Sunday, September 23, 2007

Stonehenge and Salisbury


This past weekend SU London graciously paid for us to go to Stonehenge and Salisbury. Stonehenge, as you may know, is a giant pile of rocks in the middle of nowhere. The rocks themselves, while pretty cool, are not what is that impressive. What's impressive is that men were able to construct Stonehenge 5,000 years ago using 50 ton rocks. The rocks even had joints carved into them to keep them together. You can't go right up to it anymore, and you have to pay to get to the field (SU paid for us), but it is still pretty cool.

Salisbury Cathedral was built in the 13th century and has the tallest spire in all of Britain. It was huge, and once again it is amazing that it was built without any sort of machinery. It also had one of the 4 remaining original copies of the Magna Carta - the document which our Constitution is based on.

Nothing has been too exciting other than that. This coming weekend Rick, Calyn and I are going to Stockholm. I don't really know what there is to do in Stockholm, but I plan on eating a lot of Swedish meatballs.

Check out my new pictures!

Monday, September 17, 2007

London Open House

This past weekend proved, of course, to be full of exciting new wanderings around London. Friday night the roomies and I loaded up on chips and salsa and watched England get their arses handed to them in rugby. They played South Africa, but they are luckily only in the round-robin section of the World Cup, so they still have a few chances to redeem themselves and move on to the next round.

Saturday Rick and I went on a tour led by Norman Reuter, a retired professor and architect. He is also one of my favorite old men ever. This weekend was Open House, where the government and businesses open up buildings that are not usually open to the public. We went to the Wellcome Trust (a medical research group), the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (equivalent to our State Department), the Portcullis House (where the Members of Parliament have their offices), Lloyd's of London (basically the grandfather of all insurance and a very cool building - check out my pics), and an interesting church designed by Christopher Wren.

Sunday afternoon (after watching an hour's worth of EastEnders, a British soap opera to which I fear I may be hooked), we headed riverside for the Thames Festival. It was full of street performers, art & crafts, and lots and lots of food. At sunset there was a carnival parade with performers from many different nationalities and musical styles. The evening was capped off by fireworks.

Our internet saga continues. We found out that our first call to the phone company had been lost completely, which is why no one had called us back. To make matters worse, our phone line has been disconnected so long that they will have to send an engineer to our flat to reconnect us - at the lovely cost of at least $250. We're looking for other options, but it's not looking promising...

Friday, September 14, 2007

Pictures are up!

http://picasaweb.google.com/deb.oonk

No, I Haven't Fallen Off the Face of the Earth


This is atrociously overdue.

I have been in London for almost three weeks now and not sent any postcards and barely any emails. The postcards are my fault. I forgot. I’ll get to them eventually…maybe.

I do not, as of yet, have any internet in my flat. Therefore, I am forced to make the trek to school to use the computer lab. This is not exactly conducive to creating a blog of any kind.

So, with many apologies, here is a summary of the past three weeks:

Monday, August 27th 2007

My dad and I left at about 10 a.m. to make the lovely hike down 81 to Newark. A few pit stops and one very busy Wendy’s later, we arrived at Newark International Airport at around 3 in the afternoon. Our flight was not scheduled to leave until 9:25 p.m., but the university and travel agency had warned us to be there at least four hours ahead of time to be sure we had enough time to go through customs and security.

After searching the airport for a non-existent Syracuse check-in desk, a mass of SU students began to gather around the Virgin Atlantic counter. Finally, at about 5:30, they herded us outside to stand in line. After what seemed like an eternity in line, we were finally checked in and sent through security.

Our flight was, of course, delayed, and we did not begin boarding until almost 10 p.m. Though I’m claiming to be an extremely experienced world traveller, you would think I would be used to international flights by now. That, unfortunately, is not true. I slept for maybe twenty minutes and only had a chance to get up once without climbing over my sleeping seatmates. However, I did get to watch Little Miss Sunshine, which I recommend as an excellent movie to anyone who doesn’t mind a little awkward comedy.

Tuesday, 28 August 2007

Note: I find it necessary to now write my dates as above. Europeans are weird.

After checking into the hotel, we had just about enough time to shower before we had an orientation dinner. Our first taste of British cuisine went well, which is not at all what I expected. After dinner, we went to the London Eye.

The London Eye is a giant Ferris wheel that sits on the bank of the River Thames. It has huge glass-enclosed cars and never stops moving – it just revolves really slowly so passengers can get on and off. The whole trip took about a half hour, and gave us some great views of London. London is not built up like most big cities in the U.S. But it seems to sprawl out over the land forever.

A group of us decided not to use the bus ticket they gave us to get back to the hotel. Maps in hand, we crossed the river and started to wander around. This provided us with our first view of Trafalgar Square, a large square with several monuments and fountains in it. We decided the first night was as good as any, and stopped in a traditional English pub for our first pint.

Wednesday, 29 August 2007

During the day on Wednesday, Rick, Frenchie and I again decided to wander around. We again ended up at Trafalgar Square, where, lo and behold, there was a rally for Beard Team USA. The World Beard and Moustache Competitions were to be held the following weekend in Brighton. Imagine about 20 or so men with beards and moustaches of all varieties waving flags and marching around with a banner. Needless to say, it drew a lot of bemused attention from the masses of people in the square. Rick, having done an article on Beard Team USA for a class, was very enthusiastic about the whole thing and talked to the bearded men for a while.

Apparently, this was the year for Beard Team USA. They won several of the categories at the competition, including the most prestigious, Full Natural Beard.

Thursday, 30 August 2007

Thursday was almost wholly devoted to flat-hunting. For anyone who I didn’t tell before I left, the housing process worked like this: SU rented 50 or so beds in a complex very close to Faraday House (the SU center). Anyone who didn’t want to do this pre-arranged housing was handed a listing of real estate agents and landlords and set off on our own. The nice thing about it is that we paid a housing fee to SU in advance, so they give us that money back in allotments to pay our rent.

The fourth flat we looked at was the one for us. We have three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a nice little kitchen, and a pretty sizeable living/dining area. It is about a 45-minute walk or a 15-minute Tube (subway) ride to Faraday House. It’s actually a really nice walk, so I haven’t taken the Tube to school yet. Exercise and saving money are always good things.

Friday, 31 August – Sunday, 2 September 2007

Friday and Saturday were spent tying up some loose ends. Friday we locked in our class schedule to begin the following week, and Saturday we moved our stuff from the hotel to the flat. We then proceeded to scrub the place from top to bottom. Don’t get me wrong – it was actually very clean (much cleaner than the other flats we looked at). I think it was just something we all thought we had to do to really make the place our own.

Sunday morning we hopped on a bus to go on a school-run tour around the Thames. It was just a bus tour, but we got to see things like the Tower of London (which is actually a fort, not a tower) and the Tower Bridge up close. The buses dropped us off across the river from Greenwich. We took a footpath under the river to get there, and had four hours to wander around. Greenwich is home to the National Maritime Museum, the Queen’s House (not the current queen – it was really just a museum with lots of portraits), and the Royal Observatory. The Royal Observatory is home to the official marking of the Prime Meridian of the world. People were lined up to stand in front of the sign and with half of their body in the Eastern Hemisphere and the other half in the Western Hemisphere. We discovered we could avoid the line and do the exact same thing inside the Observatory.

Monday, 3 September – Sunday, 9 September 2007

The first day of classes. Eek. I actually lucked out with my class schedule. I’m taking four classes: one each Monday morning, Monday afternoon, Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon. With my lovely sense of direction, I managed to get Rick and I lost on the very first day. We screeched into graphics class at 8:59 sweaty and out of breath. Way to make a first impression, right? Luckily, our professor was a little late and didn’t seem to notice.

Actually, all of the professors were late that day. The Tube workers decided that week was a good week for a strike, and London was sent into chaos for a few days. London has an extensive public transport system, and relies on it heavily. Without the Tube, the buses and trams were jam-packed with people. I was very happy I don’t mind walking.

My classes are okay. I actually really like graphics class and the professor. The other three professors are…well…boring. Since classes are only one day a week, they are three hours long. Luckily, we get a break somewhere in the middle.

On Friday, Rick and I wandered down Regent’s Street to go to Hamley’s and Lillywhite’s. Hamley’s is seven floors of toys. It’s pretty much one of the coolest things ever. We spent almost two hours in the store, emerging with a sack full of bulk candy from the sweets shop. Lillywhite’s is a huge sporting goods store. They actually have pretty good deals, and I may go back there if I need clothes.

As I’m sure everyone back home is aware, the Rugby World Cup started in Paris on Friday. Saturday was England’s first game, against none other than the USA. Rick, Frenchie, Calyn, Tuan and I (and yes, I realize that most of you probably have no idea who these people are, but I feel bad not mentioning them) found a restaurant to watch the game in and ended up in a room with a plasma TV all to ourselves. Of course, England obliterated us. I’m still not exactly sure how the rules and scoring of Rugby work, but it’s pretty awesome. These guys are HUGE and really tough. It’s sort of like American football (remember, soccer here is called football), but with more action and no pads or helmets.

Saturday night Rick, Frenchie, Calyn and I went to a concert in Hyde Park, a huge park near our flat. The BBC runs a series of concerts called the Proms, and this was one of them. There were huge video screens and neon lights everywhere. Huge walls had been set up so paying customers could have actual seats and see the orchestra up close. But tons of people, including us, sat on the grass outside the barriers and got to enjoy the music for free. It was a mix of classical, opera, Latin, funk, and pop music. After a rousing rendition of “God Save the Queen,” we started to head back to the flat. Rick and I were walking Calyn to the Tube stop when the fireworks started. There is a huge arch, called the Marble Arch, at the end of the park, and we just happened to be walking in front of it when the fireworks went off. We could not have had a better view.

On Sunday we went on a tour of the East End markets. There were huge numbers of people there, both shoppers and people selling everything from produce to used bicycles to pillows to clothes to VHS tapes. Rick and I took advantage of the cheap prices and bought some fresh peppers and potatoes to mix up our usual dinners of rice and spaghetti for the week.

Monday, 10 September – Wednesday, 12 September 2007

Little things in our flat that are broken are hopefully getting fixed this week. Our oven does not work, but luckily the stovetop does. The handle of the washing machine accidentally got broken off. I’m hoping it gets fixed soon, or I am going to run out of clothes. When we moved in, we realized we have over 50 channels on our TV. This is a big deal, because almost the whole of Britain only has five (kind of like not having cable back home). However, only three of those channels are in English. The rest are in Arabic, which is not surprising considering our neighborhood has the highest concentration of Lebanese people anywhere in Britain. Our landlord tells us he is finding us a cable so we can just have the five basic channels too. It’s actually pretty funny when you think about it.

Our last major issue to resolve is the internet. Internet is the only utility not included in our rent, and we have to hook it up ourselves. In Britain, you basically have to have a phone landline to get internet. After finally getting our phone number from the landlord, we discovered our line had been disconnected. Poor Rick has been on the phone with the phone company for days trying to get it reconnected. They said they would, but it hasn’t happened yet and it’s getting very frustrating. When a telephone company doesn’t answer its phone, I think there are some issues.

Thursday, 13 September 2007

So that’s about it. I plan to go to school either tonight or tomorrow to upload this. I’m sorry it is ridiculously long. Once we get the internet it will be more regular and I’ll put pictures up. I promise.