j'aime york

More pictures, this time from a visit to Regent's Park and our York trip last weekend.

Regent's Park. No explanation needed on these. Just good, old-fashioned people-watching.

York! This is theYork Minster Cathedral, from the Medieval City walls.

The Shambles, a Medieval-sized street (translation: narrow, narrow, narrow).

Fountain in front of York's main art museum + classic Will.

Ghost Walk! Blurry, you know, to maintain the creep factor.

I unfortunately have no pictures of the Rievaulx Abbey ruins, but Dan caught these great moments of me and George's son, James. He is, appropriately, a blur.

We're pretending to be in prison. James described his emotion as "really sad," while I think I capture "constipated" quite nicely.

Castle Howard. Blimey gorgeous.

Ridiculous interior.

Castle Howard is famous for being I believe the first aristocratic estate house to have a dome. The dome caught on fire, like almost every roof in York it seems, so this one is a replica with a reproduction of the original art work, but it's still beautiful.

It may be because my nailpolish was the same color but this was my favorite room, the Turquoise Drawing Room.

Our tour guide, really funny, led us around the stunning Arcadia-styled grounds.

The Howard mausoleum, where every Howard family member is buried. 

The grounds are littered with 15 lead reproductions of Roman statues, as well as a bazillion perfectly-place daffodil beds.

One of the Howard men who helped build up the grounds, a duke of something I'm sure, was really into pyramids. This is the only pyramid in England, probably one too many.

Our tour ended at the Temple of the Four Winds, the Howards summer house which also features a dome and this lead Roman guy.

Inside the dome. Shiny!

To finish our visit: Jenny as Venus, at the ruins of the Temple of Venus.

Today is a supremely lazy day of Henry VIII in the park and writing a paper (which I still find it difficult to fathom that reading Shakespeare in London can be "homework," and not just my secret fantasy), so I will update on Cambridge (boys) soon. Love love.

le tout

Fixed computer = pictures. Enjoy!

The Tower of London, home to Beefeaters (Royal Guards), the royal jewels, crowns and coronation gifts, among them the second largest diamond in the world, and some amazing architecture.

George's son, Hal, solemnly prepares for the tour by checking the map.

Our Beefeater tour guide! A great storyteller.

A great shot of Lina and the view of the London Bridge from the Tower walls.

The Camden Markets

Very high end beauty shop with complimentary teas and champagne!

The opera singer (right) in the middle of the market. 

A fine day of people-watching at Russell Square Park. I love this pa and kid!

A fabulous little girl.

A sort of spooky dog walker and her very old dogs - Hades and the Three Fates?

These four got their dogs twisted up, a cute meeting.

A freezing bollocks day at Buckingham Palace.

Our day at Harrod's - simply marvellous. This is the Egyptian room. I think it had watches. So over the top. 

The chocolate room, or heaven.

This tea is made with 22 carat gold. GOLD! 200 GBP for 100g. Silly.

Mollie paid the equivalent of $15 for this extravagant gelato. Worth it!

Mollie gets to know a Beefeater and Bobby Bear in the soft toy room. What a great day!

More pictures soon!

c'est bon!

The internet returns to the hostel! As do my stories. I'm not sure if that is as exciting... hopefully you continue to find me engaging without pictures, because my parents shipped me a new lappy charger and it's been a general fiasco figuring out where exactly they attempted to ship it. Long story short - still no pictures :(

Since I last checked in with you, I've done about eight million things and I can hardly piece together for you what has happened. But it's been wonderful, really! I've had stupendous pub food and cider, seen three wonderful new plays (the most exciting of which is "Jerusalem" by Jez Butterworth, it blew my mind), and left the nearly-home comfort of London to visit York, a small city five hours by bus to north of us here. York was a blur of commercial shops and historical sites. We walked the paegent tour of the York Mystery Plays, which we read for Shuffel's class. The stops on the circa Middle Ages, theatrical parade route are now inhabited by boutiques and Starbucks. A very similar walk through the city, a ghost tour of York, led the gang around to similar shops and lots who's establishments are haunted, but it was much more frightening in the dark with our fantastic, dramatic tour guide, who described hangings and murders in gross detail. We also visited the York Minster, a fantastic old cathedral, the ruins of a monestery outside of York and Castle Howard, a fun aristocratic estate featured in the movie "Brideshead Revisited." It was a lot to take in for such a short amount of time, but I'm really in awe of the human strength and sometimes, excess that went into creating these buildings.

Yesterday, I spent the whole afternoon in a cafe Facebooking and planning my midterm break trip to Brussels (by train!). I hope you all got my lovely messages. After a long day of trying to get to the Science Museum and instead, getting lost in Kensington Park, I'm exhausted, but as I find my way to bed, you should warm at the cheeks knowing that I go with fancy thoughts of you in my head. Bonne nuit!

comedie et les boutiques

I'm not sure if it's a sign of my own specific personality or whether woman was simply not made to go to museums five days in a row, but after visiting the Tate Modern on Monday for only two and a half hours and attempting to wrap my mind around surrealism and some truly graphic exhibitions about the limits of the human body (though there were some really entertaining rooms, like the Andy Warhol screenprint portraits and the photography exhibit about the New York subway), I was ready for a mental break.

That evening Molly, Amy, Jenny and I walked over to the University of London's comedy club, which was altogether enjoyable. It was great to be around young people who weren't Carls for a change. British "humour" (do you see what I did there?) is, as far as I can tell, incredibly awkward and involves a lot of apologizing on the comedians part. There was a man who read an awkward email exchange, a woman in a romper (very cute) who told stories about punching her neighbor's cat, a creeper, a guy who obviously only meant to offend, a silly college kid, and then maybe two guy's who I thought were a bit more sophisticated, less awkward and a lot of fun to listen to. And of course, hearing jokes about America here is hilarious; it's not very often we get to be the odd one out. I'd say most of the "humour" though came from the MC, who was totally energetic and really worked the crowd, by which I mean to say, he hit on us. His interactions with the audience also led to some funny moments, such as when one hottie said he was getting his masters in terrorism and war studies, and the next guy he spoke with was Iranian, at which point he asked, "Oh, are you studying terrorism as well?" - keeping in line with British awkwardness.

Also, adding to the relief of my brain, I finally went shopping. I spent Tuesday morning on Oxford Street, which is lined with outrageous boutiques, like one that had the latest Vivienne Westwood shoes (truly, truly to die for), and another dress shop where I was absolutely afraid to touch most of the clothing. I found comfort in Pop, a boutique that sells vintage clothes and new clothes made from recycled vintage fabrics. Very moi. Needless to say, I had a field day and bought stuff.  I'm not proud. But I'm very satisfied.

Then post-lunch, Mollie and I went to Harrods. I'm not really sure what to say about Harrods. I expect it's what most people imagine heaven to be like. From the outside, the architecture makes it look like a castle, and it doesn't fail these expectations from the inside either. It has, from what I can tell from the map, over 100 rooms, and each room is dedicated to a particular product. Diamond necklace room? Check. Chocolate truffles room? Check. Elegant, evening handbag and hosiery room? Yep, it get's that specific. Do you need an expensive cut of beef or fish for dinner? Go to Harrods. Is your daughter in need of new pet bunny? Go to the friggin' Pet room in Harrods. I nearly died. I mean, bunnies? Really?

Mollie and I (in future picture, I promise) had the pleasure of sitting at the gelato bar in the Candy and other Sweets room and paying way too much on indulgent Nutella desserts. But that is the consequence of living in the lap of luxury, I suppose.

monsieur mckellen

Happy Easter and middle of Passover everyone! I had a particularly wonderful/expensive breakfast this morning at a French cafe and I'm up and at 'em (meaning I am begrudgingly trying to finish my English reading). But what I really want to tell you about is my weekend!

Friday was a lazy day for most of us. We had lunch at cool pub off of Tottenham Court Road (£4 for fish and chips or bangers and mash - what!) and because it began raining as soon as we ordered, we whiled away most of the afternoon there playing a miserable round of Botticelli - Will seemed to be the only one having fun - and waiting for the weather to turn around. This pretty much ruined our chances of making it out to the Victoria and Albert Museum, but with nine more weeks, I have faith that we'll get there eventually. Instead, we spent the afternoon in the park with the infamous fountain, throwing the disc around (or rather, I took pictures, watched Jenny and the guys throw the disc and altogether avoided the mud).

Saturday was an early start, but by choice. While on my new fave website, Time Out London, I saw that there were only three performances left of Waiting for Godot, featuring Sir Ian McKellen! Jenny and I stood in a queue for an hour waiting to get discounted same-day tickets and triumphed. It was a fabulous show! I can't even begin to describe the beauty of it. It was very intimate; we were in the second row of the theater and could basically see up the players' noses, which is much more gratifying than it sounds! They cast managed to make a very gritty, overwhelming play magical, tangible and sympathetic (if you've ever read Beckett, you'll know why this is difficult).

Fun abounds in Londontown!

de mercredi a jeudi

After my last post, my laptop charger decided that it no longer wished to be a part of my UK adventures, and alas, committed suicide. So for now, I write from borrowed lappies and community desktops at the hostel, and without pictures! Hopefully, we will recover from this rather soon, and I'll have to do a post of just pictures to make up for it.

Wednesday and Thursday were a bit of a whirlwind of wandering throughout the city and seeing plays. First Wednesday. Mollie, Jenny, the boys and I tried to spend a fun afternoon in some of the beautiful parks near Buckingham Palace, but the weather and the bobbies (slang for police) had other plans. We took lots of pictures of us mostly freezing bollocks in Green Park and then around the palace. At this point I would insert a nude statue, with which the boys seemed enraptured and some of Mollie, Jenny and I with chattering smiles and windblown hair. To escape the weather, we went to the National Portrait Gallery, smaller and less crowded than the British Museum. It was pretty marvellous; they had a beautiful collection of Monet, some of which I'd never seen before, and a really neat exhibit on a (Dutch?) painter dubbed "The Master of Light." His portraits were the most compelling, in my humble opinion. That night we saw Legally Blonde: The Musical, which was pink and certainly entertaining, with catchy tunes that left most of us humming the first number, "Oh my god, you guys!"

Mollie and Jenny, quickly becoming my dearest mates, set off the following afternoon avec moi to the Covent Garden market. The market was super neat, if I may use such silly adjectives. There was a close-up magician (disappearing and reappearing melons never seemed so magical), a really freaky contortionist, a woman performing opera in an open-air restaurant, and all sorts of vendors selling knick knacks and paddywacks (imagine pictures galore). There were also a fantastic assortment of posh shops - thanks to EK's tip (shout out to my ladies eieieieiei!) we stopped in at the grand re-opening of Ted Baker and got free cupcakes with glitter frosting while we admired their beautiful dresses. I was very glad I went with nearly zero pocket change because H&M was the fluffy, adorable, cheap of my fashion dreams. We also found complimentary tea and champagne at a high-end beauty shop. The best shop, however, was Lush, an affordable handmade soap and beauty products shop. You enter on the street-level, but the entire store is in the basement, where there are foxy blokes (and girls probably but I didn't notice them) performing demonstrations with bath soaps and moisturizers. I'm definitely going back for myself and for friend gifts in the near future.

Our night concluded with a sprint through the tube station due to tube delays to the Barbican Arts Center, where we caught a really out of this world version of Macbeth. I don't want to say Americans do Shakespeare better after only one go at it, but compared to the recent Guthrie production, I was less enthralled by some of the choices, though I felt the company's commitment to their choices was very strong. The lead actress as Lady Macbeth was a truly haunting portrayal vs. Minneapolis' more sultry one, but both performances continue to support my claim that Shakespeare's women are more captivating than his men.

To celebrate the end of the week (insert silly face photo here), a large group of us headed to a pub for drinks and good conversation. I mostly partook (I may have just made that up) of the latter, as well as people watching (dressing up for a night out is surprisingly scandalous here, as demonstrated by a girl wearing what Matt quaintly described as "half a top"), but Will and Dan enjoyed a pint or two, Lizzie fought off some advances, and Jenny even got a kiss from a quite handsome bloke whose friends put him up to (or so was his excuse). Cheers to studying!

les lions

I've been quite the tourist lately. Sunday, Jenny and I set out bright and early (around ten thirty) to go grocery shopping and run errands. Unfortunately for us, most stores are closed on Sundays, or else open very late. We finally made it to the grocery store, Sainsbury's, around noon and there was a great selection of food, a lot of which was on sale, presumably to move the stock out for Monday's shipments. I'm very excited to cook myself! Last night I made use of my sautee skills and threw together some chicken with rice, bell peppers and spinach.

After Sainsbury's, we had a group meeting about with the hostel manager, Patrick. He told us the history of the Bedford area in a very adorable, very soft British accent. My dream is to organize a study break during finals where Patrick reads us children's stories. Then, Jenny, Rebecca and I set out on foot for an adventure to Trafalgar Square and Big Ben. I am very much enjoying people watching, which is good, as my final project will be heavily based on observation. You can see the effect of this new interest on my photos of the square:

Big Ben and The Eye were so crowded with tourists, all speaking different languages as well as English, which we are all beginning to realize is sort of like a different language here (just for kicks, they spell hummus like "hoummous"). Monday, after our first class with Shuffles, pretty exciting, we all ate lunch in the park, people watched and giggled about Medieval words ("bonerly!"). Dan, Will and my new bud Matt all planned to head over to the British Museum, about five minutes from where we are. Jenny and Lina also tagged along. If Trafalgar Square was uncomfortably crowded with tourist, the museum, if you can imagine was worse because  the museum is free to the public, so locals also hang out around and in the building for social meetings. I even saw a group of students (tourists maybe from Italy), playing cards in an area featuring Greek statues and artifacts. I've never seen so many people, or such an expansive building! We were only able to cover a few exhibits: Greek and Roman art and Egyptian art, and a neat exhibit on the Enlightment, when the British Museum was established and attained many of its first artifacts. But this is only a slice of the place had to offer and I'm sure I'll be back again, next time with a camera.

Monday night was also our first show. We saw "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," an expensive show with an amazing billing: James Earl Jones, Phyllicia Ryshad, two other really famous actors whose names I can't remember... The show itself was rather epic, and I very much enjoyed the acting as well as the technical performances. It was also directed by Debbie Allen (of "Fame" noteriety) and is the first all-black performance of the play, which also was very interesting to me. The audience, however, was worse than any show I've ever seen, even in 4th or 5th grade when I went to the Children's theater to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That room full of elementary school kids trumped this audience in courtesy and respect. Within the first five minutes someones phone went off. But what's worse is that they continued to go off throughout the show, all over the theater! The audience was also rather noisy, laughing at moments either too raucously, or at innappropriate times, as when Brick is chasing Maggie around the room with a crutch threatning to kill her. The audience intrigued me. I hope the next show will prove to be just as interesting, both performances and people.