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Week 6

Aug 10th, 2010 by

The last week in England was a rather hectic one, so once again, I am left with the need to post all my posts for that week at a later time. I am sorry that these are a bit brief. Since I didn’t write them on a daily basis, I’ve forgotten some of the details, and since I am currently rather jet-lagged, I am having a tough time keeping myself conscious.

On Sunday the 1st of August, we went back to Camden to buy some souvenirs for our friends and family. It was a really nice day, and it gave us the opportunity to have some more delicious Indian food. I had some tandoori chicken.

On Monday the 2nd, we went back to Covent Gardens. I was in search of a winter hat for my dad and some other random gifts.

It was a really wonderful day. We went to Covent Gardens market, and saw a quartet of classical musician street performers that combined classical music with interesting dance. We went to Seven Dials again, and we re-visited Shaftesbury Avenue. Monday was also a work day, in which I worked on my papers and my final projects, tying up all loose ends for my class. I was very relieved when all the work was done, because it has been a very stressful last few days of classes.

Tuesday the 3rd of August, was amazing! We visited the Tower of London. We walked from London Bridge Tube station, along the south bank of the river, to Tower Bridge, and we walked across Tower bridge.

It was really amazing, because the bridge itself is an incredible structure, and the view from it was also impressive. After the bridge, we went directly to the Tower Of London. Having pre-ordered the tickets online, we quickly collected them and entered the tower. It was really interesting, and not at all what I expected. We first visited the battlements and the medieval section of the tower. In those days, it was a castle, home to the kings and queens of England, as well as being a fortress of defense for the city. Like most castles, it featured a dungeon/prison. Most of the medieval castle has been lost and replaced with buildings from later dates. It was only much later that the Tower was used for what now makes it infamous: being a prison and the place of countless executions and (not as much as you’d think) torture.

We walked through most of the tower of London and all of its towers and buildings, with the exception of the parts that were being renovated, and the area of the crown jewels, which, not only did we not have much interest in seeing, but the line to see the jewels was over 3 hours long. No thank you!

The tower had exhibits of armor and weaponry, which was pretty cool. You can check it all out in my photos. We had decent fish and chips after the Tower, and returned to campus.

Wednesday the 4th was one of my favorite days of the entire trip. Upon reflection, it was sort of a stupid idea because of the sheer amount of pain we experienced and the fact that I was sick the next day….however, all that aside, Wednesday was Shakespeare day.

Allow me to explain. Do you remember how I mentioned that we went to see Henry VIII, and it was amazing? Well, being gluttons for all things Shakespeare, we purchased tickets for parts I and II of Henry IV…back to back on the same day. We got to be groundlings for 6 hours! It was INCREDIBLE!! My God! It was really really amazing. The plays were hilarious and really cool. The actors were outstanding. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. William Shakespeare is a hilarious man and a real genius and I wish I could meet him, just to shake his hand and tell him how awesome he is. We stood through both plays, and it was rainy and cold, but it was really really amazing, and I would do it again, and again and again.

Thursday the 5th, I spent recovering from Wednesday the 4th. I slept really late. Then, I took the bus to the local supermarket to buy a lot of tea to bring home to my family and friends. I also bought some vitamin C to try to fight off the head cold I woke up with. It worked pretty well. After a quick lunch on campus, I set off alone to Trafalgar Square to the National Portrait Gallery. Lisa and my other friends were all preparing for their final exam on Friday. The NPG was a pretty cool museum, some of the portraits really stood out and were interesting. It was a bit tedious though in some parts…I am not a huge fan of neoclassical art, and there was an entire floor of neoclassical portraiture. It was still a great experience, and I loved the portraits from the other styles of painting. It was also pretty cool to chill with the portrait of William Shakespeare, after spending a day paying him homage. The large portrait was on loan to another museum, but the smaller famous drawing, and the print were there. After that, I returned to campus for dinner and went to bed early, because I was really worn out.

Friday August 6, after the exams were finished, we all went out for lunch. We had fish and chips for lunch and then went back to campus to get ready for our formal dinner-dance on the boat. Our program organized a “end of the program” celebration, kind of like prom, on a boat which would tour the Thames river over the course of the evening. After getting dressed, we got on the coach bus and rode to the Canary Warf, where we embarked.

Our boat headed west on the Thames, passing all the major landmarks of the city. I fell in love with London all over again on that boat. The city looked so different from the water, and it was so beautiful, and magical to see. I stood looking out at the city for a long time, just looking at the twinkling lights and feeling the energy of this amazing place. It was a wonderful way to finish the summer program, and it was an excellent reflection on the entire experience. The dinner dance itself was pretty nice. There was a lot of music, dancing and fun. At one point, the DJ played Lonely Island’s “I’m on a boat!” which was just crazy. Everyone came running out of every part of the boat and began singing along and dancing like crazy.

Another memorable moment was when the DJ played two Beatles songs: Twist and Shout and I Saw Her Standing There. The Beatles have always been really special to me. The music always soothes me and leaves me feeling like everything is right with the world, and hearing these two songs dispersed the melancholy I had been feeling. We had an amazing time. It was an incredible evening.

We got off the boat at midnight and scrambled back onto the coach bus. I don’t know if it was alcohol or sheer exhaustion, but everyone was being rather silly on the bus. I heard more blond jokes and light bulb jokes than I’ve heard since middle-school.

Saturday the 7th, we went to Portobello Road Market. It was really hip during the Hippie revolution of the 60s and 70s. On this particular Saturday morning, it was extremely crowded, almost claustrophobia-inducing. We walked towards White City in search of a Whittards tea shop to purchase more tea to give out to our loved ones. It was a pretty long walk that took us through places we wouldn’t normally have gone to. We were really lost for a while, and eventually found our way across a really big expressway. The Whittards we were looking for was actually in a humongous mall, so we had the opportunity to see what shopping malls in England are like. We bought a lot of tea, and then headed to M & S’s to pick up some scones, and triangle sandwiches for lunch. We went back to campus after getting caught in the rain.

When we got back to campus, our R.A. Cameron invited us to the commons for a goodbye party. We had crisps, bread sticks and dip, soda and sparkling elderflower while we played giant connect-4, mad libs, and listened to music. We went to drop off all of our recycling to the center on campus, and we were amazed at the sight before us: the rainstorm had blown away, and another was in the distance. The sun was setting, and it lit up all the clouds bright pink and yellow, and to the east there was an incredible rainbow across the sky, with two shadow rainbows, one above and one directly underneath. It was an amazing sight, and made me feel so peaceful and awestruck. Writing this, it sounds so fantastic and unbelievable that it seems like I made it up, but I couldn’t make it up even if I tried. It was almost stereotypically awesome, and a really incredible ending to an incredible experience.

Sunday the 8th, I woke up at 4:30. Dressed, put on my shoes, grabbed my bags, and lugged them into the lobby. A car from the local mini-cab office came and picked us up around 5 am: there were four of us leaving at the same time. We drove to Heathrow Airport at we got to our terminal by 6:05ish. We had been warned that it can take up to 2 hours to get to Heathrow from where we were in London. At 5:00 on a Sunday, you can make it there in about 50 minutes.

We passed through security and everything with time to spare. We had a coffee in the airport and ate the “butter cakes” that we bought, which were essentially what we call English muffins 🙂

Our plane left at 9:40 AM GMT. We landed in New York at 12:45 EST. After a bit of a hassle picking up our suitcases, and finding my parents, who were at a different terminal, since the ticket said terminal 3, but we ended up landing in terminal 4. I got home just after 2:00 PM, extremely jet-lagged and confused. We went to my grandma’s for lunch and I got to see my family for the first time in 6 weeks, which was awesome.

Thus ends my study abroad daily journal-type thing. Keep tuned for a reflection-typed thing coming up.

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1 August: Sunday Markets Reprised

Aug 1st, 2010 by

Today we returned to the Sunday Markets. Since our program is almost over, with less that a week left, our sights turned to the idea of bringing things back for our loved ones. We spent the day today walking around Camden, looking at different things and just generally enjoying the day.

I was still extremely exhausted from everything, so it was nice to spend the day relatively low-keyed. It was still pretty exhausting to stay on our feet all day. It was just Lisa, myself and Ilyssa, and we had a great day just walking around, laughing, joking and occasionally stopping and making a purchase. We had Indian food for lunch in the market. I bought some pretty cool souvenirs. I won’t say anything in case the people I bought gifts for a are reading this.

We then returned home. We were going to have another movie night, but we are all pretty exhausted. I can hardly keep my eyes opened now, so we just decided to call it a night early.

It was a great, because it’s given me a chance to finally update my blog and just have a little down-time after an action-packed week.

Cheers,

-Natalia

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Brighton Beach Memoirs: 31 July

Aug 1st, 2010 by

Once again we were on the bus by 9:00. This time I barely made it. I couldn’t get myself up in the morning. I couldn’t get something comfortable to wear because the weather looked cold, misty and rainy, and my last pair of jeans fell into a puddle left near the shower in the bathroom as I tried to get my bleary-eyed self into the shower. So I put on a skirt, grabbed two sweaters and headed out.

It was beautifully misty out…just enough to wake me up enough to walk to the bus.

I love that weather, and it was a great day for that weather, since it gave the day a mysterious and magical feel. We were in and out of sleep on the long bus ride from London to Brighton. when we were awake, we had funny conversations about different things. We finally arrived there (it was almost 11:30) and they set us off free in Brighton. We immediately headed for the beach, which we discovered was made up of small pebbles. It was amazing! They were different colors, and really pretty. The mist on the water and on the shore was like the opening to a billion fairy books and fantasy stories I read as a kid. We walked around and took some pictures and then headed to the pier/boardwalk to explore. The pier was cool. We saw the world-famous arcade and the amusement park rides at the end of the pier. One of our group members decided she was hungry, so we stopped and went to find a place to eat lunch. We found an amazing fish and chips place. It was really really delicious.

Really and truly. After lunch, tried to think of what we wanted to do. We ultimately decided that after the stressful end to classes, we wanted to have a day of relaxation and enjoying the time we had left in England, so we headed back to the beach. Some of us decided to go to the water, so we took off our shoes and socks, and attempted to walk the little way across to the water. Walking on the rocks was a really interesting sensation. It kind of tickled and hurt at the same time. It was particularly difficult to walk down the last slope of the pebbly shore before the water. The pebbles there were wet from the splash of the waves, so they were slippers, and the slope was steep. We finally reached the water. The first wave was cold, but the rest were surprisingly comfortable. It didn’t feel cold at all by the second wave, just really comfortable. The biggest difficulty for me was trying to keep my footing. Every wave moved around the pebbles and made me slip further down the slope. The water splashed and wet us. After a little while, we turned back and attempted to climb our way up the slope, which was actually harder to do. We scrambled up back to where everyone else sat and then lay down on the rocks to wait for our clothes to dry. We played mad libs on the beach, and just as people began to fall asleep, the sun suddenly came out, sweeping away the clouds and melting the mist. It was such an impressive sight. The rest of the afternoon was bright sunshine. What a huge difference!

We stayed sprawled out on the beach for a while, then we headed back to the pier. We ended up buying milkshakes at “Moo Moo’s” who’s advertisement “Brighton up your day” made it irresistible. We wandered about, and as the clock approached 5, we made our way back to the bus.

We got back, I changed my clothes, and then we headed out for dinner and to visit Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station. It was great to visit. I realized after the fact that it was July 31st, or the birthday of Harry Potter, and the wonderful author of the series, J.K. Rowling. It was a pleasant way to spend the day. We ended up having Pizza Express for dinner, and then we headed back to the dorms.

we went back to my friend’s room for another movie night. We ended up watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was a really funny film. We enjoyed it a lot.

And so ended our wonderful Saturday 🙂

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30 July, or the day I was floored by William Shakespeare

Aug 1st, 2010 by

I confess. The title of this post is a rather horrible attempt at a pun, but I’m no Shakespeare, and the performance of Henry VIII left me so mind-numbed in happiness and amazement that I couldn’t think of anything better.

We woke up. We went to breakfast. We left campus. We went to London Bridge station and walked around, making sure to keep an eye on the time to be at the Globe with more than enough time before the beginning of the play. I was so excited that I couldn’t think straight. I LOVE Shakespeare. Love love LOVE, and until Hamlet (with Jude Law on Broadway this year), I hadn’t seen any Shakespearean plays performed live. Hamlet was AMAZING, however, I WAS ABOUT TO SEE A SHAKESPEAREAN PLAY IN THE GLOBE!!!!! THE GLOBE!!!! THE GLOBE!!!!! I was the happiest camper this side of the Atlantic 🙂

We went to Pie Minister again, and it was delicious again. Then we walked back. Upon reflection, the walking may not have been a good idea since we then spent several hours standing, but no matter….nothing would spoil this experience for me.

We went to the Globe. Walking through the heavy wood doors to the passageway that lead to the area directly in front of the stage where we would have the honor of being groundlings for the next three hours. We walked past the sign that warned of “Two loud bangs in the first half of the performance”. The play was incredible. The actors walked past us sometimes when walking to the stage (when making a dramatic entrance or exit). It was amazing. The entire time, all I could think was “Shakespeare was a genius….a cheeky genius”. The last scene in the play was the baptism of Queen Elizabeth I, and knowing full well that it was written during her reign (and probably performed for her as well) it was impossible to keep a straight face during that scene. Shakespeare set the Bishop off on a long sermon of praise and blessing for the baby Elizabeth who would one day become the best Queen of England, and would be blessed etc. etc. etc. He also conveniently forgot to mention that her father (Henry VIII) had her mother (Ann Boleyn) beheaded, or that he had an additional 4 wives, and other children. It was one of the most amazingly sarcastic bits of writing I’ve encountered.

The play was amazingly performed, and I must say, just being in the globe just boggled my mind.

After the play we sat for a good half hour, and then mustered up the energy to walk. We headed back to Leicester Square where we later met up with a friend and wanted to see a movie. After much searching through numerous theaters, we finally found one that wasn’t sold out. It also happened to be playing Toy Story 3. So after an amazing performance of Henry VIII at the Globe, we sat down to watch Toy Story III. I’m pretty sure William Shakespeare wouldn’t have had it any other way. Toy Story III was cute. It had some funny moments and some poignant ones. We got out of the theater at 10:15. We were starving by that time, and I was getting a horrible headache from a sugar low and the 3-D glasses. The only place we could find opened was Pizza Hut, which is more like a sit-down restaurant here. It was ironic to say the least. We ate some pizza and then made our way back completely exhausted and barely able to stand or walk.

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29 July: last day of classes

Aug 1st, 2010 by

Thursday morning dawned bright and early…well, rainy and cool and early. We headed almost immediately to the editing room to finish our project. It had been edited completely. We had about an hour and a half to get it off her her laptop, onto the school computer, recorded onto a mini DV tape and brought to the media office to burn to a CD. All of our films were to be screened after lunch at 1:30. In addition, I needed to print all of the paperwork and writing my team and I had to do. Once again, Avid gave us a billion technical difficulties. In the end, we just encoded it to tape from her laptop. I’m not exactly sure how, but it worked. I ran to print everything. We cut it really short. We ate lunch. We went to class completely exhausted. We sat trough our test, which wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

Then we had to sit through our screenings, which were much much worse than they seemed. Our drama resulted in blank stares and scattered snickers. I can’t blame them. I was torn between humiliation, annoyance at our director for the terrible job, and annoyance at our editor and other team member for talking continuously throughout the screening, making it even harder to hear and understand. Ours was the worse by far. However, we made up for it with the documentary, which got an extended applause and a “great job” form the professors. Oh, I forgot to mention, the other two people in my group banded together and demanded that the director of our drama be switched to another group as it was impossible to work with him. The teacher complied. Instead of being a group of 4 for the final project, we were only three, but it was still the best we’ve done this semester. It was relief to have something worth watching.

After class, most of us met up in the student union for sad goodbyes. Despite the difficulties I had with some of my group members, my class was made up of awesome people, and it was sad to have to say goodbye. We talked for a little while, and played a game of pool, in which I lost miserably, but that was half the fun.

Then we parted ways. I went to my dorm to get ready for the evening we had planned. We found a poetry/literary club in London and were planning to go to it. I changed and got ready. We ate dinner quickly and then headed out. We were going to be missing the Luau Party, but we were excited to see the poetry club. It was in Notting Hill, which is a beautiful area. Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered that the event had been canceled without warning. We were a little shocked to say the least as we had paid for tickets to the event, and hadn’t heard anything from them. We decided to make the best of it by turning back, hopping on the train and coming back to campus, where we caught some of the Luau after all. It wasn’t a terrible night, just a little disappointing.

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Wednesday 28 July

Aug 1st, 2010 by

The reason why I haven’t updated for this week was because I was completely swamped with the final project. It might not have seemed that way from the post I did for Monday and Tuesday, but the sheer amount of paperwork I had to do for the final project was mind boggling. Add in the last minute things we wanted to do before leaving England that we managed to squeeze into these days, and this should make for an interesting series of posts.

Wednesday 28 July was an interesting day. To begin with, I woke up and began running around. I wrote some more papers for my class, including breakdowns, treatments and synopsis for our final project, which I was finally beginning to understand. I needed to re-draw the storyboards from our drama, because our wonderful director never ended up bringing them in, nor did he ever ask me if they were done, or check any of the billion things I had to write, print and hand in for the group. At 10:30, I went to return our film equipment to the media office. At 10:45 I went to the editing studios to attempt to help our editor piece together our project. Our new director was missing, she went to visit her husband who came to visit from Russia….I couldn’t make this stuff up, honestly.

So I filled in. We had a billion technical difficulties. Avid has been the industrial standard for editing for years and years and years, but it hasn’t changed much since it was first made. To begin with, it is one of the least user-friendly programs I have ever worked with. It’s interface looks like it was designed in the early 90s. Everything about it is counter-intuitive. Final Cut Pro is a godsend. It took me spending the day working with Avid to fully appreciate that jewel of a program. To input video clip into the timeline, you need to set in and out points in the viewer. If you decide half hour later to shorten the clip, you need to re-input it. There is no cutting or moving the clips. It needs to be done all over again.

I have NO idea why Avid is still such a massive program in the film industry. It is illogical to me. Final Cut Pro leaves it behind in the dust, AND it’s about $3,000 cheaper at least. No wonder Final Cut is becoming more of the industrial standard. After hours upon hours of struggling, we ended up transferring the footage to the editor’s laptop and working on it on her program, which is just a notch above Windows Movie Maker, and still a billion times better than Avid.

I worked with her until dinner, when I quickly changed, shoveled down some food, and left with Lisa for Camden again. We went to the Electric Ballroom to see Ok Go, a super cool Indie Band, in concert here. I put a clip of one of their songs in my Bonus Features section. They were a laid back and extremely zainey performance. They hand a confetti cannon that punctuated some of their songs. They performed one song using handbells (the one I posted). For one of their more recent songs, they wore jackets rigged with lights on the backs that scrolled the band name across. They fitted their guitars with laser beams (again, I couldn’t make this up if I tried) and using a smoke machine, made a pretty cool laser show to their song. It was to be expected from a band who made a music video entirely around a Rube Goldberg Machine.

It was an amazing show and an excellent night. It was completely unforgettable. The concert ended just after 11, we hopped back on the train and made it back by 12:30ish, which was excellent considering the busy day that followed.

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26-27 July

Aug 1st, 2010 by

These two days were rather interesting days, even though they don’t have photos to go with them.

Monday was a rather intense day of preparation for our final film project for my class. We spent the day doing a lot of research, running around, and camera and sound workshops. I required a lot of paperwork and a lot of insanity.

Tuesday was our shoot. We left campus and headed to Camden early morning to shoot the vox pops interviews about “Real Life Superheroes” at Megacity Comics. It was crazy. To begin with, I didn’t fully understand the idea behind the documentary until we were half way through editing it. The shoot went well enough considering the second place we were going to shoot, (ironically enough, Forbidden Planet at Shaftesbury Ave) revoked the permission they granted us because the people tending the shop switched shifts, and the new folks weren’t happy with us filming there.

Tuesday night our program organized a trip to the globe theater to see Henry IV, part I, which (I heard) was an excellent play. The school ran out of pre-ordered tickets when we got there to pick them up. They advised us to go directly to the Globe to buy them, but when we got there, all the tickets were sold out. We walked around instead and explored. I was pretty bummed about not being able to watch the play, but we ordered tickets for the Friday showing of Henry VIII instead. We hope to get to see parts I and II of Henry IV the last week we are here.

Onwards to the rest of the awesome week 🙂

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Lisa’s Birthday Adventure

Jul 26th, 2010 by

If you read her blog, she will give you the account of everything that happened on her birthday. I’ll give a slightly different spin, if she will forgive me.

The day started off on a great foot. We went out for breakfast, and then we went exploring in London! We went to the science museum, and my very carefully repressed inner dork came out and had fun. The gift shop was also really cool.

We grabbed coffee near Kensington Gardens. We had wanted to see the Serpentine Gallery, but we didn’t quite have a chance because we wanted to get back to meet up with everyone and head out to truly celebrate Lisa’s birthday.

Lisa is rather shy about her birthday, and refused to let any of us do anything in particular, so it would only be natural for it all to fall apart so royally. The universe can be a rather ironic party-pooper when it wants to be. It started off really well. We went to Wagamama’s, which has really delicious Japanese and pan-Asian food. Our next stop was a Blues club. It was a really cool place with a nice atmosphere, and the music was wonderful. There were live bands that played mostly rock and roll, swing and blues. If only there had been more space in the place, it would have been really cool to dance.

The evening really began to fall to pieces when we left. It was around 11:15, which has always worked for us in the past…I mean, EVERY NIGHT the last tube is about 12:30. Every night except for Lisa’s birthday. The last tube was 11:30, which we would have made, had the tube attendant not locked the gate as we were about to enter. The train had not yet left, but I guess it was just meant for us to go through what we did.

We walked around to the nearest sign, trying to figure out where the N91 (the night bus that runs to Oakwood) was, which was the only thing we knew about the night buses (except for the things we were warned about, like “don’t sit in the top deck at night, because that’s where drunken brawls sometimes happen”.) After having to worm the information out of the guy who locked the gate, we found out that the 88 ran to Piccadilly Circus, which seemed to him (and to us) to be the place to pick up the N91, which runs the Piccadilly line. Clearly we were all wrong again. The time was now 11:45. The bus arrived at five to 12. We asked the bus driver if the 88 went to Piccadilly and if one could pick up the N91 at Piccadilly….he said yes. I don’t know why, but he did.

Our next stop was Piccadilly at around 12:30. We walked through most of Piccadilly looking for the non-existing N91. You may notice that my tone right now is half-sardonic, half-joking. This is just with the next day’s hindsight of course. It was a rather scary experience. The first feeling was obviously irritation. “What do you mean we can’t take the train?! How are we supposed to get back to Oakwood!!?!” The second annoyance/anger: “YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!! HOW IN GOD’S NAME DOES A TRAIN STOP RUNNING AT 11:30?!”

The third was panic. “Um….the N91 doesn’t seem to exist!” We ran around Piccadilly circus. It was starting to rain. I started to ask people wildly, hoping to find someone who had at least HEARD of the bus. I asked an employee of the city who happened to be wearing the bright neon green reflector of a city employee. He ignored me, and then finally when I repeated the question “Could you tell me where I could find the N91 bus?” he snapped and said “I DON’T KNOW!” and left. Finally, I ran to a bar. The lady taking reservations told me it was closing. I explained that we were lost and somewhat worried and were completely unable to find the bus we needed to get back home. I guess she felt really bad, and she said that although she didn’t know the N91, she DID know that most buses leaving for northern London left from Trafalgar Square. So to Trafalgar square we went in the rain. It was a good brisk walk of a few minutes, only marred by the panicky feeling that was building up in us.

At Trafalgar square, the first bus stop we came to didn’t have any information about the N91. We continued searching. After a little while, we finally found the one that mentioned the bus, and indicated that it was on the other side of Trafalgar Square. We ran to it, waited and hopped on the N91. Around 1 AM. Finally. phew.

The story doesn’t quite end there. We talked through the entire ride. It even became somewhat enjoyable even compared to the panic from before. We finally got to Oakwood, but the guy seemed to have forgotten that we signaled the bus stop…we yelled at the bus driver to open the door for a few minutes. He finally got the hint, opened the door, and we had to walk a bit up Bramely Road, but at least it was somewhat urban and lit. There were houses with lights in the windows, and if something happened, I could have called the police and said “Bramely road” and people would know what we were talking about. The real issue for me was Snake’s Lane.

Snake’s Lane is beautiful during the day time. The trees and the animals and whatnot. The issue is at night, it is completely dead, and rather dark. At one point, it was so dark, we couldn’t see in front of us. That was fun…not.

Walking this road was one of the scariest things I had to do in my life, and it left me so spooked that I couldn’t fall asleep right away. I guess the adrenaline and the repressing the panic of the evening finally caught up with me.

I feel really horrible that Lisa’s birthday celebration had to end the way it did. It was a really nice day until the disastrous ending. Maybe one day we will look back on this and laugh fondly, and in hindsight, it is a pretty ridiculous story that has the potential of being hilarious under a certain lens. Maybe in the future, I’ll be able to make a film about it and combine everything I’ve learned here.

For now, I’m just extremely grateful at having gotten back safely and relatively unscathed, even if it was 2:15 AM this morning by the time I sat down at my desk to skype home. Even if I didn’t go to bed until 3…at least we didn’t get murdered 😉

Morals:

1. “Parties are like frisbees. If you throw them the wrong way, they’ll veer off in a bad direction; and then your kid will fall into a quarry.” -30 Rock.

So, next time we throw a party for your birthday Lisa, you will enjoy it from the beginning, otherwise the universe will say: “Huh? You don’t want a happy birthday? Fine then, have a miserable one!”

There ain’t no party like a Natalia party ’cause a Natalia party is mandatory.

2. To the dude who locked that tube entrance…come one man….come on

…to the bus driver dude of the 88, I know you just said “yes” when you heard Piccadilly. I really can’t blame you, because you were just doing your job…

…to the bus driver of the N91…I don’t even care….really. I mean, it would have been nice if you were paying attention, but quite frankly, big deal….

and finally, to the dude who ignored the three  frantic young ladies standing in the rain in front of him…I hope you’ve read this, and I hope you realize you’ll now be remembered by me as the guy who couldn’t be troubled to so much as attempt to ANSWER me until I repeated myself 4 times…..and I SAW you roll your eyes at me! And I KNOW you heard me the first time! You rolled your eyes after I asked you the FIRST time!! I hope you are happy with yourself at least, because I certainly am not.

3. And last but most certainly not least: to the wonderful lady from East London who works in that bar at Piccadilly Circus, I hope you’ve read this, and I just want to thank you. I will never forget you…as tired as you must have been as the clock approached 1 AM and your shift was almost over, and you probably were headed to a night bus yourself…you took a minute out of your life to help us, as best as you could, and just the fact that you cared, you made a tremendous difference. If you had just ignored us, we never would have found our way. Thank you a billion times. I wish there were more people like you in this world.

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Windsor, Hampton, dinner and wii

Jul 26th, 2010 by

Finally Saturday 🙂

We left campus early in the morning on Saturday. Bleary-eyed and uncafinated, I couldn’t keep my eyes open, despite the wonderful conversation and fell asleep on my way to Windsor Castle.

I’d been to Windsor once before, but it was with an extremely jet-lagged mental state of my three nights in London for Thanksgiving 2005. As soon as we got off the plane the friend of the family with whom we were staying (Gustavo) brought us to Windsor. It was beautiful then, but it didn’t prepare me for seeing the castle this time.

We actually went into the castle, touring the buildings and the grounds, visiting the chapel and being able to see everything. It was really incredible. Windsor is the type of place that would put any little girl’s princess dreams to shame. In one room, the walls were covered in rich royal blue wall-paper, and the floor with a plush blue carpet. The ceiling in another twinkled in gold. It was an amazing place, beyond the imagination. If I wasn’t so hungry from the fact that I hadn’t eaten any breakfast, I would have spent hours there. We stopped in to Queen Mary’s doll house, which featured a rather large town-house filled with miniatures of EVERYTHING imaginable, including, leather boud books that actually opened and could be read, tine vases and fine china, small plants, furniture, beds, everything. It was a very impressive sight. We also got to visit St. George’s Chapel, which was a beautiful church and mausoleum for many different kings and queens of England, including Henry VIII.

After we finished touring the castle, we stopped for a sandwich and a coffee in the town of Windsor and ate it on our way back to the couch bus (finishing lunch on the bus).

Our next stop on the tour was Hampton Court. If Windsor was a Princess’s dream home, Windsor was an almost perfectly preserved slice of history. We visited the Tudor wing, not the more modern part of the building, designed by Christopher Wren. We got to see King Henry VIII’s kitchen and banqueting halls, his chapel and wine cellars. We got to see the wonderful gardens, the world’s oldest vine, and the Hampton maze (from the outside at least). In the gardens, we got to see a “traditional example of court entertainment.” Three players dressed in period clothing put on a comedic piece based on the story of Robin Hood. It was really funny, and they played to the crowed, but continued to check to make sure the king approved the entire play. They ended with “LONG LIVE THE KING!!! AND HIS QUEEN!!!!! AND HIS FUTURE CHILDREN!!!! AND THEIR CHILDREN!!! AND THEIR CHILDRENS’ CHILDREN!!!!” which was also very funny.

It was a really beautiful place.

We then piled into the bus, rather exhausted, and returned to campus. We were hungry when we got back, so we went out for fish and chips…(or fish sandwich and chips in my case). We had fun, and then returned to campus with some candy and chips for a “wii” party, having conveniently remembered that there is a wii available for students in the common room. We chatted and had fun.

It was a wonderful Saturday.

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Friday 23 July

Jul 26th, 2010 by

Friday morning we had to go back to edit some more, because we weren’t able to finish it all on Thursday. Then around noon, I left campus with Lisa and we went to have a picnic lunch in Kensington Gardens.

It was a really lovely and relaxing time. There were tons of birds and plants, and after the stressful week, it was a much needed break. Take a look at the pictures if you do not believe me. We got to spend the day outdoors.

We returned to campus afterward, in time for dinner. We decided to go out after dinner to see Inception which just opened here. Unfortunately, upon arriving at the theater, we saw that it was sold out. We then spent the evening wandering around the streets near Oxford Circus and Piccadilly circus. We stopped for dessert and sat and chatted there for quite some time. We then wandered back weaving through the streets and eventually ending up at Piccadilly circus to take the train back to campus.

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