The One in Which I Do Lots of Stuff

So when we last left off I bid you all a fond farewell and left you for the countryside. Well I am back from a lovely weekend with the grandparents where I was spoiled rotten. I was taken to Next (a clothing store that I absolutely love that is only found in the UK) in Cambridge and got a new sweater, dress, and jeans for my birthday. Then we went to a sushi restaurant for dinner. It was a great weekend and I also got to see how my aunt and uncle's new house is coming along. I went up a ladder! That was a big accomplishment seeing as I hate going up ladders. But I did it! So it was a nice family visit.

Now it is a week later and so much has gone on this past week. To make it easier on everyone (myself included, it has been such a busy week!) why don't I just do this post in sections.

The BBC

On Tuesday I went on a tour of the BBC with my Media in Britain class. It was so cool. I got to peer into the news hub and there were computers and televisions everywhere. After the news hub we went to see the television studio. We didn't actually get to go into the studio we saw the studio from what can be described as an operating theatre (the place where doctors can watch surgeries taking place) and saw how the studio is set up and checked before they tape the program.

From there we went to one of the BBC's green rooms for the celebrities that come through. It was a huge room, but the tour guide Roz said that it was one of the smaller ones. She then proceeded to tell us the story of "Jenny from the block" a.k.a. Jennifer Lopez and how she was a diva when she went came to the BBC. Apparently the green room she was given was not big enough and so they gave her a conference room and then proceeded to redecorate the entire room. Not at the BBC's expense though, that was a point that Roz wanted us to be clear on.

After sitting in the enormous green room, which was apparently not that big, we were taken into a "mock" studio where a few from our group were asked to participate. The concept was we were doing a newscast and then heading into a game show after the news. Well my friend Leah was chosen to do the behind the scenes work such as the narrating and picking the television program. Then Steve was the newscaster and introduced the game show program coming up.

And guess what the show was.

The Weakest Link.

And guess who was on that show.

Yep, yours truly.

And guess who won!

Not me.

Technically I tied for second place.

Out of three.

So am I the weakest link?

Please say no.

Anyway it was a mock up anyway so....no biggie. Right?

Anyway that was the BBC. It was fun and great to do. My roommates and I are going to a taping of a radio show at the BBC. It should be fun.

After that Rocio and I went to Harrods for their once a year sale. It was great and not crowded at all. I bought some souvenirs for people, but nothing for myself sadly. But still the sweets section, AWSOME. Candy galore and ready to fall off the shelves. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. No kidding, wanted to swim around in all that candy.

Parliament

On Friday morning my I took a tour of Parliament. We had this fantastic tour guide who was just this old adorable British man. He just seemed to love doing these tours.

Parliament is incredible. The building is very old and beautiful. Prince Albert had all this artwork brought in and he also ordered wooden engravings of King Arthur and the Round Table. History just surrounds you when you go into Parliament. Sadly I do not have many pictures because you can't take photos when you go in. You can only take photos of Westminster Hall. Which I did and I will post them here.

Day Trip to Stonehenge and Bath

So F.I.E. (Foundation for International Education the place where I am studying) sponsored a free day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. So we got up and got on the bus at eight o'clock in the morning which would have been fine except that our tour guide would not stop talking. I was interested for the first five minutes, but then all I wanted to do was sleep and she wouldn't let me. She kept promising us that we would be able to, but out of the hour and a half bus ride, I do believe we were only able to sleep for about twenty minutes/half an hour. The only time she stopped talking was the bus ride home. If she was more of an entertaining speaker then maybe I would not feel this way or maybe if her facts were more substantial I would tend to be more interested. But random facts that did not pertain to what we were seeing had no place at eight o'clock in the morning. Where the Coca Cola company is has nothing to do with Stonehenge. Please keep it short and sweet. I do not like being talked at especially in the morning.

Anyway besides that it was a nice day trip. Stonehenge was neat just in the fact that its Stonehenge and well yeah. That pretty much sums it up. Rocks. Would you like to see pictures of these rocks? I knew you would!

So I figured by this point you might want to see something else besides rocks. So pretty grass? Nice countryside good for all of you?

So yeah back to rocks. But they're cool rocks. And that is the end of Stonehenge. Onward we go.

After we left Stonehenge we went to Bath. Bath is a very pretty little city. If people want to tape a historical film, they go to Bath. Ever seen Vanity Fair? Yeah some scenes were filmed there. The reason why directors like to film there is because it has kept its historical integrity. Bath hasn't changed at all. All the crew needs to do is get the cars and people out of the street and that's it.

But that is not what Bath is known for. The city is known for the Roman baths that people used to flock to for the alleged "healing" qualities. The baths are still there, you just can't use them anymore. The waters are about one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit and just standing by the steam warms you up. I got a face-full of steam and it felt quite pleasant. I did however, feel sorry for a little boy who got dragged through the water by his grandmother (there was some water just flowing through like a steam and the woman just didn't look).

After we toured the baths Rocio, Esther, and I headed over the Jane Austin museum (she lived in Bath at one point) and we went to the gift shop. We wanted to do the tour, but we did not have enough time.

It was a good day trip and I am glad that I did it. I am posting even more photos to end this entry with. Have a good week everyone and keep a look out for future posts!

What most housing looks like in Bath. The houses are all in rows.

The white spots are the steam. This was taken from the inside looking out from the Baths.

This is the "Great Bath" There were two other smaller baths besides this big one.

This is the remains of Minerva's temple. The Roman's dedicated the baths to her and they set up a special temple for her.

The water is green because it is sulfurous. The sulfur is what makes the water healing.

The white part is steam. I just bent over the water to get a picture and so the steam was taken as well.

Bench people used to sit on if they wanted to just look and gaze at the bath or if they were waiting their turn.

Go See 39 Steps

Last night was "39 Steps" and it was fabulous. The show is based on the film by Alfred Hitchcock and it was hysterical. The play is a murder mystery and is done with three actors and one actress. They all play multiple parts and the cast just really got into it. Making each character they played different from every other character they had to play. If you have the time it is a show worth seeing.

Today I went to the National Art Gallery. It is a huge place and we only made it to one out of three floors and we had spent at least two hours there. I saw Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" and some really great French Impressionism. They had a few of Renoir's dancers too. Nothing is as thrilling as seeing paintings that you have only heard about in art class up close. What is nice about going with a group of friends is that we had no one to check in with. There was no teacher hurrying us along or parent telling us it was time to go. We were able to just walk along at our own pace, sit down and chat if we wanted to (and trust me we wanted to and did just that). There is something gratifying in being able to go and check out a museum with my group of friends.

Ok yes I do have the capability to do this back home. I do live in D.C. home to the Smithsonian. But I think I figured out the difference between there and here. When I started at AU I knew that I had four years to do all those museums and see all those sites. Here in England though, I don't have four years I only have four months. So I am trying to make the most of my time here.

This weekend I am visiting my grandparents and so it is off to the countryside. Have a good weekend everyone!

Welcome and Beginnings

Hi all!

I wanted to start this blog as a way to keep you updated on my comings and goings over here and also use it as a place to keep memories of my big adventure. A week has already past and so much has happened from arriving here to my first day of class. I will try and catch you all up to what has been going on. So hold on to your hats and enjoy the ride across the pond to a jolly old place called England.

Getting there

So lets start at the beginning which would be the plane ride over here. Scratch that. The beginning would probably be all the false starts that happened before I even got on the plane. I was supposed to leave on Wednesday January 6th. That was the plan. Unfortunately Mother Nature was having a, how do I put this, a temper tantrum of epic proportions. There was a snowstorm in England and basically all the British Airway flights were either cancelled or delayed. So my flight was delayed an hour no big deal. It seemed as if the snow was going to stop. Then it picked back up again and the weather report said it would probably snow another fifteen inches. Fifteen freaking inches. As the British are not use to that type of snow you can bet that my flight was going to be delayed again. And it was. Twice.

Yes folks my flight was delayed until 1:45 a.m. and then again until 2:15 a.m. So I officially did not leave the country until Thursday January 7th at 2:15 a.m. Let me just say at that point I was so stressed out and tired that I was ready to call it quits right then and there.

The Airport

So yes I did finally manage to get to the airport. But then the toughest part of all came. Saying goodbye to my parents. Saying goodbye was really hard. I won't lie about that. Sorry if its sounds cheesy or like I'm a dork, but it's true. This will be the longest time I will go without seeing my parents. The longest it had been was two months and this time it is going to be four. The walk to security felt like the longest walk ever because once I got there, I would have to go through all by myself. So with tears, hugs, and I love you's, I walked through security all by myself and left my parents on the other side.

Arrival and Move In

After a pretty uneventful flight (crappy food, turbulence, but tons of movie choices) I arrived in England. I was pretty proud of myself as I went through Immigration by myself and managed to maneuver both my fifty pound bags on to a trolly cart and go through customs. My Aunt Su and cousin Ben met me on the other side of customs. Su took the cart from me and we got to the car park and Su got me to where I needed to be.

So Su takes me to pick up my keys and then we drive to my my residence. We get there and wait for it....there is no elevator and I live on the fourth floor. Yeah if I wasn't already doubting my choice to come here before I left I was certainly rethinking it once I saw the stairs.

So Su, Ben, and I dragged my bags up four flights of stairs and to the very last door on the hall. My roommates Esther and Rocio had already got there so I said hi to them and good bye to Su and Ben.

The room is very tiny. There is a bunk bed and one single bed. There was a dresser that didn't work, but we pulled off the great dresser hist of 2010 (we switched the working dresser outside in the hall for our broken one) and so we now have a working dresser. Our closet is broken though. We can't do much about that.

Anyway that night we unpacked and then passed out right after.

Orientation

Like all good school programs F.I.E loaded us up on orientation after orientation. The most interesting thing I learned at orientation is not to act overly enthusiastic at our internships because the British are a cool, calm and collected people while we Americans tend to be a bit overwhelming in our enthusiasm. I promise to keep my cartwheels to a minimum.

Touring the City

We went on bus and walking tours and got to explore the city which was neat. Esther, Rocio, and I went off on our own during some spare time we had and explored Leicester Square, Trafelgar Square, and Piccadilly Circus. The city was bursting with light and the sun had already set. There were huge signs all over the place lit up by artificial light and there was buses and cars all over the place.

A few hours before we went into the city we had gone to Kensington Park which happens to be right across the street from us (seriously walk out the front door and you can see the park) to look for the Peter Pan statue. Sad to report that we did not find him. There was only one sign to the statue and we could not decipher what direction it wanted us to go. I guess we will just have to wait until it is night then we will take the second star to the right and straight on till morning. Or we could just wait until it gets warmer and then it won't be such a big deal taking a while to find him.

I must say though, the squirrels are awfully friendly here in England. One came up and tapped on Esther's shoe while another fell in love with me. I was getting a little freaked out by how close it kept getting and so I kept running around in a circle trying to get away from it. But it kept following me. I had to break it to him that I wasn't interested in an inter-species relationship.

Class

I started classes on Tuesday. My first class was Media in Britain. My Professor Christopher Cook wants us to call him Chris because "we are equals, we are peers." Ok....not exactly what we believe in America but I can work with it. So Chris it is. He is taking us to the BBC on Tuesday and I am really excited about that.

My afternoon class on Tuesday was my British Life and Cultures Class (BLC) and Professor Ridgers was cool as well. He really wanted to know what we thought of the country so far and what stereotypes we knew about when coming into the country. We ended the class talking about national healthcare and how it worked in England and would it work over in America.

On Wednesday I had Contemporary British Theatre with Matthew Morrison (yeah not the star from Glee, don't I wish) who gave us a brief overview of British theatre (note: not all theatre takes place in the West End. Who knew?). Our class is seeing a show every Thursday for the next seven weeks. Matthew (yes Matthew) also wants to do play-writing and directing workshops.

This should make for an interesting semester. Each class offers me something different and I like that.

Today

Tonight I am seeing the show "39 Steps" and before that I am taking a tour of the National Theatre. It should be fun. I'll let you know how it turns out!