London - Summer 2007

Saturday morning we left Vandon around 9, there were 6 of us, and caught the Oxford Express to Oxford, home of Oxford University, Alice in Wonderland and the great hall in Harry Potter 1 and 2. The ride was about an hour and a half, but it was raining most of the way and I fell asleep. I’m getting pretty good at sleeping in an upright position. It never fails that when I have to be outside somewhere, it is always raining. We made it there about 11 and walked from the bus station to the tourist office to see if we could find a walking tour of the city, but theirs were booked and apparently only one company operates out of Oxford, or they just didn’t want to tell us how to find the competition.

My mistake this trip was not doing enough research about the city before visiting. I knew we had to see Christ Church College and there was a castle there, but that was about it. So we ate lunch in an expensive pub and then continued walking until we saw Christ Church, which is one of the many small colleges that make up Oxford University. It also has a lot of gardens and a Cathedral. Across the street was Alice’s Shop, because Lewis Carroll was a dean, I believe, at Christ Church and Alice was the daughter of someone else who worked there that Carroll used to tell stories of Wonderland too. They had all sorts of memorabilia. Then we sat in the garden for a while until the great hall opened, paid and toured the college.

It is more medieval architecture and I would have learned more if we took a tour, but it was beautiful, from the grounds to the ceilings. We saw the entrance hall were the kids in Harry Potter wait to be sorted and the great hall as well. The great hall is also a tribute to Alice because she and other characters are in the stained glass windows along one side. Also, the fireplace log holders have super long necks like in the book.

After we saw the cathedral, the library and the grounds, we left and walked up the high street with all the shopping. It is just like in America where you see the same chains over and over, but they are different here, with a little market every few feet. While the rain let up while we toured the college, it started again as well made our way to the castle. It ended up costing about £8 to get in, and we passed, so we saw the worst example of medieval sword fighting ever out front and went tourist shopping instead. Then we caught an early bus back and made it back to London around 6:30 where I grocery shopped and we all watched another group British movie.

Sunday morning the same six of us left at 7:45 to catch our 8:30 bus to Stratford-upon-Avon. It was a three-hour ride, again in the rain, but this time I did my homework and knew what we were going to see. Plus I read a book that weekend. When we got off the coach we walked to the tourist centre and looked up walking tour times, 2 p.m. So we walked around trying to find a pub that was open on Sundays before noon. After some failed attempts, we found the best pub ever. It had atmosphere, bad 90’s music and cheap food, two meals for £5. And the steak and ale pie I had, with chips, which is way better than french fries, and peas, was amazing. We sat there a while and soaked up the atmosphere to avoid the rain, then explored an outdoor market. I happened to find our meeting place, which was in the middle of the park, and we explored until the tour met. Along the river we saw more swans than I have ever seen before in my life. And I also found out that the Queen owns all swans in England, so hurting one is a federal offence. There were also the cutest baby swans, just like in the book were they follow the goose, they were walking along in a little line and not afraid of the people at all.

The tour took about two hours and we saw most of the Shakespeare houses, where he was born, where he lived later, where is daughter lived and his grave. I also learned a lot about his family, such as he had three kids, but one died at I believe age 11, one he wrote off because of who she married and whose children all died before age 21 and another daughter who never had any children but two husbands. Her name was Suzanne and she was the oldest, inheriting the house after Shakespeare died.

We started in the park, with a look at the fountain put there to commemorate Stafford-Upon-Avon being 800 years old and established as a market town. It had more swans on it. Then we looked at lampposts, because the town found a way to make other countries and cities in England pay for their lampposts and think it is an honour. The coolest one is from Israel and has characters from A Mid-Summer Night's Dream on it. There is also one donated by this power company in Florida. They are spread out all over town and she kept pointing them out to us as we walked along.

The whole town is like a giant antique, with some buildings dating back to Shakespeare’s time and others only made to look that way. But we saw it all, including where he went to school (which is still a school today) and this garden with statues depicting each of his plays that are being created by an American artist in bronze. He makes one per year, and they were so intricate and detailed they were amazing. Holy Trinity church, where he was buried in 1616, though was my favourite part, with full stain glass windows and a beautiful grave yard filled with old trees and headstones.

Weird fact about ancient burials: They were running out of space in the churchyard, so every so often they would dig everyone up who had been buried, pile them together and burn them. They called it recycling and the only reason Shakespeare and his family’s bodies are still there is because he wrote a curse upon his headstone inside the church, on the steps leading up to the alter:
Good friend for Jesus sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

We also saw the Royal Shakespeare Company and their temporary home until the renovations are finished. At the end of the tour we went in the gift shop of Shakespeare’s birth home, grabbed some sandwiches and went back to catch the bus. It was a long ride back, but Stratford is defiantly at the top of the things I have seen so far.

Monday morning I took my first 50 minute commute by tube then the DLR to my job at Crosshaubor. It was packed, all these people in business suits standing around reading the papers and listening to iPods. Newspapers are not a dying industry here simply because of the Tube. But I made it to work after a nice 10 minute walk past the old docks and got here before eveyone else. They told me to come between 9-9:30 so I went for 9:15, but apparently no one else wakes up on Monday mornings. So I waited and when everyone arrived I was introduced around.

I work in the publications department with three other people, the direcotr, the Web master and the graphic desinger, two of whom are Australian, so another new accent to learn. But the office here is the entire fith floor of the building and it is just sections of desks with papers everywhere. It's good beacuse I sit next to the Marketing and Events department and hear everything they go through without doing all the boring work.

After introductions we had a meeting and they went over the tasks for the week. Mine for Monday: find megaphones for a photo shoot. So, I spent most of the day finding a cheerleading company that would ship a 32' orange megaphone to England by Friday. O, and as a back up plan I made one out of cardboard. (really posterboard, but when they said carboard all I was thinking was it will never bend) Then I created a mini Web site to find the problems with the program and received my first project: Researching themed activites kids can do for the six weeks of their summer. Each week had a theme and each day had about two activities I had to find, describe, and explain, such as games or receipes or songs.

Monday night we had our first weekly meeting with Eric and Emily, the director and assistant director. We talked about the differences, what we observed in the work place and how our first day went. After that I think I organized myself and went to sleep. Boring, yet good after a long weekend.

Tuesday morning I aimed for 9:30 and found a new route by walking from the Tube station and cutting out the DLR. At work I did the first three weeks of summer: My Space, The Beach and The Sea. Finally all that camp stuff came in handy! However, it also reinforced why I am not and will never be an educaion major. It was fun for a day, not forever. That night we watched a British comedy, 'Hot Fuzz' and it was the dumbest, greatest movie making fun of small towns and cops ever. We cracked up all the way through it.

Wednesday I worked on Eco week in my holiday playscheme project, and tpyed a few things and moved boxes of annual reports and publications. Then I left work early at 4:30, came home and put on regular shoes and then left for the Globe Theatre to see Othello.

I ended up going alone because when I ordered the tickets on Monday online, 10 minutes later the show was sold out and the other people going couldn't get tickets. So I got off the tube at Blackfriars, went the wrong direction for about 10 minutes, turned around and walked over the Thames river by the Millenium foot bridge. It was beautiful, with St. Paul's Cathedral behind me, the Tate Modern in front and the Globe to the left. From the bridge I could see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

The Globe itself was a lot smaller than I thought, this seems to be a theme here, but awesome. The sell seven hundred standing room only tickets everynight and any theatre professor will tell you it is the only and authentic way to see a Shakepeare play. The play started at 7:30, and I made sure to be there by 6:50 in order to lean up against the stage. I was in the corner, right next to the corner stairs and kept having to duck as the actors ran in and out so I wouldn't get hit with their swords.

That was the best part of the theatre, being close. They didn't use microphones and kept entering through the crowd and using us a props. when Rodriggio died, I could have reached out and poked him. I also had the perfect view because I could see the whole stage, even around the major pillars. However, the play itself was acted well, but the longest play ever. Everyone dies at the end and the main character spending most of the time repeating the same lie to several different characters. At 9:15 when intermission happend no one knew if it was time to leave. But it was finally over at 11 and the whole cast came out and did a choreographed dance in the end.

Coming home was the weird part. Just being in a city this big by myself, even though people were everywhere and the Tube was rather crowded. Plus, when I get off at my stop there are Policemen with machiene guns on every corner. The major complaint was that my feet hurt after about four hours of standing. But I slept really well.

On Thursday I had a great day. During the commute to work I got a real seat and it was a cooler day with air flow, rare for the underground. It was nice outside as well and when I got to work it was three people's birthdays and someone brought in doughnuts. I finished my playschemes (Lights, camera action and It's a bug's life weeks) and for lunch about 12 of us went to eat at a Spanish Tapas bar that is close by. While the most expensive meal I have eaten so far, it was also the best with calimari and papas fritas and just enough spice. I discovered that the only thing about Spanish I like is being able to read the menu. That afternoon after work I meet another intern in the office and she introduced me to the ASDA here, very exciting, and then I walked up to Vandon right as everyone was leaving for a picnic in the park.

It was one of the guy's birthdays so we picked up pizzas to split for only £1, amazing price, and bottles of wine. Here is is perfectly acceptable to drink in puclic, from the Tube to the street to parks so we went to St. James Park. It was a gorgous night and by the end we had about 8 empy wine bottles and sange happy birthday to Prince William in front of Buckhingham Palace. There is such a great atmosphere in this country!

Friday morning we all wore sun glasses and left early for a river cruise down the Thames to Greenwich. Seeing Big Bend, Parliament, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge are so much better from the water, and you see the city how it is meant to be seen. It was origionally a port town and so eveything was designed around the river to show people coming how impressive the city is and was.

We reached Greenwich and I was surpraised by how quite is was, with cobbled streets and a small town feel even though it is still considered London. We hiked up the hill to the Royal Observatory Greenwich and stood on the Prime Merdian in both hemispheres. The view from the top of the hill is suppoused to be awesome, and it was cool, but because Canary Warf has grown so much you can no longer see all the way into the city. But I could see my office building, and the docks and showed everyone. The meuseum there was also set up very well and I learned all about the contest they held to find a navigation problem and how that lead to the creation of astronomy and using the stars and latitude and longitude. Plus there were a lot of clocks.

After we went to a market, then had luch and took the DLR to Westminster. We had time before our tour of Parliament so I took the people I was with the long way around and discovered a real mall underneath the Tube station on my way home from work. But their stores here are different and they have department stores that sell food everywhere. We killed some more time walking around by the river at Westminster and saw all the living statues again. I don't know how those people just stand there all day and not move or wipe that gold makeup off of their faces. Plus it makes me wonder how on earth they make enough money to live on.

At 2:56 p.m. out tour of Parliament started, and even though the building burned to the ground in the 1860's, when Queen Victoria rebuilt it she rebuilt in the origional style, with every tiny bit of wall space being used. We started in the gallery room and followed the path the Queen takes when she opens a session of parliament evey year into the Portrait Gallery. There were these two huge paintings depicting the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo and in each one the artist had left his mark of a wine glass. It was playing eye spy with a painting at least 10 feet tall and 20 feet wide.

We walked through the House of Lords and the House of Commons, both having distinctive colours, red and green, and tradtions and their origins. This might have been my favorite part of the trip so far becuase it gave a face to so much of history. The guide told us about the dictator King Charles I who felt that divine right meant he shouldn't have to ask Parliment for money and so when 5 MP's (Memebers of Parliament) spoke out in protest with a written attack on his character, he marched into Parliament and demanded they come forward and be arrested. They had been warned and had fled and the leader of Parliament refused to tell the king where they went. This sparked a civil war between the King, with his army backing him, and Parliment. The King was captured and thrown in the Tower of London for three years before being beheaded and Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. But since that time, no monarch has step foot in the House of Commons to show that Parliament has control over it and every year when the Queen enters the House of Lords to start Parliament, her right hand man walks to the House of Commons and knocks three times then gets the door shut in his face to show that the people can refuse the monarchy. (Another wierd fact about Cromwell, when Charles II returned to the throne he dug up Cromwell's body after he had been dead for about 3 years, then hung it, quartered it and drug it through the streets as an example. Gross and we saw where it happened. A lot of these stories have to do with public exceutions)

Other interesting facts about Parliament include the the origins of 'it's in the bag' and that the House of Commons was rebuilt to never hold of the delagates because Winston Churchill thought debating in a smaller room was more fun. Both the sides are also two sword lenghs apart in case someone gets one through the medal decetor and they decide to use it. The place seats about 400, even though there are 600-something delegates. Everything in England seems to be smaller and I thought it would be.

That night I think we watched a movie and I continued my laundry, which I always seem to be doing here. During the week I also finalized my trips to Dublin, Paris and Brighton, complete with sightseeing tours and bus fares. Next, my weekend in Oxford and Stratford, my first Indian food experience and Dublin.

Seven and a half hour plane rides are no fun. From waiting an extra hour to depart from the Houston airport, to being worried I would miss my connecting flight to Manchester at O'Hare in Chicago, planes are just no fun. But I made it all the way to England at 8 a.m. Tuesday, June 4, and was escorted off the plane like an unaccompanied minor straight through customs and baggage claim to Martin, Steph and Evee, who is the cutest baby ever!

Once in England, we drove to Butch and Su's house in Witness, about a half hour, and chatted and ate breakfast. I managed to stay awake for over 24 hours, then crashed. On Wednesday Su took me on a tour of Witness, Hale, this picturesque English village with thatched roofs, and Liverpool. It might be home of the Beatles, but other than that it is not really that pretty, just industrial.

I also had my first experience with the English version of Wal-Mart, ASDA. They own in and it is the same, only more expensive. The 2-to-1 exchange rate is killer as the cheapest thing I have found is about 2 pounds, or $4. Then the 'riffraff' as Su called them came over and I meet great-Aunt Bridget, who left the house to come and meet me which I was told was a big deal, Maureen and her kids Deborah and Allison, and Lorene, her husband Tony and their daughter Helen and her fiancée. They were all very nice and I learned all about the black sheep brother of the family.

Thursday I explored the outdoor shopping in Witness and experienced public transportation for the first time: buses. And also English food. The first night there we walked to the chippery and had fish and chips, then I opted out of steak and kidney pie for pizza. But every morning I had toast and every evening tea and scones.

Friday Steph and Evee came and picked me up and took me to their house and then to the Trafford Center in Manchester, by Old Trafford, which is the Manchester United futbol stadium. This was the coolest mall I have ever seen. It was upscale like the Galleria, but in the food court there were different areas for each country, so China town looked like a Chinese street, and New Orleans, Aztec, Egyptian, and the middle was built just like a cruise ship, complete with pool and life boats.

On Saturday, June 9 Su and I boarded a train to London at 8:30 a.m. and arrived at the Euston station at 11:30. We got a taxi to our hotel, the Thisel Westminster, and checked in. I found out that in order to be a taxi driver here you have to study for two years and take this huge test called the Knowledge. They know their way around the city like the back of their hand and will run people down. We even hit a biker who wouldn't move out of our way.

After discovering that in London air conditioning is non-existent, we walked to Buckingham Palace in time to see the practice of the Trooping of the Color, the official birthday of the Queen, which is June 16. I saw the entire British army household staff from 6 different divisions in full dress uniforms complete with bear skin hats. We then walked to Big Ben and the houses of Parliament and Westminster Abby. We had sandwiches by the Thames river and walked back down Whitehall past Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives, and into the Horse Palaces Guard and saw the changing of the horses and where the official Trooping of the Color will occur. Then a stroll through St. James Park, the Queen’s front garden, and back to the hotel to get ready for the Lion King.

The theatre itself was gorgeous, with doomed decorated ceilings and Victorian architecture. But the music and the costumes were even better! Just the way they make the animals move and the characters British accents! It was great!

On Sunday morning Su dropped me off at Vandon House, my home for the next eight weeks, and I settled in. They use it as a dorm during the year when more people are in the program, but in the summer it is also a hotel. We really are a five minute walk from the Palace in one direction and a seven minute walk to Parliament in the other. In between there is Westminster Chapel, Sutton Ground (a variety of local food stores) and a high end shopping row. Will write more at another time about my first week in London!