, I don't really remember) and watched the ducks from a bench. It was relaxing, and fun to watch people wander around by the water.
Sunday we went to Notting Hill to see Portobello Road. We missed the antiques market on Sunday (cry, cry), but there were lots of cool shops and a flea market; my guidebook pretty accurately described that as people selling junk they didn't want in the first place. But the markets are so much fun, and seems so much more unique than some of the high streets in London, so I had a good time. I bought a dress that might be a long, short-sleeved jacket, so I decided it's a coat. Only £5!
Yesterday was similarly low-key. I went with Dorothy and Beth Ann to Hyde Park, and we rented a paddle boat and ate lunch on the pond. Then I saw Buckingham Palace and took the requisite tourist photo in front of the gates, and visited Oxford High Street. I thought for some reason that TopShop was supposed to be semi-affordable--WRONG. There's enough clothing in there to spend about four hours in the place, but it's just too expensive. Maybe I'll go back at the end of the trip, when I don't have anything left to save my money for.
This morning I'm actually having a real breakfast and coffee--more on my sad coffee habits later--because yesterday I bought groceries and now I can eat. Yay!
Off to class soon!
One of the problems with only having class one day a week is that by the time I get to the actual weekend, I've been off so many days I'm just wiped out. So let's see what I can remember.
Friday I think I stuck pretty close to home because I was tired. I finally finished the giant novel about London that mom gave me, which I loved. It's so nice to be able to just sit down and read a book--that hasn't happened in a long time. That evening, I went with Dorothy and Beth Ann to see Stomp, which I loved. I was really surprised at the range of music and numbers the show had--I was sort of just expecting one big noise the whole time. Definitely worth it.
Saturday I went to Camden Town with my roommate and on of the girls downstairs, Emily. Camden is amazing--on the weekends it's full of teenagers looking for scary club wear, and just about everyone has spiked/dreadlocked hair, piercings, and tons of tattoos. Excellent people watching, and really amazing food. I'm definitely planning on going back, because aside from all the Hot Topic type stores, there's an amazing craft/vintage market with all kinds of amazing stuff. After that we went to Green Park (or St. James, I don't really remember) and watched the ducks from a bench. It was relaxing, and fun to watch people wander around by the water.
Sunday we went to Notting Hill to see Portobello Road. We missed the antiques market on Sunday (cry, cry), but there were lots of cool shops and a flea market; my guidebook pretty accurately described that as people selling junk they didn't want in the first place. But the markets are so much fun, and seems so much more unique than some of the high streets in London, so I had a good time. I bought a dress that might be a long, short-sleeved jacket, so I decided it's a coat. Only £5!
Yesterday was similarly low-key. I went with Dorothy and Beth Ann to Hyde Park, and we rented a paddle boat and ate lunch on the pond. Then I saw Buckingham Palace and took the requisite tourist photo in front of the gates, and visited Oxford High Street. I thought for some reason that TopShop was supposed to be semi-affordable--WRONG. There's enough clothing in there to spend about four hours in the place, but it's just too expensive. Maybe I'll go back at the end of the trip, when I don't have anything left to save my money for.
This morning I'm actually having a real breakfast and coffee--more on my sad coffee habits later--because yesterday I bought groceries and now I can eat. Yay!
Off to class soon!
Thursday, June 5, 2008
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus
Listening to the Beatles is perfect for London. I'm sure I'm not the first to come to that conclusion.
I actually managed to get out of bed before 9am this morning (ok, not OUT of bed, but I was sitting up). Managed not to electrocute myself, which is always a plus. Decided on a breakfast of fried eggs and toast, which was definitely better than my usual cereal and...cereal.
I spent the early afternoon in Spitalfields with Dorothy, who lives downstairs. We explored Brick Lane, which is a really cool, funky area near the City of London. The walls are covered in street art, there are vintage shops (not the kind that sell crappy clothes from 2002--real shops with cool old belts and boots, etc) all over the place, and it has a very cool vibe. It was very urban and, ugh, hipster, which I actually didn't mind. We browsed for a while, and then had Indian food for lunch. I've never officially had Indian food before, and now I'm in love with naan (delicious, delicious carbs). Brick Lane has evidently become a predominantly Bangladeshi area, which seemed more apparent on the end opposite all the shops. I guess there's a pretty cool street market on the weekends, so I think I'll do that soon. Definitely worth the trip.
I was thinking of going to the British museum to poke around a little bit more, but I think I'll save that for later. I feel a nap coming on, and I'll probably wake up around dinnertime. Cheers!
I actually managed to get out of bed before 9am this morning (ok, not OUT of bed, but I was sitting up). Managed not to electrocute myself, which is always a plus. Decided on a breakfast of fried eggs and toast, which was definitely better than my usual cereal and...cereal.
I spent the early afternoon in Spitalfields with Dorothy, who lives downstairs. We explored Brick Lane, which is a really cool, funky area near the City of London. The walls are covered in street art, there are vintage shops (not the kind that sell crappy clothes from 2002--real shops with cool old belts and boots, etc) all over the place, and it has a very cool vibe. It was very urban and, ugh, hipster, which I actually didn't mind. We browsed for a while, and then had Indian food for lunch. I've never officially had Indian food before, and now I'm in love with naan (delicious, delicious carbs). Brick Lane has evidently become a predominantly Bangladeshi area, which seemed more apparent on the end opposite all the shops. I guess there's a pretty cool street market on the weekends, so I think I'll do that soon. Definitely worth the trip.
I was thinking of going to the British museum to poke around a little bit more, but I think I'll save that for later. I feel a nap coming on, and I'll probably wake up around dinnertime. Cheers!
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Sunshine in London!
Blue skies in London! Don't get me wrong, I sort of like the overcast, but not freezing, weather we've been having here, but I was so glad to see sunshine this morning, especially the kind that sticks around. It's been beautiful all day.
Since most everyone else had class today, I pretty much had the day to myself. I woke up late, as expected, and only managed to electrocute myself a little when I tried to dry my hair. I decided to put it up in a ponytail.
A couple stops west on the Piccadilly line is Covent Gardens, where there is a market and lots of shopping. Since it was so nice out, there were people EVERYWHERE. I window shopped the expensive shops in the area, and even bought a pair of jeans on sale (£13.50!) I NEVER find jeans that cheap that actually fit me, so I grabbed them. Even though they may or may not be extremely similar to a pair I already own. Can't have too many, right?
I wandered up and down Neal St., which is supposed to be chock full of shoes, but I didn't find boots I liked. Every woman in England seems to own a pair of really cool boots, but I can't seem to figure out where they bought them. I did find a Muji, though, which has a lot of really minimal, really cool home goods and clothing. Definitely worth a trip back.
Once I was done browsing, I grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich and a ginger beer and people watched in the square near the royal opera house. Came back to the flat pretty happy with the sun :)
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