banoffi, boats, beatarix potter and birthday

So I'm a little late with this, but here it is!

Click here for pictures!

This past weekend Kalen and I went to the Lake District. We stayed in a bed and breakfast in Windermere near Lake Windermere, which is Britian’s largest lake. It’s a whole ten miles long and a whole mile wide at it’s largest part. (not quite a Lake Michigan...) The lake and hills were very pretty. The town is pretty touristy - it's full of wine stores, lingerie stores, and chocolate stores. (?) I discovered my new favorite thing about the UK - BANOFFI. It's a combination of banana and toffee I think. Whatever it is it's great. It comes in many forms - truffle, or you can buy a jar of it. Ok so two forms but it's sooo good. It's so good that they should give you some right when you get off the plane. Why hasn't anyone told me about this yet?

Saturday morning Kalen and I went horseback riding about 10 miles outside Windermere. My horse wouldn’t really do what I told it to do - it wouldn't speed up when I kicked it and it kept throwing its head forward ripping the reins out of my hands. All it really wanted to do was eat grass. It also stopped for a big horse pee too.




After horse riding... we went into the town of Bowness to see the lake! It was so pretty! We decided it would be a good idea to rent a rowboat for an hour. On the way out we got caught a little bit between the dock and a parked boat, but then we were on our way! It was beautiful weather and for the first half of our hour, the waves were gentle and rowing was easy. We passed a really pretty island that had these really unique white trees. We were like, "oh wow! look at how pretty those trees are! They're all white!" Then we saw a bunch of birds. "Look at all those birds! There's so many! And they're sitting on the white trees..." Then we put it all together and were thoroughly disgusted.

We switched seats and it was my turn to row. The wind kind of picked up and we got sucked over to the side near the land. The waves also got really strong in the wrong direction. Even though we tried rowing as hard as we could back to the dock, we still went the other direction (even faster than we had been going when we were trying to go to that direction!) The weather really does change very quickly. I had thought about bringing my painting stuff but was glad I didn't bc it would be a painter's nightmere bc the light changes literally every 30 seconds! Anyway we made it and my back still hurts. haha. but it was fun and i got a lot of good pictures!











We ate at a really good restaurant that night. Then we came back and watched a hugh grant movie (to get us in the stalking mood for when we come back to London... we still haven't walked over to his house yet!!!) Then went out for a beer. I think both of our favorite parts of the trip was actually the bed. We have the most horrible beds in our dorm - the springs stick up and the pillows suck, but this bed was amazing!

The next day we went out on a bigger boat tour. It was also really pretty. Other than that, nothing too exciting is going to happen this week until Friday when I go to Belgium with my history class!

A Midsummer Night's Dream - The Globe

My roommate Kalen and I went to go see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe on Tuesday. It was amazing! We were standlings and we were really close to the stage. The actors were really really good and the costumes were really cool too (the fairies etc.) It was maybe the best play I've ever seen! Tomorrow we leave for the Lake District!

Windsor, Bath and Stonehenge

(click here for more pictures)

Yesterday 6 of us went on a day trip to Windsor, Bath, and Stonehenge. It was one of those really touristy buses full of old women but it was the cheapest way to see a lot of things. It was really fun but a really long day!

Windsor - this is the castle outside of London that the queen goes to every weekend they said.







Bath - Bath was very pretty. I had just finished reading a Jane Austen novel for one of my classes and it had been set in Bath so it was cool to go here. We mainly only saw the Roman Baths and left, but we drove around a little bit in the town too.




Stonehenge - It was so cool to be standing in front of Stonehenge! I never really thought I'd ever go there but have always heard about it of course so it was really cool to be at such a famous place. Apparently it's the only area in Great Britain that gets crop circles. And there are many various plants/mosses growing on the stones that shouldn't be growing there and they don't know how they got there.




(click here for more pictures)

Wrought Iron, BEST SANDWICH IN THE WORLD, and Lion Scaling

this happened yesterday, but I'm just now posting it today.

Kalen and I had the morning free before our 1:00pm (or 13:00, see? I'm learning) theatre class so we decided to go over to the V and A museum. It was the second time for me, but the museum is so unbelievably huge that I'll probably have to go several more times to even see half of it all. I like to not even look at the directional signs or a map and just wander around because everything there is so pretty and interesting. Things like "the 1600 - 1800 room" sounds so boring and takes the fun out of it anyway. The whole museum is essentially dedicated to anything designed (statues, clothing, fashion, vases, chairs, musical instruments, jewelry, windows that someone carved something on randomly in the middle ages and it survived... etc) so anything you happen to stumble upon is amazing. It's like window shopping to the past, but unfortunately you're not able to buy anything (the whole time I kept thinking how awesome some of the wrought iron things would be in my future black and white room.)

Some of my favorite things this time included:

• a hanging sculpture of smushed musical wind instruments hanging so that they're horizontal and even from strings many feet above.
• a window from 1600s? that was in a prison or something I think that someone had carved messages on with a diamond. I love that this was considered design.
• the WROUGHT IRON HALLWAY. love love loved it.

Ok blah blah blah let me skip to the BEST part of the day. Kalen and I (half) joked about only putting the following on our blogs. Just a picture of our sandwiches and nothing more. I came very close to doing that or at least creating a new entry just for these sandwiches... but I resisted. These sandwiches are AMAZING. We've passed by this place other days on our way to the tube and admired their deliciousness from afar. We've always been in a rush to get to class though and didn't have time to get one until yesterday (we planned it specifically.) By the time we return for the day, they are no longer selling them and that is sad (Europe is so weird about the times you can and cannot buy a sandwich... God Bless America if for nothing else, then for 24/7 food places)

But back to my sandwich. The bread. Let me start with the bread. It's crusty, it's soft on the inside, its warm (after she put it in the panini press at least) and it is lightly dusted with flour. The inside - pesto sauce and basil leaves on top of mozzarella and tomatoes. We took pictures. Of the sandwiches AND of the window display (I wonder if we'll be let back in next time.) I shouldn't even get started about their almond macaroons or their hazelnut butter cookies.



OK so after that we went to our theatre class. After class we had some time to kill before going to our play for our theatre class that night, Under the Blue Sky. The theatre was around Trafalgar's Square where the big lions are. Well I was still sad that I was too afraid to climb very high on the statues at Buckingham (see facebook pictures - I'm sitting down b/c I was afraid I was going to slide off the VERY slick marble into the fountain) so I was determined to climb these damn lions. My roommate Kalen and our friend Sarah climbed part of the lion fairly easily - it was a little harder to get back down but they were ok. I could not. So I tried a different spot that looked easier and... sometimes pictures are better than words so I'll just post them in chronological order.











I've never been a climber. I had to rely on people from half the countries in Europe to help me. Sarah helped but all Kalen could do was laugh and take pictures. Thanks Kalen.

Short Post

This is a short post, but I just wanted to tell you that Kalen and I just booked tickets to go to Windermere in the Lake District! It looks very cute and pretty! Sept 26th-28th

click here for google images

that's all.

Black Monday

Today was my first day at my internship. I have a very small cold (i keep telling myself that so i won't think I'm actually sick and it won't get worse) but it was still a good day. Today all I did was read articles and look at their website and their competitors' websites to get oriented with the industry and their company. Also, I watched the BBC all day which was on in the background. The stock market here opened a good 6 hours before the US did and the british were shitting themselves all morning in anticipation of ours opening. You'd think the world was ending. They were calling it Black Monday. Then once NY opened and it didn't drop as much as they had predicted. I mean I guess it's still pretty bad but it was interesting to see coverage of it in another country.

Another fun thing to watch is Sarah Palin. She was giving a speech in Colorado and people were cheering whenever she mentioned hockey and my coworkers were like, "Who ARE those people in the crowd !!??" I didn't know where to start. I just know my favorite speech of hers so far was her first speech where she mentioned that she used to be nothing but a hockey mom (and everyone cheered loudly) and then she mentioned that she has 5 (or however many) kids and everyone cheered twice as loud and twice as long. If McCain dies and she is our first female president I'm going to bang my head against a wall.

Weekend

Today we went back to Buckingham Palace to take pictures etc. Then we wandered around that area for a while and headed over to Camden Market. It was like Belmont Street in Chicago - punky, goth stores. The tour book said sculptures, antiques and middle-eastern artsy stuff, but they were wrong. It was fun though. I like Portobello Market better however.

Tonight I think we are going to head over to a club or a bar or something. The picture on the right is a cab with a Spam-a-lot ad on the side!!!

Portobello Market

Today I had a free day b/c my internship won't start until Monday so I decided to go to Portobello Market. They say the best day to go is Saturday, but I went today which is Friday. I bet it's really crowded on Saturday and I would like to go sometime.

I bought some of you presents there. (The rest of you will have to wait.) There were some really cool stalls - antique jewelry, scarves and blankets, old signs etc. Some of the more interesting things I bought include a bangle bracelet that the woman told me was made of a cow's horn (it looks like it could be, but I still have my doubts... it's really cool looking though whatever it is.) An antique necklace which was a bit of a splurge, but it's soo pretty and looks really old (she says it's from the early 20th century and it looks really old so I believe her.) I even haggled a little bit which was fun. There's also a bunch of clothes/fashion stalls which were fun. I bought a black shirt/dress thing that's really cute. I also bought a mousepad with a map of the London Tube stops on it partly b/c my mouse wasn't really working on just the desk and partly b/c I think it'll be handy when I'm trying to plan where to go and how to get there!

Maguerite at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

Tonight we went to our first threatre performance for the theatre class. It was a musical and I didn't like it very much. I don't like musicals to begin with, but this one was very shallow and had nothing substantial to say about anything. I didn't even like the characters and was kind of happy when one of them died, because then at least she stopped singing.

This, thankfully was our only musical we will see (at least I hope that's what I heard.) The theatre itself was very pretty and the set was very good too. I did like the instrumental music.

I don't start my internship until Monday so I have tomorrow free! I'm not sure what I'm going to do - I'll have to look through my guide book tonight.

I better get reading though - I have to read about a novel a week for just one of my classes (plus a bunch more for my other classes.) This week it's Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. It's not too long so that's good. Goodnight!

Last day of interviews

So today was my last day of interviews. I had one in the morning at a marketing company in the southwest suburbs of London. This is the first area I've seen in London that I thought could have been in Ireland. For some reason London's buildings and streets remind me more of Paris than Dublin.

Then I went to my first class which was The History of London. The teacher seems very good - very funny and he blurs right through decades and centuries summing it all up very nicely but quickly, which I like. Should be an interesting class. He says he does talk shows (I think he said for the BBC?) on history and military, but focuses on minorities in the military (women in the military, different ethnic groups, gays in the military etc.) which is interesting b/c I took a class on women in the military last semester. He's the quintessential British history teacher - suspenders and everything. Also, he uses the phrase "brown trouser moment" a lot. For example: when talking about all the invasions of London, "It was another brown trouser moment when they saw the Vikings coming!" I also can't wait for my Shakespeare class which is tomorrow, because what I've seen of him he is the quintessential Shakespeare teacher - British, tall, thin, mumbly. I can't wait. Someone said he's a somebody as far as studying Shakespeare goes. I think he's written some important paper(s) or something I heard. Tomorrow I also have British Women Novelists (I have to finish reading 'A Room of One's Own' by tomorrow... however the combination of jet lag and Virginia Wolfe keeps ending up in me falling asleep... so we'll see how that goes.) On Thursday we have our first theatre class and that evening we're going to see Marguerite at the Royal Haymarket Theatre.

That reminds me, last night Kalen and I bought tickets to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe Theatre. We're going to be standlings and I can't wait! Apparently you really can throw things if it's bad.

Finally today I had my last interview after the history class. It's a political consultant company (as far as I can tell - no one can explain it especially clear) so it wasn't at the top of my list as it was competing with the other two possibilities I had at an interior design company and a marketing firm. However, after he explained what I would be doing, I think it would be my first choice. I'll write more about it if I get it for sure and if it's the internship I choose. It's a bit of a far walk from the tube station, but the scenery on this walk includes Big Ben and the gorgeous Parliament buildings so it's all worth it. ( There's also a CREPE STAND on the way! Bonjour! )

Also to clarify Tommy's comment on my first posting - cameras, it seems, do not adequately take pictures in London. It is indeed foggy and rainy, but not nearly as bad as it looks in these pictures. For some reason London fog doesn't photograph well and it looks 10 times drearier than it actually is.

CREPES!!!!! (French vs British)

Today after my interview etc. I decided to walk over to the Victoria and Albert Museum (which is within walking distance, which is awesome.) I loved it! It was so cool. First I saw some things from Iran and that area of the world which were beautiful, then I went into the fashion area where they had dresses and suits from the 1800's until 2000-ish, those were really cool too. Then I went upstairs to some of the British stuff including a bed that could fit 7 people. It's called "The Great Bed of Ware." Apparently it was built to promote tourism and it was passed around to a few hotels a long time ago. It became so popular that Shakespeare referenced it in his play Twelfth Night. It was cool and I'll post a picture of it here.

On my walk home from the museum, I pass through an area of London that has a French Lycee for French speaking children whose parents live in London so that area has a lot of bakeries etc. I found a CREPE PLACE and I was so excited. I've been a little Paris-sick and after eating this crepe, all is well. Mmmm it was so good. And with it came a knork... or a fife which is related to the spork but instead is a hybrid of a knife and a fork, which I found interesting but probably wasn't interesting enough to write on here. Maybe I'll post a picture of that, too just to round out this waste of time.

As I was walking the rest of the way home with my new best friend, my crepe, I was comparing French people to English people. First of all, London roads are TERRIFYING to cross. The cabs simply do not slow down, let alone stop, for a pedestrian. The whole 'drive on the left side of the road' thing is tricky enough (luckily there are "Look Left" and "Look Right" guides on the ground to help out pedestrians.) The drivers are really aggressive and when it's their turn to go, they're going to go. Paris is the same but here lies the difference... The British love their rules. I was standing on a corner of King's Road (a very busy road) today trying to cross (there wasn't a cross walk on my side of the intersection, but there was just to the right of me across the less busy street to the right.) I stood there forever until I finally was like, let's try the cross walk. So I walk the 5 steps across the smaller street to the cross walk. The traffic slams on their breaks and lets me cross. In America cross walks only serve a decorative purpose, really, but here they mean business. To sum up, UK= drive like maniacs until there's a rule to follow then follow the rule at all costs.

The French walk like they drive. French sidewalks are 10 times scarier than Chicago or New York sidewalks by far. When sharing a sidewalk with oncoming walking traffic, NO one will move to the side to let someone else walk by. I did not understand this when I was in Paris - If it were a showdown between a Parisian and an American (or other,) the Parisian would win and at the last second the American better step to the side or there WILL be a collision. But what happens when it was two French people? One of them would have to move, right? Or else they would crash? I never saw any collisions, but I still don't know how they helped it.

In London, when there is a person walking towards you (assuming they're not a tourist) they pick their side of the sidewalk at least a block until they're even with you (not always the left suprisingly). Now European blocks are significantly shorter than American blocks, but still, that's some hard-core organization.

The British love when things run smoothly (I'm completely at home) and I think that's where all of this stems from. They're so hardcore about it that there are signs on the escalators of the tube stations saying "stand on the right" so that walking traffic can move past you on the left. (Cause you know how annoying it is when you're in a rush and everyone's standing everywhere on the escalator and if they would all just move to one effing side you could walk through!??! well they fixed that here and it's wonderful.) It happens now and then in Chicago too I've noticed, but it's kind of half-assed and no one can get anywhere still. Here you IMMEDIATELY move to the right and if you don't, the next person trying to get through WILL (politely of course) ask you to move.

The French are 100% opposite of this. Not only are the bigger train stations a nightmare of crowds, but the signs are ridiculously bad (pointing in wrong or 'hard to tell which way they mean' directions) and staircases and escalators lead you up and then back down and over and back until you finally get to where you need to be. Here, I'm loving the 'signs on the floor.' The last thing you want to do when carrying luggage and trying to find a taxi or the way out is to have to crane your neck to see a sign. Instead, on my way here from the airport, I followed a line on the floor that said "taxi... taxi... taxi..." until I found a taxi. Geniuses.

Not to shit talk Paris... I LOVE Paris. I just love organization, too.

Bus Tour etc.

Yesterday IES took us all on a bus tour of London and then we ended at the British Museum for an hour long highlights tour. The bus tour was good, finally we got to see some of London. I made a list of the places I wanted to come back to on my own. Pictures can be found here. I'll put some of the good ones up on this too. Some highlights include the building used for Gringot's Bank in Harry Potter movies, the Clock Tower, Buckingham Palace and the Parliment Buildings (which were my favorite). Also the bridge in Harry Potter that the triple-decker bus goes over? I didn't remember that part but the people behind me were going crazy.

I had my first of three interviews today. It's funny because they don't do internships in London (or Europe I guess.) At our internship orientation we were told that because internships aren't common at all, that whenever someone here hears the word "intern" they immediately think of Monica Lewinski. My interview today was at a small interior design company by Chelsea Harbour, which is a big spot for interior design apparently. Two more tomorrow and my first class it tomorrow as well. I'm excited to finally get started.

In the first picture, the white building on the left is where my classes will be held. It's really close to the British Museum.