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.
So was I the flat or round stick?
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