Week 3 and an Expotition

In my third week I got a chance to go to Hampton Court, which was yet another exceptionally large house that British Royals lived in. I also made it to the Imperial War Museum, which had a great exhibit on British spies and a good tank collection. Wednesday I ate with friends in the cafeteria at the Indian YMCA. This was my third trip there and it was once again exceptionally cheap and amazingly good. 

Thursday night I saw the british electronic band Hot Chip with my friends Noah and Colin and had quite the grand time. Friday morning I woke up and went to the British Library to get a researcher card so I could make use of their collection for my class research project. However, by far the best part was getting to see the original scroll on which Jack Kerouac typed On the Road that was on display in the lobby.

I spent most of my Saturday in classic UChicago style alone in my room reading. It was really productive but not particularly fun. So in response to my dreary saturday I made a celebratory adventure to Hartfield in Southern England where A.A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh stories, lived. Winnie the Pooh was of great importance to my childhood and I have fond memories of my Great Uncle reading the stories at family reunions when I was growing up. So at the behest of my mother I took a train and then a bus to Hartfield, which was in the middle of nowhere (not to say the middle of nowhere in rural england wasn't beautiful). 

Once in Hartfield I made my way to the Pooh Corner store where I was able to pick up a map to guide me on my "expotition" to the Poohsticks bridge which was about two miles away down a small road and through some fields and a forest. 

Thankfully the path was reasonably well marked because I was really not interested in getting lost by myself in rural England. The only real downside to the otherwise wonderful walk was how muddy the path was. 

The path actually involved going through a few fields with horses and sheep in them. This caught me off guard and I really thought I had made a wrong turn but it turned out paths through fields of livestock are just a thing here. 

After a somewhat long and very muddy trek I arrived at the Poohsticks bridge that is mentioned in Milne's stories. For those of you who are not aware poohsticks is an extremely competitive game that involves dropping sticks on the upstream side of the bridge and trying to get your stick to pass downstream of the bridge first. 

Since I made the trek alone I dropped at poohstick in for my mother who taught me this favorite game that I'll always love. After winning said game of poohsticks against myself I made my way back towards London. 

The beginning of my fourth week was characterized by a lot of reading, a failed gallery trip in which I learned that most art galleries are closed on Monday, and finding a great Somalian restaurant. Notably, religious somalis were not a fan of our BYOB attempt. 

Manors and Houses and Wales oh my.

I woke up rather unhappily at 630 am after going to sleep at 230 am for no legitimately good reason other than the fact that Noah and I got exceptionally motivated and made all of our travel arrangements for our trips to Paris, Florence, and Barcelona. After drudging my way to the lobby (coffee in hand, thank god) we eventually set off with the rest of our classmates on a tour bus going west through Britain. We first stopped at Stone Henge, which is exceptionally old, mysterious and large.

And also full of a great number of tourists who are fascinated by oldness, mysteriousness and largeness of it.

Then we stopped at Montacute house (which I wrote a paper on last week) that belonged to the Phelips family at some point before one of their relatives gambled away the family fortune. Now it belongs to the National Trust. The driveway was my favorite part (whatever that says for the house). 

I then found myself in Salisbury Cathedral which had this curious little plaque commemorating the men of Salisbury who had fought in the Burma campaign. This plaque seemed to be a small monument to the way in which empire infiltrated the English identity.

The church was rather pretty also.

From there we made our way on the bus to Tintern Abbey in Wales and after a long and tiresome discussion of a Wordsworth named for the site we all got do a little exploring around the Abbey.

We then ventured to another house of which I no longer remember the name. It was not a particularly striking house and this staircase was by far the nicest thing about it. 

Then we went to this house which I was exceptionally skeptical of since it looked like it could fall down at any moment. See how it looks like parts of it are bending? They are. The stone roof is slowly destroying the house because the upper floors were not properly aligned for structural support. 

After that we went to Chatsworth, which the exceptionally large manor house of the Duke of Devonshire who also still ives there some parts of the year. This place was astoundingly large and covered in gold. The art collection was amazing and they even had an original Da Vinci drawing. I really appreciated the collections of modern ceramic art displayed around the house. It was a bit overwhelming but the gardens definitely helped temper the excess of gaudy decoration.

Just to give you a sense of the grandeur.

After that we made our way back to London ambling through the countryside in our bus. 

The second week of London

As I've lived a second week in London it is becoming clear that this is a city which is extremely alive. London is a city in which you cannot escape finding something interesting. I am constantly assaulted by the sheer amount of life that is teeming in the streets of London. Last week I emerged onto Trafalgar square from the National Gallery to find a Malaysian Cultural festival. Again, later that week I walked out of my apartment building only to find the Petticoat Lane market was stationed between me and the tube station.

My good friend Alex Pinelli was able to come visit me during his fall break from UVa. After meeting him in my lobby and leading him to the beigel shop down brick lane (best value on a bagel with lox that I've ever seen). We then took to exploring and went on a walk that lasted for many miles and had us traverse all the way to Westminster along the south bank of the Thames and from there to Buckingham Palace where we found a parade going along

After that we ended up going on a rather roundabout journey for fish and chips (which we eventually found at Golden Union) before taking the long, but exceptionally nice, walk back to my building. After relaxing a bit we went out to a curry place renowned on the internet called Tayyabs just a bit east and south of Brick Lane. The food was amazing and we ate for about ten pounds so it was quite the deal. It was the first time I'd ever been served a naan with meat inside and that is certainly a new favorite for me. Waiting for a table in the restaurant (because I was dumb and failed to call ahead) was a painful aromatic experience as I desperately looked on at others receiving their food. The payoff of my own meal of lamb with dal was completely worth it though. 

The next day Alex and I made our way through Brick Lane's sunday market and I acquired some excellent burmese chicken in coconut curry before heading over to the London Eye. The London Eye (which is this fantastically large ferris wheel on the Thames) gave an amazing view of the city that really allowed me to have perspectives on London I would never have seen otherwise. While a tourist trap and a little pricey it was definitely worthwhile. 

Alex and I hung out a bit more Monday and went out to a local pub before I saw him off on Tuesday morning. Later in the week I got a chance to spend a good deal of time in the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery (both of which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially the impressionist collection in the National Gallery which had some of my favorite Van Gogh's I've ever seen). 

The first week living in London

I moved into my suite that I share with my friend Noah in London a week ago. It's been somewhat overwhelming and definitely exciting moving into a new city in a foreign country. Most of my struggles thus far have been focuses around the fact that where I live (in the financial district) lacks normal things like a place to buy towels. But I'm figuring it out step by step.

Since I only have class for 12 hours a week I've been trying to use my free time to see as much of London as I can. Thus far I've made it to  The Tate Britain, which was really quite interesting.

This was probably my favorite painting I saw there. 

I've since also made it to the Tate Modern, which is in this very imposing old power station but has a great collection and some very good new art along with a few Dali's I liked. 

Beyond that I've been trying to see regular London things like Buckingham Palace (I got to see the changing of the guard on accident while wandering around the other day also). 

There are also a wealth of outdoor markets that I keep running across. The Spitalfields Market is only a block from my building and Brick Lane which sets up a grand shop of food vendors, antiques and vintage clothing on the weekends is only a few more blocks away.

 I also walked through the Columbia Road Flower Market with some classmates. When I told my mother about it later she reminded me that my last immigrant relative, a florist who came from England to the US in 1900, would probably have been found there. 

Today, after another meal in the cafeteria of the Indian YMCA (a most excellent culinary find), I went and took a tour of the houses of parliament. Below is a picture of Westminster Hall where Charles I was tried and state funerals are held. The concept that this building is almost a thousand years old is astounding to me since I come from a place where something that is 400 years old is extremely rare. 

My initial explorations have only made me more excited to keep adventuring in London. I have yet to find an equivalent to Harper reading room (I seem to have read 3 Shakespeare plays this week) but for now I guess the view from my room will have to do. 

Leaving Ireland begin London

I woke up bright and early in Globetrotters hostel in Dublin to gather my things in the dark and set off westward through the rain towards the National Museum at Collins Barracks. Along the way I passed through this entire street of vegetable and fruit sellers who had giant crates full of food sitting out along the street. As I progressed and the rain got worse I stopped in at a cafe for coffee and a scone where I was met by complete and utter confusion from the woman at the register when I tried to acquire a recommendation for my order. I eventually made it to the museum (which was fabulous as seen below).

When I got there, being myself, I spent a number of hours looking at antique firearms and exhibits related to the Irish war of Independence and the Irish Civil War. These post-colonial conflicts have always been of interest to me because seldom do people remember that Ireland, so very close to Britain itself, was a colony. More importantly the Irish was of Independence marked the first true guerilla nationalist campaign or people's war. 

After sadly leaving the museum because I needed to catch my flight I met up with Noah and took a bus to the Dublin airport. After another lovely bout with Ryan Air (the only time I have ever felt an airline was my enemy and would be trying to charge extra things on me at any moment) we landed at London Gatwick. We made our way via van, tube, and bus back to the barge for one last evening before moving in.